Not Your Parent's Roller Derby
Burning River Roller Girls

Depending on your age, roller derby is something you may relate to 1972 B-movie "Kansas City Bomber," which featured Raquel Welch and Jodie Foster, or a WWE-type of sport with fictitious narratives, over-the-top catfights and more.

Cleveland's Burning River Roller Girls PR-Advertising Director Kelli Pilch-Habel is hoping her organization redefines the sport - that's right, a rough-and-tumble athletic competition built on strategy, grace and brute force.

"Just like any sport, there's always some physical element to it," said Pilch-Habel, a Chesterland native. "And it's especially true in this sport where you're hitting each other on purpose, kind of like hockey. You can do hockey checks, but we have very stringent guidelines and rules as to what part of the body we can hit somebody with and where we can hit that person. So you can't go all out and just shove somebody over who's in your way. You have to use your shoulders or upper arms or your hips or your booty, if you will. But you can't hit anybody in the back, you can't punch or trip or fight. We're required to wear helmets, mouth guards, elbow pads, wrist pads, knee pads and obviously our skates. It's all very much regulated. And if you break those rules, there's a penalty box you go to."

While roller derby enjoyed a renaissance a decade ago, the Northeast Ohio league didn't start until 2006. Today, Burning River Roller Girls is Cleveland's first all-female, skater-owned, flat-track derby league, following the WFTDA (Women's Flat Track Derby Association) rules and regulations. The league consists of 60-plus players over five teams, including Burning River All Stars (travel team), Cleveland Steamers, Hard Knockers, Hellbombers and The Rolling Pin-Ups, with games held March through July at the Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University.

As for the rules, the simple answer is the five-on-five game features four blockers and one jammer. The jammer is the person who scores points going around the track. Obviously the sport is slightly more complicated with various nuances to strategy but for any roller derby newcomer, Pilch-Habel is confident the learning curve is short, while the entertainment value is unlimited.

"We encourage everybody to come and watch," Pilch-Habel said. "It's fun for the entire family or for a group of friends who want to get out together. A lot of the misconceptions about the sport are that we are your parent's roller derby. We are not. We're real athletes who put a lot of time and effort into training. It's a flat track, not a banked track, and there's none of that stage fights. It's all very real what you see, and we work really hard for it. And there ends up being a lot of really great hits. So if that's what people are into, they'll end up remembering that."

Finally, as far as the team Cleveland Steamers are concerned, are opposing players, well, um, (wink-wink) afraid to make contact? You know, with a name like the Cleveland Steamers.

"Why would you be afraid?" Pilch-Habel laughed. "I'll let you know I'm a Cleveland Steamer. Why would they be afraid? I don't know what you mean. I don't understand, are they afraid of ships? I don't get it."

Yes, our apologies, naturally the question is based around people with a phobia of long, oftentimes stinky boats.


The Burning River Roller Girls next competition takes place at 6PM Sat 5/8 at the Wolstein Center at C.S.U., 2000 Prospect Ave., Cleveland. Tickets are $12, and are now on sale at all Ticketmaster locations. http://www.ticketmaster.com/Burning-River-Roller-Girls-tickets/artist/1372148. Check out their cool site at http://www.burningriverrollergirls.com/

Free-lance writer John Benson spends most of his time writing for various papers throughout Northeast Ohio.

When he's not writing about music or entertainment, he can be found coaching his two boys in basketball, football and baseball or watching movies with his lovely wife, Maria. John also occasionally writes for CoolCleveland.com