Miss Mel Mangles

Last night I did something that was LONG overdue, I went and checked out a Rainy City Roller Dolls practice, a new roller derby league my friend Melisa Mitchell — her derby name is Miss Mel Mangles — is helping to start.
She's been after me to check out her roller derby team for a long time, but I'd yet to have the opportunity to make it to one of their events. Seemed like everytime they'd have a bout it was on a day or a place I couldn't get to. She skated for the Oly Rollers in Olympia and I almost made it to their final bout last summer but, as you know, we adopted a baby around the same time, so that didn't happen.
Well, now she's no longer on that team and is helping found a new league in Centralia, which is slightly closer. But no mind, I really wanted to check it out and it just so happened we had an open slot for the Life section this week, so I made the trek over last night.
It was cool to see how they prep and practice, as when they're having a bout it's a lot more intense and there's a lot more visual stuff going on. On this night it was a practice featuring "fresh meat" — what they call the new girls. Their practice really resembled any other sport with regimented drills and scrimmages.
I was able to make a few pix that worked for the piece (I'm doing a Soundslides for it too, which I'll a post a link for probably tommorrow sometime) but I didn't get what I wanted really. She said they will likely have their first bout in a few months, and I'll defintely plan to make that cuz I'd like to see how far they've gotten.
The pic above I kinda like the most I think, partly because of the feel it gives for the sport, and the fact that she's up skating while a new recruit is hitting the floor. That was pretty common last night, as of the 25 or so girls that were there, only seven of them had any real experience.


I also liked this one a lot. The ref's that came down for the practice wanted a snapshot to take with them. After one "normal" pic they decided to take another with the game face on. That's Mel on the right.

-DKM