Day Zero Project #75: Attend a roller derby.

This is one of those goals from my list where I had no idea what to expect. Outside of a very basic idea that roller derby might be a bunch of people in tights going around in a circle and eventually pushing each other into alligator pits à la this crazy Roller Games show I watched as a kid.

The show was terrible. It was also the basis of all of my roller derby knowledge, which I have now learned was almost entirely false.

True, there are some people in tights (although not quite as flamboyant as on the show). And, true, they do go around in a circle. But that's where the similarities end.

I had expected some sort of theatrical violence with no real semblance of a sport, but what I got was a lesson in a new sport that is actually pretty cool once you can figure out the rules. By the end of our evening at the roller derby we both found ourselves cheering on the jammers and noticing some of the finer points of the game. And perhaps most importantly, the team that I decided to root for (the Switchblade Sisters) managed to take home the win over my wife's choice (the Black Widows).

I highly recommend checking out a match if you ever get the opportunity. If you happen to live in the Tampa, FL area, check out the Tampa Bay Roller Derby at Downtown Skate in Tampa, FL. Before you do, take a quick look at some derby rules online and it will save you a lot of Googling at the track. It was a lot of fun, but I will say that if you don't know the rules, there's a whole lot of wondering what they heck it is that you are watching.

I take horrible action pictures, so I apologize, but here's some more scenes from our night at the derby.

As you can tell from the pictures there was no sudden death over time with an alligator pit. But that's okay, the game was plenty fun without it.