Ithaca Roller Derby Girl Golden Diapers, of the SufferJets, faces the Rochester Roc City Rollers for their season's kick-off this Saturday, April 17, at JM McDonald Sports Complex in Cortland. Photo by Heather Ainsworth.
Roller Derby is a high octane mash-up of sport, spectacle and performance, and thanks to teams like the SufferJets and the Ithaca League of Women Rollers, lately it’s been gaining traction in hip communities across the country. But although the League is associated with other New York roller derby teams and a larger national roller derby revival, the way our girls roll is distinctly Ithacan.
The SufferJets have been skating their way into the hearts of Tompkins County sports fans: their season-ending bout against the Toronto Derby Debutantes last October drew roughly 1,300 attendees. The team spent much of its second season dominating other roller rosters from far and wide, and they emerged with an overall record of 6-1.
Now Ithaca is rolling out the newest team, the Ithaca BlueStockings, and the baby blues join their older sister in a double-header this Saturday, April 17, at the JM McDonald Sports Complex in Cortland.
Golden Diapers stands amid the storm of practicing Roller Girls. The SufferJets and the Bluestockings face their season kick-off this Saturday. For all of your SufferJets swag, check out Angry Mom Records in the basement of Autumn Leaves. Photo by Heather Ainsworth.
Pioneered in the 1930s as a co-ed marathon event, roller derby hit its peak popularity in the ‘70s with regular network broadcasts and a movie starring Rachel Welch. The ‘70s incarnation became bogged down with professional wrestling-style staging, and the bouts devolved into near-catfights before disappearing from the public consciousness almost entirely.
A group of women picked up the project around 2000 in Austin, Texas, and rechristened the sport as a strictly girl-run event. Combining athleticism, showmanship and a riot grrl aesthetic, teams like the Holy Rollers and the Rhinestone Cowgirls quickly gained popularity, spawning other leagues around the country.
Austin is a city known for embracing contradiction, as well as for its hipster aesthetic. So when the trend rolled into Ithaca, a place known for its leftist politics and comfort with intellectualism, it’s no surprise that the League’s founders embraced these elements as well. The team name SufferJets alludes to the famous Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, where Suffragists demanded a woman’s right to vote, and The League itself is a pun on the Ithaca League of Women’s Voters.
The name BlueStockings, Ithaca’s spin-off roller derby team, is derived from a historical and derisive term originally applied to certain 18th-century women who hosted literary salons in the evenings. Literary figures of the time, both men and women, were invited to contribute to the conversation. The name of these “bluestocking clubs” comes from Benjamin Stillingfleet’s blue worsted wool stockings (he was too poor to afford the black silk stockings preferred for evening wear). Over time the term came to denote educated women of literary taste. Ithaca’s BlueStockings denote a modern reference to intellectual women that indicates physical as well as intellectual strength.
The BlueStockings will kick off this Saturday’s season opener with a double header against Syracuse’s Assault City Roller Derby, and then the SufferJets will keep the night rolling when they take on Rochester’s Roc City Roller Derby. Doors open at 4:30 p.m. and the first whistle blows at 5 p.m. The Cass Park Rink felt like home for the SufferJets, but the Cortland venue will suffice until Cass Park’s floor is redone (sometime in July). The half-hour road-trip may be a downside, but it comes with at least one perk: beer will be available to quench the thirst that comes with the inevitable Ithaca victory.
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