On a Saturday evening, I was looking for something to take my 4-year-old daughter to. Movies were right out, being that it’s just really big TV with pop & popcorn. No, we needed something fun. The Mariners may have been a good choice, but it being your standard cold, rainy August evening, a night under the roof at Safeco didn’t appeal. So Rollerderby is was! Laura and I decided to go to the season championship bout of the Rat City Rollergirls, with Grave Danger taking on the 2006 champions, Sockit Wenches. Now, to be clear, this is not Rollerball, there are not motorcycles, and there isn’t a ball being tossed into a hoop to score points. It’s just a bunch of ladies on roller skates and flashy costumes, skating around a flat track, with one lady on each team trying to lap the other team for points.
Oh, and it’s full contact. They did keep that bit of Rollerball. 
We arrived about 4:30 PM and the crowd was starting to arrive. The roller girls arrived on the Seafair Pirates’ boat to much applause. Laura was quite excited and we were having fun with the camera - there’s the self-portrait with Laura in my lap.
There was an opening half of Derby Liberation Front vs Throttle Rockets - the #3 and #4 teams of the 4-team league. Then we had the first half of the championship bout. What does it look like? Well, turns out you can’t capture much with a POS camera. It looks sorts like this:
Turns out the action is fast, so unless you have some real glass, you’re getting lots of blurry, dark pictures. As you can see, the women are in flashy costumes sporting fancy skates, typically some fishnet or leather stockings, and plenty of tattoos. These aren’t cheerleaders out there. They don’t need cheerleaders. These are women who have come to play and throw the occasional elbow. And why not? It’s four minors until you’re forced to sit in the penalty box for a minute!
The crowd was also into the look. We were in the Grave Danger section, and many of the fans were wearing red with horns. Here’s a picture of the woman next us.
Laura actually took the picture (and a great many others)… she’s discovered the joys of digital cameras, and was having a blast taking all sorts of random shots, including a number where she was busy flashing herself…
All in all, it was a fun event for Laura and I, although we bailed at intermission as she was getting tired (it had been a long day). There were a decent number of other kids there too, and it was fairly family friendly. Laura just loves the costumes and tattoos… surprisingly though, I don’t think she paid much attention to the actual event taking place in the middle. It was much more interesting to people watch with a camera!
