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Abilene Roller Derby's 10th season rolls to an end Saturday

Abilene’s SugarBombs in bout
Baylie Simon
Abilene’s SugarBombs in bout

The Abilene Roller Derby team has returned to the rink for its 10th season after taking a break due to the restrictions of COVID-19. Abilene’s SugarBombs will skate in their final bout of the season this weekend.

Roller derby is a unique sport that taps into nostalgia for some fans and is building a base of new fans locally, “I’ve never been to a roller derby event. I'm so excited.”

Christian Kei brought her Fairy Princess Face Painting skills to the team’s August bout when they took on El Paso’s TexPistols. She put team colors on some of the players and fans. She said getting to see the action firsthand took her back to a favorite movie from high school. “Do you remember Ruthless? It had Elliot Page in it. It came out in 2008. (If you haven’t you need to watch it.) But it’s all about roller derby. It’s so cool. I feel like I'm living out my high school dream watching it. It’s really neat!”

The modern version of roller derby was developed in the early 2000s but still pays homage to the banked track style of play that many people remember from the 70s and 80s.  In simple terms, one player known as the jammer is trying to break through a string of four defensive players from the other team known as blockers. It’s like simultaneous Red Rover on roller skates.

Amber Carpenter comes from Granbury and Kristen Gray comes from Fort Worth to referee the SugarBombs matchups. They explain that both teams play offense and defense all the time. “There’s penalties, you can’t throw punches. You can’t throw elbows. It’s not old-school roller derby. But it is highly competitive, highly... you can have a best friend who’s on the other team and it looks like you’re going to kill her on the track and hug right after that jam. That’s how it goes.”

Charlotte Vincent says after a personal invitation from one of the players, she’s been cheering for Abilene’s roller derby team at each event, “I like to watch how they..the blocks and stuff, how they keep people from getting around. Some of ‘em got pretty rough last time.

SugarBombs President Caitlyn Ellison says the general public’s perception of roller derby does not typically match up with how the sport is really played, “When I first joined, it was like, you know a bunch of girls wearing hot pants and punching and hitting each other, and I used to be super defensive about that, and it’s like, no, it’s a full contact sport and it’s a legitimate sport. We’re athletes and we work really hard.”

Ellison has been with the team since its inception as an independent team in 2011. And besides being president she’s the event coordinator, manager, assistant coach, PR representative, and player, “I fell in love with it. I fell head over heels. It became my life’s blood. Everything else just took a back seat.

Most of the SugarBombs players are local, and this season, about half of them are first-timers. Ellison says some other women have been practicing and waiting for the chance to play their first season next year, “I think it would be cool for us to, in the future, to have enough skaters to be able to at least have a couple of teams within, like under Abilene Roller Derby. Even if we only have two home teams that play each other.”

The team will hold tryouts in October and Ellison says they’re open to anyone 18 or older with basic skating skills, “Abilene roller derby is a place that is welcoming for everybody. That’s kind of important to our mission is the fact that it doesn't matter who you are or how you identify, this place is for you.”

Tryouts will continue through a series of sessions in October with the new season kicking off next May.

Abilene’s 2024 season wraps up this Saturday when the SugarBombs take on Lubbock’s West Texas Roller Derby at the Abilene Convention Center.