MISSOULA — Sunday's Hellgate Roller Derby game with the Electric City Roller Derby was also celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride.
Roller derby has long been popular with those in the LGBTQ+ community largely due to derby’s open nature.
“You're comfortable. It’s just so welcoming to everybody and you feel comfortable and it's fun and it's sweaty and stinky and nobody cares” Major Magnitude, a roller derby player but MC of Sunday’s game, told MTN.
Roller derby is played between two teams made up of 15 total players, but each team only fields five players at a time.
There are two 30-minute periods where within those periods are two-minute jams — that is unless that two-minute jam is called off early.
There are three positions between the five players on the field — three blockers, one jammer (designated by a helmet cover with a star on it) and one pivot.
The blockers in the ring try and stop the jammer from getting by them because if the jammer does and skates one lap around the ring, the next time the jammer passes the blockers they begin to score points.
The pivot acts as a blocker unless the team gets in a pinch, in which the pivot will designate themselves the jammer by taking the original jammers helmet cover.
Besides the game, there are also halftime performances, similar to other sports. A drag performance for Sunday's halftime show to celebrate Pride weekend.
The performers were well accepted by the crowd, with cheering and clapping from the audience throughout their performance.
But to get to the acceptance they saw from the crowd was not an easy path they noted.
“We’ve also been trying to get honestly us here in drag for the roller derby for the last year and I was finally able to put it together,” said Eunicex, a drag performer and vice president of the Imperial Sovereign Court of Montana.
“The original Pride was a riot and unfortunately, we need to still keep fighting for our rights” Eunicex explained.
As the Pride celebrations and events come to a close for this weekend, those who celebrate pride month continue to do so until the end of June.
