<\/p>\nThe NOLA Roller Derby team works on their defensive moves in a New Orleans warehouse on Thursday, July 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
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STAFF PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER<\/span> It\u2019s not for everybody. Some players, Peters said, \u201chave found their place here, but might have had trouble finding their place somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sherri \u201cBeatrix Skiddo\u201d Montz, who\u2019s been with the NOLA team almost from the beginning, said she wasn\u2019t just a \u201crink rat,\u201d she was the child of \u201crink rats.\u201d Her parents met at a roller-skating rink, and as a teenager she got a job at the old Airline Skate Center.<\/p>\n
Montz, who works for a conveyor belt manufacturer, said she\u2019s learned more about life on the track than in the real world. Inclusiveness, acceptance and conflict management all come into play. Not to mention catharsis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not saying I had anger management issues,\u201d she said, laughing. \u201cBut now I get to hit my friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Alanis \u201cJagged Little Spill\u201d Stoner has played on New Orleans\u2019 junior team\u00a0\u2014 the Crescent City Crushers\u00a0\u2014 since she was 13. Now, at age 20, she\u2019s graduating into the adult squad. She said she tried swimming, soccer, volleyball and all the sports. But for her, \u201cit was going to be roller derby or boxing.”<\/p>\n
Stoner said the bruises on her forearms \u201care like trophies.\u201d Though early on, her parents had to forewarn her high school that those were sports-related. Nowadays, Stoner said, \u201cI just tell people I got into a fight at the Walmart.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n <\/p>\nJasmine “Quiet Fire” McDonald tightens her gloves as she gets ready for a NOLA Roller Derby practice on Thursday, July 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
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STAFF PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER<\/span> All kidding aside, Stoner said, \u201cWhen I\u2019m on the track, it feels good mentally and physically.\u201d She said it\u2019s an adrenaline rush, and some of the other players have become her best friends. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to talk to people here, she said.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In the beginning<\/h3>\n Patti \u201cCrushin\u2019 Roulette\u201d Rowsey, a bartender who was into contact sports like boxing and rugby, introduced modern roller derby to New Orleans. Rowsey had moved from the Crescent City to Austin\u00a0\u2014 where the “Whip It” film was set\u00a0\u2014 sometime after the millennium. She fell in with some skaters and soon set out to transplant the campy sport back home.<\/p>\n
Rowsey said she and some like-minded pals spread the word in New Orleans, seeking women who were willing to give the demanding game a try, though \u201csome of them couldn\u2019t even skate.\u201d Players from Austin put on a skating workshop, and the nascent team gained momentum, but Rowsey said, \u201cWe were just starting to get the league together when (Hurricane) Katrina came.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\n <\/p>\nThe Big Easy Roller Girls practice for the Roller Derby at the West Bank Skate Country in Terrytown on Tuesday, July 26, 2005.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Staff photo by Alex Brandon<\/span> Jeannie \u201cGalaxy Grrl\u201d Detweiler was in the original batch of Big Easy Roller Girls, after possibly seeing one of Rowsey\u2019s recruitment flyers. Detweiler, an artist, said she was never into competitive sports, but she liked to skate and, for some reason, roller derby appealed to her.<\/p>\n
Despite the profound disruption of the storm and flood, and the scattering of many of the original players, the team reformed. Sally \u201cSmasHer\u201d Asher, a writer and historian, recalls that roller derby players from Las Vegas flew to New Orleans to help train the new recruits.<\/p>\n
Laura \u201cLittle Mascara\u201d Hawkins, another of the earliest Roller Girls, credits Kate \u201cCherry Pi\u201d Parker, a former math teacher, with bringing the flock back together after the storm and flood. Hawkins, who was a real estate agent at the time, said there was more to it than skating and jamming. They had to establish a nonprofit corporation, raise money and pay the costs of hosting and traveling to bouts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\n <\/p>\nKate \u201cCherry Pi\u201d Parker, bottom, and another skate practice their fighting technique at the Big Easy Roller Girls practice for the Roller Derby at the West Bank Skate Country in Terrytown on Tuesday, July 26, 2005.<\/p>\n
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Staff photo by Alex Brandon<\/span> The first official bout was held at one of the most iconic of Crescent City locations, Mardi Gras World on the West Bank in September 2006. A track was laid out on the hard concrete floor, surrounding the Orpheus parade\u2019s dragon-shaped Leviathan float. Tickets sold out for the clash between two squads, the Ain\u2019ts and Hornots.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when we learned how important entertainment and revelry was to healing,\u201d Asher said. Beforehand, she said, some players worried that the event seemed too trivial and disrespectful for the painful recovery era.<\/p>\n
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\n <\/p>\nAbby Van Deerlin of the Big Easy Roller Girls tries to recover after a collision during the bout at Mardi Gras World on\u00a0Saturday, Sept. 16, 2006.<\/p>\n
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Staff photo by Michael DeMocker<\/span> Changing with the times<\/h3>\n Old-timers think the roller derby was probably more violent and more theatrical in the beginning. \u201cThere were a lot more bodies flying and hitting,\u201d Detweiler said. This dovetailed with the scrappiness of the era.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Over the years, the sport has taken a turn toward athleticism and safety. Which might be for the best. Many of the originators report that they got pretty banged up back then.<\/p>\n
The Big Easy Roller Girls settled into a groove, spending two seasons among the floats at Mardi Gras World, then held bouts at the University of New Orleans before moving into the current warehouse location. In 2022, they changed the name to Big Easy Roller Derby in order to better reflect their inclusiveness.<\/p>\n
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\n <\/p>\nBig Easy Rollergirl Haley Lewis, bottom left, and others prepare for the start of El Encierro, aka Running of the Bulls, during the annual festival of San Fermin in Nueva Orleans on Saturday, July 13, 2013.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Staff photo by Brett Duke<\/span> The next opportunity to see the Big Easy Roller Derby is July 25 at the Big Easy Warehouse, 3632 Desire Parkway, New Orleans. The Crescent City Crushers face the Cyber Punks Junior Roller Derby from Augusta, Georgia, at 5 p.m., and the Big Easy Second Line faces the Montgomery Roller Derby at 7:30 p.m. The season continues through October, and more info is available at bigeasyrollerderby.com<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nola.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was one of those sticky Saturday evenings in June. Yet a capacity crowd had packed itself around the edges of a roller derby track in an unairconditioned, sheet metal warehouse near Alvar Street in New Orleans East. The Acadiana Roller Derby team, based in Lafayette, was facing off against the hometown Big Easy Roller […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2501455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[128321],"class_list":["post-2501454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-hardwall"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Big-Easy-Roller-Girls-have-been-jamming-for-20-years.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2501454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2501456,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501454\/revisions\/2501456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2501455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2501454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2501454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2501454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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