My friend and fellow personal trainer EGD is also a new member of the Rollergirls team known as "The Manhattan Mayhem". Her Roller name is "Tiger Bomb" (get it -- like Tiger Balm). They practiced at the Skate Key, a roller rink in the Bronx, that just got shut down permanently due to 2 recent shootings (I guess if a place in the Bronx shut down due to ONE shooting, that borough would be a ghost town by now.)
Anyhow, with their first show coming up on April 7th, they have no where to practice nor put on a show. So they are looking and campaigning. A Roller league in Brooklyn has offered to share space. Manhattan Mayhem is also slated to be on an early morning news show pleading their case.
Here is the story as printed in the March 22, 2006 edition of AMNew York (a free paper that comes out Monday through Friday):
Gotham Girls in search of new digs
BY TED PHILLIPS
STAFF WRITER
March 22, 2006
A Roller Derby girl expects to get knocked around, but after strapping on her skates and helmet last Wednesday, Suzy Hotrod got an unexpected shock.
That night's practice would be the Gotham Girls Roller Derby league's last at the Skate Key roller rink. The troubled Bronx rink is closing and now the bruisin' babes are scrambling for new digs.
"We're homeless. It's so sad. We definitely found out with very little notice," said the 25-year-old Hotrod who goes by the name of Jean Schwarzwalder at her day job as a photo studio manager. "It felt like our boyfriend dumped us and we had no idea it was coming."
An employee at the Skate Key in Mott Haven confirmed the rink was closing, but said management didn't want to comment. The rink has long been plagued by violence.
With the first bout of the new season just three weeks away, the timing couldn't be worse.
"We just added a fourth team," said Natily Blair, who goes by Ginger Snap on the rink. "We're expecting between 3,000 and 5,000 people this season. We'll take anything at this point."
Despite the setback, the league will hold its "Derby Taunt Ball" at The Delancey in the Lower East Side on Sunday to announce the new team lineups. But fans of the all-female high speed rock'em sock'em bouts could be disappointed if the league can't find a venue in time for their April 7 season opener.
The derby girls are now working the phones calling clubs and skating rinks and looking at city and state facilities. The Long Island Roller Rebels have offered to let the Gotham Girls practice with them in Bethpage and Seaford.
One possible location is the Empire Roller Skating Center near Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Angela Ellington, event coordinator and manager for the rink, confirmed they are in talks with the league, but said it's not clear that the facility's layout would work for the bouts or if they can overcome scheduling problems.
Schwarzwalder said it could be a blessing in disguise. "I just think it's part of the growing process." she said. "I think we can fill a bigger venue . . . we were pretty much selling out the Skate Key."
The Gotham Girls had been at the Skate Key since 2003, and held their first season last year. Building from scratch, they now have 64 team members, competed in the first ever flat-track derby national championships last month and drew 1,500 spectators to their season final last fall.
While they are just looking for something that would work, Blair didn't shrug off the suggestion that they aim higher. "If somebody wanted to help us get into Madison Square Garden, we're amenable," Blair said.
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.
