Last night I went to see the Circle City Socialites’ first-ever roller derby bout. I can remember when I first heard they were forming a second Indianapolis league, and the original idea I’d gotten that this would be a less-competitive, “just for fun” sort of group. How far they’ve come in what seems like such a short time! The CCS teams I saw last night played hard, and they played well.

For their first exhibition bout, the CCSs split into two teams, Black and Green. To fill out the teams, each group had a couple of players from the Bleeding Heartland Roller Girls and the Rollergirls of Southern Indiana. My girlfriend icespark, a Bleeding Heartland Roller Girl who usually plays for the Slaughter Scouts, was skating last night for the CCS Black team as her derby moniker Rocket Rockit Ma’am.

Since this was the CCS’s first public match, Icespark warned me it might be a little chaotic. However, as an untrained observer blind to the subtle nuance of derby tactics, I had to go with the cheering, near-capacity crowd with the obvious opinion that both teams looked great and played a very entertaining game.

The score was a tad lopsided since the Green team had a speed-skating jammer who literally ran laps around everyone else on the ice-rink floor, but that score doesn’t represent the fact that both teams were exhibiting an excellent level of offense and defense. Speed-skater aside, most of the other squads seemed pretty evenly balanced, and there were a number of hard hits and grinding spills.

The Circle City Socialites undoubtedly gained a lot of new fans last night, and I’m one of them. I’d heard behind-the-scenes how pleasant and welcoming they are off the track, but it was good to see that their good sportsmanship was matched by athletic skill and enthusiasm on the track. I look forward to seeing them develop as they increase in experience and practice.

Can’t wait for the next bout!