Los Angeles Derby Dolls
DETAILS:
Location: 2661 East 46th Street, Vernon, CA 90058
Hours of Operation: The season runs from March thru December, featuring one bout per month. Bouts take place on Saturdays at 6PM. Please visit their website below (under “resources”) for bout matchups and current details.
Parking: $10 paid parking lot. Free street parking is also available, but please observe posted street signs.
Cost:
General Admission: $25, plus fees.
VIP: $40, plus fees. (VIP includes preferred seating, free parking, 15% off merchandise & 1 free concession item)
Time Commitment: 2-3 hours. Add more time if you chose to attend the junior bout.
Miscellaneous:
Each bout is preceded by a junior bout that typically runs from 1:30PM to 4PM. This bout is included with your ticket if you feel like attending.
All seating is bleacher-style. The first several rows are reserved for VIP seating. (IMO - there really isn’t much difference between general admission seating and VIP seating)
I hope you share the sentiment that women are fierce, bad mother- (shut your mouth). Raised by a single mother who was as much a protector as she was a nurturer, I’ve never had reason to think otherwise. But the women of the Los Angeles Derby Dolls take female empowerment to a whole new level, driven forward by the spirit of competition while enjoying the camaraderie of this shared passion and having a whole lot of fun along the way.
Established in 2003 as one of the few banked roller derby leagues in the country, the Los Angeles Derby Dolls are a non-profit organization and completely operated by its female membership, so their commitment to the sport is without question. And while they strive to entertain and be great ambassadors of their league, make no mistake that they are athletes first and foremost! All you have to do is look at the banked slopes of the track to understand that they absolutely must be in order to navigate the physicality of the course without breaking every single bone in their body. I think I would break an ankle just walking the loop in a good pair of shoes so I can’t even imagine the difficulty of doing likewise in roller-skates. RESPECT!
It probably helps to understand some basic rules going in, so here’s a little primer as to how the bout is played. As with any sport, there are a wide array of rules that give the game its nuances, but the overall concept is fairly simple. Each bout is made up of four 15-minute quarters. The team with the most points at the end wins. Each quarter consists of as many jams as time allows. In these jams, each team fields 5 skaters; 4 blockers and 1 jammer. Only jammers can score, gaining 1 point for each opposing skater they lap. Blockers simultaneously try to stop the opposing jammer from passing while creating openings for their own jammer to skate through. The jam ends at the conclusion of 60 seconds or whenever the lead jammer (the jammer that first breaks free from the initial scrum) chooses to stop it as a form of strategy. Jams continue for the duration of the bout until all four quarters are completed. Hopefully that explanation provides more clarity than confusion, but either way, I promise that you’ll catch on pretty quickly when you go and most likely get hooked to the competition even quicker!
RESOURCES:
Derby Dolls website.
