Windy City Rollers continues to rejuvenate and share the world of roller derby as the sport fights to stay alive
Originating in the 1930s, roller derby started in Chicago by Leo Seltzer at roller-skating marathons. The game is played in two 30-minute periods called “bouts” with five members of each team on the rink. Played in episodes called “jams,” four players called “blockers” work together to protect their “jammer” who can score points for each time they pass an opposing blocker. The jam lasts two minutes but can end if the first scoring jammer repeatedly taps their hips.
In the mid-20th century, however, the sport started to lose its stability with the rise of oil prices, making it difficult to afford touring and heating areas. Along with a decrease in popularity and broadcasting, the league shut down. In the early 21st century, the successful 2006 reality television show Rollergirls, films like Whip It (2009) and a new international interest where teams spawned globally revived the sport.
Initially co-ed, the sport became female-dominated when players used the aggression required to play as a way to reject traditional stereotypes of womanhood. Players adopted 1980s punk cultures with DIY uniforms and using “derby names” as a way of representing themselves and/or something they admire like films, bands or satire.
A part of this resurrection was Windy City Rollers, Chicago’s first all-female, flat-track roller derby league. It was founded in Chicago in 2004, when Elizabeth “Juanna Rumbel” Gomez and Kelly “Sister Sledgehammer” Simmons went on a trip to Austin, Texas, that led them to meet a bartender who was a Texas Rollergirls skater with a derby burn on her leg. This ignited them to organize together and birth their own derby league in Chicago.
The league started their bout meetings in 2005 at the Congress Theater in Logan Square and since then have skated at places like the Cicero Stadium, Credit Union 1 Arena and The Rink. Currently, Windy City Rollers is the only team that practices within city limits. Over the decades, they have qualified for the Championship Tournament from 2006 through 2014. Consistently opening their doors to new and experienced skaters, Windy City Rollers is a symbol of action and liveliness in the sport.
“I feel like I owe something to [roller derby] in a positive way,” said Kathleen “Kattcher in the Thigh” Leahy. “I enjoy having a role in this league that allows it to run.”
Leahy learned how to skate as a hobby growing up in Chicago, until she broke her wrist at the rink. After moving to South Carolina, she learned about local team Low Country High Rollers from a flyer, ending her yearslong hiatus as she started her roller derby career with them. She rolled with the team until suffering a car accident which forced her to leave.
After moving back to Chicago, Leahy discovered Windy City Rollers and was encouraged to relearn skating in 2023, playing with the team since then. Despite injury, the magnetic community of roller has never kept her away from the sport for too long, a reminder of the unbreakable bond with her teammates.
“In general, it is a very specific culture and it’s a lot of really hard work,” said Leahy. “And I love that, but especially with the injury I think people are like, ‘Oh, so you’re done now?’ And it’s like, ‘No, no, you do hard things and you keep going.’”
Windy City, and the roller derby counterculture in general, are relieved from the expectations of major business sports leagues. Without these pressures, the leagues are able to create their own legislations where factors like diversity and inclusivity are the only requirements. This melting pot has given the opportunity to create conversation without the threat of silence.
“I retired from doing comedy and then started doing roller derby,” said Julia “Pink and the Pain” Heynen. “The best thing about the swap is that I went from something that was very male-dominated, with a lot of toxic cultural elements, to a community that really focused on being a space for women, and being a space that was safe for all gender exploration, gender identities.”
Heynen started skating in 2019 after a coworker who was a Windy City roller skater recommended the league to her. She started skating for Windy City in her mid-30s and has found it to be a major positive to progressing her mental health.
“Part of my journey has been that my body is naturally getting less good at a lot of physical things in my life,” said Heynen. “So adding a higher level [of] physical challenge has actually been really helpful as I sort of just go through the journey of the fact that your body changes as you age, your energy level changes as you age. And I could have been at home on the couch being bummed about that, but instead, I’m here challenging myself.”
It’s common in roller derby, unlike many sports, for players to start skating later in their adulthood. Some players were discouraged from a young age by parents and friends because of the danger risk it comes with.
“I was told not to do it,” said Allison “Penny B Dreadful” Hartje. “Everyone told me I’d get hurt, I’m too small … People constantly are telling me not to do it.”
Joining this non-mainstream sport, especially as women, skaters can’t always find the support to pursue roller derby. Although the sport originally was a profession that financially supported the players, now members are motivated by passion. Windy City Rollers, like most roller derby leagues, are primarily self-volunteered, leaving them to rely on other jobs.
“There’s no professional path for it. Like, football, if you get really, really good at it, there’s an NFL for you, and you’re going to be a millionaire,” said Heynen. “But roller derby, you can be the best in the world and you’re still going to have your day job.”
Having to support itself without help from the outside has led the community to become sacred in itself. Though the mainstream world doesn’t give them attention, Windy City realizes that instead, it’s the community within and the support from their teammates that keeps the league and love for skating alive.
“It sets goals for yourself,” said Grace “Fang” Christiani. “Individual goals, but also team goals. And when you’re hitting that, I feel like that carries into your professional and personal, social lives. It also just gave me a group of people to know and love, and everyone here loves to skate with such ferocity.”
Christiani picked up roller skating as a hobby in 2020 to cope with the pandemic when they moved to Chicago. They searched for different roller derby leagues around the city, and would sneak into rinks to watch bouts. When they lived in Oak Park, they skated at an outdoor roller rink in Forest Park that was shut down and revamped into a pickleball court. This court was one of the only outside rinks in the neighborhood, but joined the many outdoor and indoor rinks that have closed in the past couple of years in South Chicago areas.
“It seems like you [the city] are very specifically targeting [the] group of people who are mainly skating, which is ultimately a Black sport. Many [Black] women are doing it,” said Christiani. “So when I see roller banks are shutting down and they’re taking away access to spaces like that, I’m also thinking, ‘Why is it this specific group that you’re not interested in having in an area?’ That’s frustrating to me.”
Even as learning how to skate resurges after the pandemic, the rinks closing make it harder for people to have a place to learn and meet people with the same interests as them. Since roller rinks have started shutting down over the city, Windy City Rollers has primarily hosted their bouts at The Rink in Chatham, Chicago, one of the only historically Black-owned rinks in Illinois.
“We are actively trying to find a long-term space where we can practice and host bouts so that it’s easier for our league to exist,” said Leahy. “And those spaces are few and far between, and are harder and harder to find. We’re passionate about being in Chicago. We want to stay. We gotta find a home.”
Skate shops that specifically catered to roller derby players have gone scarce, with the closest one being in Milwaukee. Players need alterations made to their skates in order to play the sport as riskless as possible, but with growing inaccessibility, it’s become more difficult for players to survive as active athletes.
Windy City Rollers aims to provide accessibility to people interested in skating, offering sessions to skaters of all experiences to learn. With a heavily volunteered community, Windy City Rollers have had success in opening the doors for people interested not only in roller derby, but roller skating in general. Despite the lack of privileges, like mainstream success and skating rink access, the long-term support of each other within the sport has allowed it to exist for so long.
The genuine effort to create a space of healthy activity while everyone participating can feel confident and validated in their identities is the league’s impenetrable lifeline.
“We’re meant to be a space that welcomes all people who identify [as] a marginalized gender,” said Leahy. “And that’s really important to us, because I think the experience of being in a woman-forward space, or a place with historically, like, ties to more matriarchal structures, just changes the way we operate.”
Header Image by Kait Lloyd
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