Free of the pack and alone on the lead, Harley Quinn couldn’t resist blowing kisses to the crowd. The full arm-waving ones like the end of “The Dating Game.” The high-scoring jammer of Scare Force One even reverse skated to send smooches towards trailing rivals.
Queen of the roller derby — sisterhood on skates.
“It’s the time of my life,” said Rachele Huelsman, a homeless coalition official when not portraying a romance novel moniker. “I felt like if I could get ahead of the pack I might as well have a little fun with it. It gets the crowd going.”
The overflowing Dulles SportsPlex turned into a modern thunderdome for the debut of the D.C. Rollergirls league on Saturday. A mixture of twenty-somethings (relishing alternative entertainment) sat aside middle-aged backers (longing for the early 1970s when roller derby was a Saturday night staple on Channel 20) during Scare Force One’s 138-96 victory over the Cherry Blossom Bombshells.
Everyone was happy to see the sport’s revival. But therein lied the rub — it was too civil. Working together over the past year to create the league saw skaters hugging instead of hating.
“These girls are our friends and I love them,” said Scare Force One’s Six5onSkates (Michele Pevahouse), who’s an imposing 6-foot-5 on skates when not managing a Falls Church veterinary hospital. “You want to be brutal and knock them down, but at the same time you don’t want to hurt them.”
Maybe next month’s Secretaries of Hate-DC Demoncats bout will produce some bad blood. Then again, Cherry Blossom’s Guantanamo Babe (Emilia Formoso) wore a necklace of five shrunken heads of opposing blockers. The granddaughter of a Guantanamo, Cuba native whose number was 1959 and called the love child of Mae West and Fidel Castro by two hilarious trackside announcers wasn’t above swapping skates in close. Harley Quinn sent Pam Backhand into the crowd that sat inches from the flat track’s outer ring.
Fortunately, referee Mickey I’m-So-Fine kept reasonable order. A math teacher at McKinley Tech known as Matthew Kleiman only learned to skate in December, but is now infamous for wearing a short skirt and a long wig as a tribute to Toni Basil’s 1982 hit “Mickey.”
“I was a little nervous the first time I came out like this,” Kleiman said, “but so much of this is a crowd sport. If people enjoy seeing me in a skirt, then I’ll wear a skirt.”
Scare Force One took a 55-17 first-period lead over the short-handed Blossoms and played with house money the rest of the night. Helena Handbag was winking at Speedy Gonebraless by the second period while increasing Scare Force One’s lead. Skaters spent the third period envisioning the postgame party at the Asylum bar downtown that sent a busload of backers to the Sterling venue not far from Redskins Park.
Who knows — maybe Dan Snyder will enter a Redskinettes team nextyear. Bad Seed, Bazooka Betty and Madeleine Allfight will be ready for them.
Rick Snider has covered local sports since 1978. Contact him at [email protected].
