Hard Hits and Wholesome Connections 

Denver has long ranked among the top cities for sports fans, thanks to a fiercely devoted fan base led by the Broncos, the city’s unofficial religion. Amidst all the joy and anxiety and heartbreak, it can be tough to find time in the spectator schedule for that emergency session with your therapist when the Avalanche and Nuggets manage co-occurring playoff runs. You might, in that moment, do well to take in a feel-good dose of the consistent success of some of Denver’s under-the-radar sports superstars. Look no further than your Denver roller derby league.

Tucked away in an unassuming warehouse just south of the Bonnie Brae and Belcaro area is the Rollerdome, home of Denver Roller Derby. The league comprises seven women’s teams, one men’s team, and two junior teams for skaters ages 7 to 17. The Mile High Team, Denver’s premier travel team, is currently ranked second in the world by the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association. The WFTDA is the governing body for more than 400 women’s leagues across six continents. The Mile High Team has consistently ranked among the top-tier teams at the WFTDA Global Championships since 2011-2012. In the North America West region, the team currently ranks second.

Despite their consistent success, they remain largely out of view for much of Denver’s enthusiastic sports fanbase. That may be due to a history of vacillating between athletic focus and quirky entertainment. Visit the Rollerdome for a home game today, and you’ll find the current product is a heartwarming, heart pounding marriage of the two.

Then and Now

Roller derby ‘s origination is credited to a movie house owner-turned sports promoter named Leo Seltzer. It all began in Chicago in 1935, with theaters losing money during the depression. Kooky endurance races such as dance marathons, pole sitting, and roller skating challenges became more popular forms of entertainment. Derby began as simple banked-track races popular with men and women as both a form of entertainment and a means of winning cash prizes when money was scarce. A point system was added, and contestants were encouraged to rough each other up. At the time, the idea of women participating in any full-contact sport was unheard of, but the spectacle of a pack of ladies unabashedly roughhousing during a high-speed race on wheels held broad appeal.

Roller derby evolved past its own outlandishness into a professional, full-contact sport, attracting five million annual viewers in the 1950s and packing large venues like Madison Square Garden. Showmanship took the lead over athletic prowess by the 1960s. Fixed bouts and fictional rivalries between skaters using raucous pseudonyms became the norm, a foreshadowing of modern-day professional wrestling. The sport fell out of popularity in the 1970s when rising oil prices made stadium heating and travel for games cost-prohibitive. Derby reemerged from Austin, Texas, in the early 2000s, evolving from the theatrical, banked track pageantry of its early heyday to the highly regulated full-contact sport it is today.

Derby 101

Today’s flat track roller derby is played on a flat, oval track. A game is called a bout, and a play is called a jam. Each team has 5 players on the track, all wearing quad roller skates, a helmet, and heavy padding. One is designated the Jammer—or the scoring player—and wears a star on their helmet. Three are Blockers. A fourth blocker holds the role of Pivot and wears a stripe on their helmet.

A Jammer can pass the responsibility of scoring to the Pivot mid-play via a maneuver called a Star Pass if the Pivot might be in a better position to score. Each team’s Jammer scores points by getting past the other team’s blockers. When a Jammer escapes the pack and laps back around, one point is awarded per opposing player passed. Each team plays offense and defense at the same time. Blockers are tasked with trying to block the opposing team’s Jammer while keeping opposing blockers from blocking their Jammer at the same time. Hip and torso checks, side hits, and use of arms above the elbow to block are all legal.

It may look like mayhem to an outsider, but it demands constant strategic coordination and communication. Its physical intensity rivals any full contact sport. Players need the speed and endurance to break from the pack, the strength and balance to absorb hits, and the agility to fall and recover quickly. Concussions are the most common injury, and broken bones aren’t unusual; bruises are guaranteed.

Despite its brutal nature, roller derby is played predominantly by women. According to the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association—representing more than 400 leagues across six continents—over 80% of players are female. Unlike many women’s sports, which adapt rules originally designed for men, men’s and women’s roller derby follow the same ruleset. Built in equity shapes every aspect of the sport.

Community Culture

Billed as a sport for everybody, roller derby is known for its inclusiveness. Denver’s best skaters range in age from their twenties to their mid-forties, and they come from every walk of life. They are students, wives, members of LGBTQ and Indigenous communities, stay-at-home parents, and finance professionals. They represent every background and appear in every size and shape.

