Well, not exactly peaceful.

Roller derby isn’t dead. As a matter of fact it’s been growing in popularity for a number of years… in a slightly changed format that still has plenty of action.

Tucson Roller Derby is an all-girl flat-track roller derby league formed in 2003. Skater-owned and -operated, TRD is a 501(c)3 organization. It’s home to five Derby teams:

Copper Queens, FTW (Furious Truckstop Waitresses, Iron Curtain, Vice Squad and TRD Saddle Tramps.

The Copper Queens

Saturday’s rough-and-tumble is a double header. The Homecoming Queens and the Goths will be the opening bout while the featured bout pits the Tucson Roller Derby Copper Queens against the San Diego Derby Dolls.

The Tucson Convention Center is a great venue. Plenty of room and plenty of seats. We like to get there when the doors open to grab a seat, watch the skaters warm up, and watch the fans. Never been before? Watch this:

Just the facts:

Saturday, August 28th, 2010
Doors open at 5pm, first game at 6pm
TUCSON CONVENTION CENTER
260 S Church Ave. Exhibit Hall A
$10 advance / $15 at the door
Kids 10 & under free with purchase of adult ticket

A Rite of Passage

There was a time…at least so it was in Chicago…that going to the fights was as much a rite of passage as getting laid, or being able to smoke without hiding your cigarettes.

A father would come home and tell mom that he and a couple of the boys were going to the fights that night and he thought he’d take the kid, if he wanted to go. Did the kid want to go? You bet. This was an invitation into man’s estate. Tonight he wouldn’t be a kid, he’d be one of the boys.

These were usually club fights, held in smoky social halls or neighborhood auditoriums, with fighters on their way up or their way down. There weren’t many women at these fights, at least not “nice” women. No one’s mother, no one’s sheltered sister, went to the fights.

Your father’s friends might offer you a cigarette, or a seegar and a beer, and your father would look the other way and you’d try to smoke the one and drink the other without disgracing yourself.

That sort of thing made you a boxing fan for life.