The Phoenix Traveler

Sorry, my pictures didn’t turn out, but you gotta go see this. It wasn’t as brutal as you might think, but the occasional brawls were fun to watch. It makes sense why they let the EMTs come in for free; they were needed a few times when falls and pushes kept players down too long. Only one player got taken off site last night, and that was near the end, when the rough stuff picked up.

RULES

The program explains the rules, and here’s what I learned and observed:

Each team has a pivot. She’s the gal with the stripe on her helmet. There are also three blockers, whose job is to ram into the other team players or somehow keep the other team from scoring. The scoring player on each team is called a Jammer. She’s the gal with the star on her helmet. You really want to be watching her. When she’s in the lead, a referee follows her around the track the entire time to count points. Each Jammer on each team has her own referee. And there are three other referees who skate around in the inside track to watch for penalties and such.

Basically everyone’s watching for what’s called a Jam. Play starts out with everyone lining up on the track, the Jammers (scoring players) in back. They look the coolest, and look ready to go. After the whistle blows, and once they make it into the pack, the Jam officially starts.

The Jammer in the lead has two minutes to make it around the track as many times as possible, passing as many people. She can call it off by putting her hands on her waist, but I don’t know why or when she does that. It happens several times during a game, though.

Teams get points for every opponent the Jammer passes on her way around, but she does not score on the first trip around the track. Since the idea of this game is to stop the opposing Jammer from making those passes, there’s a lot of pushing and pulling. We even saw one woman grab a Jammer’s breasts at one point–to knock her off the track. As you can imagine, the whole crowd loved that!

THEY CAN DO THAT?!

Skaters–wearing old-fashioned roller skates and crazy costumes, some with tatoos and colorful hair–are allowed to use the entire body, including arms, shoulders, elbows, torso, hips, front side and back to knock an opponent out of the way or somehow stop an opponent from passing. What they cannot use is their hands, unless it’s on a teammate. Blockers frequently push their Jammer ahead of the pack when able. Though they are not supposed to grab, trip, hit from behind, strike with an elbow or get into fights, they do it anyway, risking the penalties and/or ejections from the game. It seems the players will try to get away with anything because a referee can only call what he sees.

At last night’s game, aside from the breast grab, we also saw a player nearly lose her shirt (It was ripped halfway off!) and another lose a wheel on her skate after a brawl.

It was pretty fast-paced and intense at times. I was amazed by the numbers in the crowd and the sound of the cheering fans. Because it was loud and I could barely speak to my girlfriend who went with me, I would not suggest this as a first date. But it did seem to be a family atmosphere. Entire families, with grandparents and kids, too, were there. No alcohol is served. But they do have a snack bar where you can purchase greasy foods like chicken strips and fries, and candy, chips and soda. If you’re on a restricted diet, I’d suggest eating before you go.

Check yesterday’s post for the details. If you get a chance to see a game, post your comments here. Let me know if you enjoyed it.

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