Blitz Dames get ready for crunch roller derby bout with Team Canada

Jun 10 2008

HISTORY is being made for Birmingham's roller skating culture as the best women roller warriors take to the track to bring more fast paced, furious blocks and jams of roller derby to family audiences.

Team Canada have come together to compete against local rollers the Birmingham Blitz Derby Dames in what will prove to be the unluckiest day in Team Canada's skating career on Friday 13th June 2008.

The Canadian team has combined the best skaters from leagues across their country to come together to travel thousand of miles to make this the first ever intercontinental roller derby bout in Birmingham ever!

This is the finale of the Birmingham Blitz Derby Dames first season. League founder, Bee Bentley (known on the track as 'Bee Sting') comments: "Starting up this league from scratch with just myself and seeing where it is now at the end of our first competitive season, well, I'm very proud of this achievement and for bringing roller derby to Birmingham".

Roller derby has a long and colourful history dating back to the 1930's in America. In the 1950's there was a international roller derby team which traveled and played in London and some European cities, but this is a first for Birmingham.

Roller Derby involves two teams of five players (four blockers and a jammer) skating anti-clockwise round a small, narrow indoor track. The jammers try to break ahead of the pack by fighting their way through, gaining a point for each opposing player they pass or push out of bounds. The opposing blockers try to stop them.

A "bout" lasts one hour, comprising either two sessions of 30 minutes or three of 20 minutes, with teams switching lanes and restarting after each two-minute "jam".

This all-women roller sport is set to cement its worldwide popularity when Drew Barrymore's directorial debut 'Whip It' comes out early in 2009 starting 'a-lister' Ellen Page as the star rollergirl and is also being proposed as a new olympic sport in 2016.

Tickets are £7.50 in advance available online at www.blitzdames.com or £8 at the door. Children under 5 are free and children under 14 are half price. Students can receive discounted entry with a valid NUS card at £4.