‘Roller Derby on Another Level’

Flathead Valley Roller Derby had just celebrated its 10th season when the COVID pandemic canceled its 2020 season, marking the start of a nearly three-year hiatus for the nonprofit organization. 

When players reemerged to lace up their skates again, the group’s numbers had jumped from about a dozen players to nearly 30, with now team captain Dani “Defeato” Rosenbaum being one of the new additions. 

“I hadn’t heard of it until they came out of hiatus, and so I joined in,” Rosenbaum said. “They taught me how to skate back in 2022 and through those years, we’ve built up a solid group of folks.”

Now, Rosenbaum and her teammates are looking to take roller derby in the Flathead to new heights with an inaugural home tournament this weekend that will feature nearly 120 players from across the state in the two-day showcase. 

“It’s just getting ready to see roller derby on another level,” Rosenbaum said. “It will be fast paced. We will have game after game. It’s nice because we do have the opportunity to have announcers, which they help explain what’s going on for new folks. Be prepared for a lot of action.”

Roller derby is a collision-heavy sporting endeavor played on roller skates on a flat track. The sport evolved from banked-track roller skating marathons with the competitive team aspect created and popularized in the 1930s by Leo Seltzer, a Helena-born businessman and promoter. The sport grew with the spread of television and Seltzer and his son, Jerry, used the new medium to bring a dramatic, often scripted version of roller derby to fans, crafting storylines and building up heroes to root for and villains to boo. Derby got a revival in the late ’90s and early 2000s that began to legitimize and shape the structured competition played now. 

Roller derby bouts are played in two 30-minute periods. Each period comprises a series of two-minute jams where each team fields five players — four blockers and a jammer. During a jam, skaters circle the track counterclockwise, while the jammers attempt to break through the pack of blockers and lap the players. Each time a jammer passes an opposing blocker they score a point. And while blocking is a major part of the game, there are strict rules on what body parts can be used or targeted.

Fans attending the first-ever Big Sky Brawl this weekend will be treated to nine games highlighting Montana’s best roller derby talent, from the valley’s very own open-gender team, the Northern Light Knockouts, to Butte’s Copper City Queens. 

“This is the first time we’ve undertaken an event this big,” Rosenbaum said. “We’re bringing together every Montana team.

“I don’t know if there’s ever been a Montana tournament, so we kind of wanted to take the opportunity to just get everyone in the same place and see what would happen.”

The weekend will also include an “Aliens vs. Astronauts” mixer for rookie skaters to get in on the action, as well as Saturday’s headlining game featuring the players of Team Montana. The all-star team is composed of skaters from every team in the state. Unlike the recreational teams competing this weekend, Team Montana, which is ranked in the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, is sanctioned and travels across the country for competition. 

“Expect to see a lot of different types of playing,” Rosenbaum said. “Even if you’ve been to a game here before, you’ve never seen some of these other teams play each other. They’ve most likely never seen a Team Montana game, which is so much more intense.”

Much of the inspiration for this weekend’s showcase stems from a tournament hosted by Team Montana last summer for higher level teams in the region, Rosenbaum said. When Flathead Valley Roller Derby saw there were only two available days for home bouts this season, the team got to planning. 

“We rely on the fairgrounds having time for us … so we kind of wanted to take the time that we did have with the dates that we could have and do something bigger with it to have more of an impact,” Rosenbaum said. “It was just kind of right place, right time.”

This weekend’s event will be the culmination of more than a year of planning, which included a pitch to the other teams across the state and a league-wide vote. 

“It’s been several months of boots to the ground; a lot of advertising, of reaching out to local businesses,” Rosenbaum said. “We’ve had some very loyal sponsors and also have gotten the opportunity to reach out to other folks to show what we’ve got available. We’ve had a lot of good community interaction, which I’m super grateful for.” 

It’s this support from the community and other players in the league that excites Rosenbaum the most for this weekend’s inaugural event, she said.

“We see these teams maybe once, twice a year,” Rosenbaum said. “It’s all one big community and we rely on each other, these teams across the state, to make these things work. There’s some really fantastic people out there, so it’s just exciting to bring them all together.”

The Big Sky Brawl will take place April 25 and 26 at the Flathead County Fairgrounds, 265 N. Meridian Road, in Kalispell. Flathead Valley Roller Derby will open up play both days at 10 a.m., with play continuing until 8:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased here. Day passes are $20, while weekend passes are $40. For more information, visit www.fvrollerderby.com. 

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