Brightly glittered faces smash into the concrete. Eight neon green wheels skid and suddenly lift into the air, bringing a separate set of neon orange wheels down with it. Like a superhero, rainbow-colored underwear rests over black spandex. All the better to hip check someone with. Skating round and round in a tight circle, these tattooed women snarl and slam into one another.

But don’t break up the fight yet — it’s not quite clear whether these ladies are competing or just having some fun. These lines are blurred by the Assault City Roller Derby, Syracuse’s one and only women’s roller derby team.

‘You’re on skates, and somebody’s coming at you, and they want to launch a big hit on you,’ said Kitty ‘Chairman Meow’ Gifford. ‘And you have the ability to maneuver and avoid them while on eight wheels. I just smile at that. It’s fun to be able to do that.’

Assault City took on the SufferJets, a team in the Ithaca League of Women Rollers, on Saturday at the Cass Park Rink in Ithaca. The Ithaca League of Women Rollers was once teammates with numerous Assault City players, before the groups split up and formed their own separate leagues. Using the roller derby as a means to express themselves, the players enjoy the aggressive nature of the sport while keeping the competition fun.

Contemporary roller derby has been around for more than 80 years. The sport mixes the aggression of football, the finesse of figure skating and the swagger of professional wrestling. All on wheels.  Roller derby is played on an oval track 88 feet long and 55 feet wide. Each game, or ’bout,’ is broken into two 30-minute halves. The bouts are then broken into two minute ‘jams,’ with 30 seconds between each jam.

During these two-minute jams, one member of each team, called a ‘jammer,’ must skate through a pack of four teammates and four opponents, called the ‘blockers.’  Each team is led by a ‘pivot,’ who controls where the pack goes. The jammer must skate and break through the opposing team’s blockers. For every blocker she passes, a jammer scores one point for her team.

That’s where the fun begins. Players can check, slam and whip their way around opposing blockers. Aggressiveness is key. Bouts look like miniature wars, as players trip and tumble over one another, as if a landmine exploded underneath them.

‘We don’t go around in life trying to knock people over. But on the track we do. That’s part of the game,’ said Gifford, a SufferJets player.

Formed in late 2007, Assault City ranges from fresh meat to seasoned veterans. Assault City players don’t look like athletes, but that’s the beauty of it. Team members can be any size, shape or age. Players wear what they want, wherever they want. From fishnet stockings to inch-thick eyeliner, every appearance is fair game. Even helmets are not overlooked: fuzzy mouse ears can be, and have been, attached to players’ headgear.

‘There’s no judgment,’ said Sue ‘Cam Arrow’ Dozoretz, who plays for the SufferJets. ‘It’s just a nice combination of being able to be strong and creative and beautiful, all in one package.’

The players smile as people twice their size knock them down. Some don’t shake hands with opponents as they skate by — they’d rather bend over and offer their butts instead.

But the Assault City-SufferJets rivalry is friendly.

‘We have this really fun rivalry going on between the two leagues,’ Dozoretz said. ‘We know each other really well and have a lot of fun playing against each other.’

The Ithaca coach encourages his players to play as a team and not act like Chuck Norris, said Fiona Foley, an Assault City player. Assault City players helped turn the competition friendly by placing photos of Norris in Ithaca’s locker room. One team member even rolled onto the rink dressed as the TV-famed martial artist at Saturday’s game.

‘There’s an extra enjoyment playing the Ithaca team,’ Foley said

Still wrapping up its sophomore season, Assault City has much to improve. Without a formal coach, the team must learn and teach roller derby independently. Amber ‘Brutal Vroom’ Crofut, a former team member of the Ithaca SufferJets who recently moved to Syracuse and joined Assault City, notices the progress her team needs to make.

‘We need to work on playing together more and work on team-wide awareness,’ Crofut said.

Crofut also said public support for the team from the city could be much stronger. Unlike the small community of Ithaca, Crofut thinks Syracuse is too widespread geographically.

But whether they’re defined by sweat-streaked glitter or scuffed neon wheels, roller derby is one sport in which players can tout their own identities.

Each player gets to choose her own name that teammates call her during the bout. The names can carry a personal significance or just have a neat ring to them.

‘There’s no other sport that does that,’ Dozoretz said. ‘It adds a really fun layer.’

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Published on October 10, 2010 at 12:00 pm