Having seen out-of-town action last month against – but denied victory by – rival Arkansas Valley, the Durango Roller Girls’ practices since have greatly intensified with skaters knowing they’ll finally compete in view of loyal locals Saturday night.
And, quite likely, compete against each other.
“Everybody’s getting pumped up,” DRG veteran Kelsey ‘Eager Beaver’ Beaver said Thursday morning, recalling the previous night’s run-through inside a derby-converted Chapman Hill Ice Arena. “We actually had to take a few longer breaks because we were getting a little too, like, hyper – and then getting a little sloppy. When you get out of control that’s when people get hurt, usually; we had to … calm down. But you can tell when it’s ‘bout week,’ and everybody’s excited for sure.”
Beaver is the head of bout production and therefore is in charge of making sure all the home bouts go smoothly.
Perhaps built upon a day/night, internal/external, hero/villain theme, the July 27 event is titled Skulls vs. Unicorns and will involve individuals from, as of press time Thursday evening, three states.
Beaver said there will be about 27 skaters with 16 from Durango. There are skaters from Boulder, Albuquerque, Colorado Springs, Flagstaff, Arizona and some refs from Pikes Peak.
“We have a lot of really fresh skaters; I think in our June bout in Salida, we had seven in their first bout ever,” she added. “We’ve been trying to rebuild the team, kind of, since COVID and we have a solid number of people that are really new.”
Doors at Chapman will open to spectators at 6 p.m., with the full-speed, flat-track action starting at 7.
“When you travel you stay in motel rooms together, find a hot tub to go into or whatever at the end of the night; you get this team bonding that you don’t necessarily get with home games,” Beaver said. “But … I’ve played a lot of different places and I’ve never seen fans like Durango’s. I mean, we’ve had 500-plus people in Chapman before and they’re cheering so loud that you can’t hear anything – it gives me goose bumps sometimes when I’m skating! Best I’ve seen anywhere; I’ve played in Denver and they didn’t even have fans like we do. It’s pretty amazing to see how our community shows up for it.”
