Methow Roller Derby Team

At the beginning of a jam in the ‘Corporal Punishment’ exhibition bout in Milton, Florida in August, 2010, Brass Chuckles (Rose Weagant-Norton), Sinead O'Coroner, Hot Lava, Feind Club, and Izze were set to roll.
Photo by Daniel Miller, AD Miller Photography

Rose Weagant-Norton wants to set up a Methow Valley roller derby team. She has scheduled a recruiting party at the Community Center in Twisp on Saturday, from 7 until 10 p.m. Attending the party costs $3. All proceeds go to the Center “for new laces for their roller skates,” she says.

A self-professed “roller derby girl” Norton has skated in roller derbies around the U.S. - starting in Florida, where she attended college. She says that the sport is no longer “rock-‘em, sock-‘em, the way it used to be. There is a lot less punching and brawling” and a whole lot more skating athleticism, without the theatrics. But it’s still rough.

A bare-bones roller derby team needs 15 skaters for a ‘bout’ with other teams. Five team members skate for each ‘jam’ in the bout—four blockers and one jammer. The blockers keep the other team off their jammer. If all goes well, “the jammer laps the pack of blockers,” she explains. When you’re a jammer, your team earns a point for each person you pass on the opposing team. Jams can last up to two minutes.

Starting up a team is no easy task, said Norton, it’s a “huge, full-time ordeal”. There is recruiting, practice, marketing, funds, travel, public relations, and etc. And a million dollars of insurance. She said non-playing volunteers are vital. “Only half a team actually plays. The rest of the team is comprised of public relations coordinators, recruitment folks, stats keepers, referees and bout announcers, just to name a few.”

Weagant-Norton has been a little skeptical about starting a team here, but “every time I talk about it, people’s eyes light up.” So she’s giving it a try.

Skate practice would be at the Methow Valley Community Center in Twisp, at least for now.

Norton is looking for female team members 18 years and up. She said she has skated with different ages, including one derby girl named “Grand Mal”—who was in her fifties and a grandmother. Her own roller derby names have included ‘Riot Momma,’ and ‘Mia Feral.’ Her most recent is “Brass Chuckles.”

Norton says that the sport has its own vocabulary even beyond colorful titles, ‘bouts’, ‘jams’, ‘jammers’ and ‘blockers’. What do derby girls wear? Boutfits. What are new team players called? Fresh meat.

Weagant-Norton hails originally from Manson. She is married to Eric Norton and they live between Twisp and Winthrop near the river with their two children. After earning her bakery credentials - starting at 11 years old - in Stehekin's bakery, she now works at the Rocking Horse Bakery in Winthrop.

The roller derby world is a built-in community for participants, she said. When she moved to the valley and discovered that Kurt Meacham, who manages the Winthrop ice rink, had been a referee for Everett’s Jet City Rollers for a few years, she called him up out of the blue and they talked for a long time, comfortable with their shared derby experience.

Community matters to derby skaters in another way, according to Norton. She said that profits of most teams go to places such as veterans’ hospitals, scholarship funds, and animal shelters. Once a team has been active for a time, it can join the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, which serves as the governing body of women’s flat track roller derby.

Yea, I'm so there to go skating... Methow Menace, animal theme could be any animal you consider a menace...

hi, there are a few folks her in Mazama that think a local event would be fun. Like a team from each town, say, Mazama menses, were in for the whole period with no strings attached! 04 the Twisp team , twisped sisters; Winthrop team , hodeo Queens. etc. so keeping it here is our prefference or atleast in okanogan Co. is it possible to have smaller teams with out the hoopla? or do it for fun but organized, we would love to learn how to play. This would be especially cool if the icerink turned roller rink in the off season. I think theres enough tough chicks in the Methow we could make our own org. with the help of you pros. We could'nt make the recruit party sat. how did it go?