Last Roller Derby bout of season is Saturday

Saturday is the last chance to see the Bitter Sweet Bombshells in action before the season ends. The Bombshells will take on Sheridan’s Wild West Wreckers in the “Sweet and Wild: A Roller Derby Showdown” bout. The bout starts at 6 p.m. at the Rock Springs Recreation Center on Sept. 12.

Bombshells’ president, Michelle Garcia-Balzly said the Sheridan Wreckers are a tough team.

“A few of us had the chance to play with the Wreckers as subs earlier in the season and we know we are going to have to fight hard from start to finish,” Garcia-Balzly said. “They have a really tough jammer so our blocking is going to have to be spot on.”

The Bombshells have improved this season, winning three of five regular bouts and boasting one of the largest and most consistent rosters in the state. In addition, the Bombshells put up a fight at the Wyoming Derby Cup and bested Jackson’s Juggernauts, a team that beat them in the 2014 season, 158 to 146.

Janice Grover-Roosa values being a member of the roller derby team.

“By participating in roller derby we are creating a force that pushes back against mainstream, manufactured, culture,” Grover-Roosa said. “We are trying to be proud of our bodies, our intellectual contributions, and our relationships with one another even though the message propagated by popular media communicates the opposite should be true.”

Tickets for the bout are on sale at the Rock Springs Chamber of Commerce and from any Bombshells team member. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. Kids aged 12 and under get in free with an adult. The Bombshells will donate 50 percent of the proceeds from this Saturday’s bout to YMCA’s Safe House. The remaining proceeds will go toward hosting next season’s bouts. Sweetwater County Roller Derby operates as a non-profit and is in the process of applying for official 501-C3 status.

Flat track roller derby is an aggressive, full contact sport that requires intense training and strategizing. A bout is played by two teams in two, thirty minute halves. Each half is filled with short rounds or “jams” in which the scoring player for each team, the “jammer”, attempts to lap members of the opposing team. The teams assist their own jammer in getting through a pack of four opposing blockers while simultaneously blocking the other team’s jammer. All players play in the same direction on the track and are essentially playing both offense and defense at all times.

 

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