Roller Games Revisited

Last Saturday my brother called to tell that Roller Games was on TV. 

In the late 60's and early 70's, I was a big fan of Roller Games. My father took the family to a Philadelphia Warriors game, and I was hooked. I watched games on TV every Sunday night and soon was attending games in person every Wednesday night. 

I also watched Roller Derby with the San Francisco Bay Area Bombers on TV, but the Philadelphia Warriors of Roller Games were my team. I was most interested in the Roller Derby when they showed old games with Buddy Atkinson, Dru Scott, Mike Gammon and Judi McGuire on the New York Chiefs. At the time, they were all Warriors, and Mike Gammon was my favorite skater. 

This article gives a good description of roller derby vs. roller games. (I didn't know any of this at the time--just figured there were two leagues.)

The games this weekend was from the Roller Games of 1989-1990 season--my least favorite era. These games included a "Wall of Death" and an alligator pit (apparently the alligators were only used once.) The only skaters I remembered from my day were Little Richard Brown (another fave from the Warriors--I loved when he and Mike were on a jam together) and the Living Legend Ralphie Valladares. Annoyingly, "jams" were called "scoring cycles" and "jammers" were called "jetters."

Then there was Roller Jam in 1991-2001. I liked seeing Richard Brown again as well as the third generation skater Sean Atkinson (son of Buddy and Dru,) I remember seeing him as a child at a game at the Cherry Hill (NJ) Arena. Jeff and I got a kick of out of Roller Jam (I guess I corrupted him.)

We watched the A&E series Roller Girls that aired in 2006. There wasn't much skating shown, but it was interesting to compare the on- and off-track lives of the skaters. After watching the Roller Games last weekend, I found a documentary about the revival of Roller Derby in Austin called Hell on Wheels. 

A few years ago, Jeff and I saw a bout of the Connecticut Roller Derby. CTRD is a flat track league and it was kind of boring. I guess I'm old school.