Roller derby is a sport that has recently gained attention through films and television and its popularity is growing, as Sacramento is the home to two roller derby leagues – the Sac City Rollers and the Sacred City Derby Girls. The Sacramento Press met with some of the derby girls at a recent practice. The Sac City Rollers, which formed in 2006, are preparing for the first bout of the season this Friday. Roller derby is defined by one derby girl – “H.N. Icy” – as football on skates, but without a ball. She’s known as Jennifer Madrigal outside of derby, and is a lab technician. While some derby girls are in law enforcement or construction, the Sac City Rollers have teachers and a librar

This is not your fourth grade spelling bee. The Sacred City Derby Girls, Sacramento’s women’s roller derby league, along with Bows & Arrows, are bringing a grown-up spelling bee to Sacramento. The event will benefit the Gender Health Center, an organization that provides mental health counseling to the LGBT community with a focus on Sacramento’s transgender population. Participants may sign up to spell at the event, beginning at 7 p.m. on Thursday at the Bows & Arrows store, located at 1815 19th St. The grown-up spelling bee will kick off at 8 p.m. Alice White, whose derby name is “Standard” and skates for the Sacred City Derby Girls, said she got the idea from her home state of Minneso

Do you want to be a big bad derby girl? Of course you do. And who better to be it with than the Sacred City Derby Girls, currently 8th in the West with eyes on being 6th. Do something amazing for yourself and come join one of the best teams in the league. The Sacred City Derby Girls are holding tryouts on Sunday, January 16th, from 5-8pm at North C Street, Sacramento 95811. Contact Sherlock Homeslice at joinscdg@sacredcityderbygirls.com if interested. If you have your own gear (knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards, skates, and a helmet), bring it. If not, loaner gear is availabe at tryouts. Yes, roller derby is a tough sport, but it's also very rewarding. After you've taken a few tumbles

The Women's Flat Track Derby Association 2010 Western Regional Tournament is coming to Sacramento this weekend. And the Sacred City Derby Girls are stoked. The skaters in one of Sacramento's two flat track roller derby leagues have not only become eligible to compete in the regional playoffs for the first time — they won Sacramento the honor of hosting one of four qualifiers for the national championship in November. Sacred City's travel team, the Sacrificers, and teams from as far away as Colorado and New Mexico will be skating at Memorial Auditorium Oct. 1-3. The league's founder, Gabriell Garcia, also known as "Chica Loca," said skating at the auditorium will fulfill a dream for many

2010 WFTDA Western Regional Tournament Sacred City Derby Girls is pleased to be hosting the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) 2010 Western Regional Tournament at the historic Memorial Auditorium in downtown Sacramento, Oct. 1-3.   The tournament will feature the top 10 ranked WFTDA teams in the Western Region, regarded as the most competitive of all WFTDA regions this year. At the close of the weekend, the top three teams will move on to compete in the WFTDA Championship Tournament in Chicago in November. “Rollin’ on the River” is WFTDA’s Western Regional invitation-only tournament. This year’s participating teams (in order of ranking) are Oly Rollers, Rocky Mountain Roller

Sacramento will soon become home to a new kind of skate shop, born out of the love between a derby girl and a skater boy. Sandy "Motley" Cruz and Gordon "Gordo" Eckler, both 31, said they expect to open Cruz Skate Shop, a hybrid rollerskating and skateboarding shop, at 16th and U streets on Sept. 15. Cruz got into roller derby in 2005. She opened the first location in San Francisco's Bernal Heights neighborhood in March 2008. Cruz Skate Shop was originally a skate shop for roller girls, focusing on the exploding sport of flat track roller derby. She hadn't skated since she was 10, but was so intrigued with the sport that she helped start a new league in San Francisco called the Bay Area

Political ads may be famous for mudslinging, but if you want to see the real deal, drop by On The Y on Aug. 13 to watch the Sacred City Derby Girls duke it out in the mud pit. The girls will be mud wrestling to raise money to pay for one of the group’s two roller derby teams – The Sacrificers – to travel for the 2011 season. The tournament at the bar, located at 670 Fulton Blvd., is open to the 21-and-over crowd “We will have drink specials, and there will be a live DJ after the tournament,” said Halee Daily, director of marketing for the Sacred City Derby Girls. “Basically, we pick eight of our skaters (for the tournament), and we have last year’s Mud Queen seeing if she can keep her t

If you think that Roller Derby has gone the way of bell bottoms and bad disco, you are SO wrong. Well, you were right, but NOW you're wrong. That's because, after its heyday in the 1950s and '60s, roller derby faltered and finally collapsed altogether. Now it's back, on a flat instead of a banked track. And Sacramento has its own team, the all-female, full-contact Sacred City Derby Girls. Their 2009 season starts Saturday at Roller King on Riverside Avenue in Roseville. The rollers hit the track at 8 p.m. With players sporting handles such as Belle Dozer, Brawllen Angel, Frita Bandita, Rosey Knuckles and Meg A. Mayhem, these ladies mean business. As the only officially-sanctioned area me