Teams are organized by one factor: skill. There are no automatic placements based on gender, weight class, or age. Some skaters have been athletes their entire lives, while for many others, roller derby is their first athletic endeavor. Its appeal to those who haven’t found a home in traditional sports is only amplified by the sport’s embrace of personal expression.

While some skaters prefer the traditional route and compete under their given names, others honor derby’s performative roots by adopting aliases—sometimes even full personas—inspired by pivotal moments in their lives or elements of their personal histories. These derby identities are often accompanied by accessories such as bandanas, makeup or face paint, and distinctive hair ties.

Sara LeMay, who skates for the Mile High Team, remembers growing up in the Boys Club of rink hockey and being teased by boys who called her “Scara.” As a teenager, she hated being thought of as the scary girl, but in derby, a fearsome reputation is an asset. She now skates under the name Scara Ta Death.

Her family has ties to the Nakota Nation, and she is also a member of a borderless Indigenous team called Team Indigenous Rising. They use the platform derby provides to show other athletes and community members what is possible for Indigenous sports across tribes, borders, and nations. For LeMay, it’s not just about the sport—roller derby has brought greater awareness to an important part of her identity.

“We train derby, but we also train and teach the ways of the land,” she says. “We got together and did a sweat lodge. As somebody who didn’t grow up in that culture, this has really allowed me to learn.”

LeMay is now taking a class to learn her Native language. She weaves this connection to her roots into her derby persona when she skates with the Denver Mile High Team, expressing it through her hair ties, bandana, and makeup. In some games, she wears tribal war paint; in others, she paints a red handprint over her mouth. The red handprint is a symbol of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) movement. It represents the thousands of Indigenous women and girls who were silenced, as well as the silence of the media and law enforcement surrounding their disappearances.

The league is a nonprofit organization, and every skater, referee, and coach volunteers in multiple capacities. They work security at games, handle public relations, film tournaments, and participate in fundraising efforts. The bonds formed through this shared investment in a close-knit community pay dividends well beyond the track. 15-year veteran skater Janna Simms credits her longstanding commitment to the sport to the deep sense of belonging she’s found within the league.

“I would say what’s kept me in the sport for as long as I have been is always having that instant family,” Simms says. “People are always there to bring you a meal if you are injured, or drive you to practice if your car breaks down.”

A Family Affair

The familial atmosphere is more than figurative for the Cotton household, where Mom Amber “Smashalotapus,” Dad Chet “Cotten,” and their daughters Avery “Cottenmouth” and Blayre “Hello Hitty” all skate and volunteer within the league. Amber joined first after skating in Boulder and became heavily involved. There’s a term for the husbands of derby wives who spend so much time at the track that they rarely see their spouses at home once the sport takes hold. Not wanting to become the next “derby widower,” Chet decided to get involved himself. He began coaching and soon teamed up with other husbands in the stands to found Ground Control—Denver’s men’s team.

The kids followed not long after and now skate for the juniors team, Major Turbulence. Any household with two teenage girls is bound to see a healthy dose of competitive spirit, but Blayre and Avery say the sport has brought their family closer. Knowing each other so well in every other part of their lives has helped them move in sync on the track.

Youth sports often serve as a social classroom, teaching difficult life lessons that academia can’t offer. Teamwork, tenacity, emotional regulation, and discipline can all be learned through most athletic programs. Chet takes heart in the fact that his girls are learning a skill they wouldn’t gain from single gender sports—how to compete alongside and against boys.

“It’s been especially important that we have two daughters playing a full-contact sport on an open gender team. They play against and take hits from 17- and 18-year-olds,” Chet says. “To be able to play with the boys and beat them has been empowering for them. It’s been an awesome opportunity.”

In a city spoiled by high-stakes drama and championship dreams, roller derby offers a different brand of sportsmanship—one where intensity and kindness coexist without contradiction. The hits are real, the competition is fierce, and the athleticism is undeniable, yet the heart of the sport beats in its community: the families forged, the identities reclaimed, the confidence built one lap at a time. For Denver fans and athletes craving something both fierce and feel-good, the Rollerdome might just be the city’s most rewarding arena.

Erin Ahlfinger is a freelance writer and photographer who moved to Denver from Dallas in 2017, where she contributed to D Magazine , covering the local culinary scene. She enjoys cooking, gardening, and capturing the moments that make life in Colorado so unique.