Santa Cruz Roller Derby offers hits, heart and a home for skaters

The crowd in the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium roared each time a Santa Cruz Roller Derby jammer burst out of the grips of Bay Area Derby’s blockers to skate around the track and score. 

Saturday night’s match was the season opener for Santa Cruz Roller Derby, an organization that has earned top rankings in the past and is in the midst of rebuilding following a pandemic pause and skater relocations. 

Santa Cruz lost 258-70 to Bay Area Derby. 

“We totally got killed,” said Santa Cruz Roller Derby’s Tamara Dow, known by her derby name of Tadow. “But no matter what the score is, we always have a great time.” 

Santa Cruz Roller Derby is a nonprofit organization with about 100 members who volunteer their time running the league. Created a few years after a national resurgence of the sport in 2001, the Santa Cruz league was founded in 2009. Over the years, the sport and the local league have taken roller derby to a more competitive level compared to its DIY beginnings in the early 2000s, when it was revived by the feminist punk movement in Austin, Texas. 

Knee-high leather boots, tattoos, raunchy or violent derby names, helmets, knee pads and elbow pads, a live DJ mixing vinyls and theatrical stage lighting are all standard on the track. 

Founded by the underground punk Riot Grrrl movement, modern roller derby was and continues to be mostly made up of women, but has long been gender-inclusive. Santa Cruz Roller Derby’s two charter teams, the Hellcats and the Bombshells, are open to all genders and ages. 

For several years, the Bombshells, considered the A team, ranked among the top 10 out of more than 100 teams in the North America West region of the global Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, according to Mstiza (whose civilian name is Leticia Domingo), the Santa Cruz league’s public relations director. Now, in a period of rebuilding after the pandemic, skater relocations and injuries, the team is ranked 23rd and is climbing back up the rankings. 

She said Santa Cruz Roller Derby is hosting info sessions and boot camps this spring to invite interested skaters – no experience needed – to learn about roller derby or join the league. The organization is hosting a boot camp April 6, and its next bouts (or games) at home – all at the Civic – are scheduled for June 27, Sept. 19 and Nov. 7. 

Domingo, 49, has been roller skating for 40 years but started roller derby about eight years ago because she was attracted to the community. She got her start in a boot camp, and attributes her ability to handle falling off her skates to what she learned there. 

“When I chose to join the boot camp that I took, I was like, ‘Well, I’m just going to do it because I want to learn, and I want to learn how to fall safely,'” she said. “I ended up finding so much more than that.” 

She said she found a “really fun, vibrant” group that supports each other on and off the track. 

“We shed tears on the track, we shed tears at practices. It’s hard,” she said. “You’re doing hard things, and that support that you have in each other, those friendships that you build together, is really powerful.” 

Outside of practices and bouts, the Santa Cruz Roller Derby league volunteers for local organizations and donates to a nonprofit each year. This year, it’s donating to Siena House, a nonprofit that helps new mothers who are experiencing homelessness. In its nearly two decades, the league has donated more than $30,000 and completed over 800 volunteer hours for more than 40 local nonprofits, schools and community groups. 

Domingo added that there are many ways for people to join the Santa Cruz league, as skating members or non-skating members. Non-skating members can help during the matches by tracking violations made by the skaters or by serving as referees. 

“We couldn’t host bouts without [volunteers],” she said. “So if people just wanted to find community, and they like derby and want to learn more, there’s avenues for that.” 

To learn more about getting involved, either as a competing skater on a team or as a non-skating volunteer, visit the Santa Cruz Roller Derby website. 

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