New roller derby team makes its mark on the Upper Peninsula

What’s a way for 30-something women to get out of the house and be brutal to other women? No, it’s not PTA meetings. It’s roller derby. And with the latest Kingsford Krush roller derby team in the Iron Mountain-Kingsford area, women from the Upper Peninsula are able to get out their aggressions on the track.  
 
"There’s not really a whole lot of activities or things to do, especially for women. There’s a lot of male sports up here, so it’s nice to have something just for women. It gets them out of the house and away from their kids for a little," says Karisa Falls, president of the Kingsford Krush and known on the track as "Bernice Python."
 
The Kingsford Krush is a new roller derby team that finds its home at the latest roller rink in Kingsford, which opened last December. The team started when a woman who is on the Fox Cityz Foxz in Appleton, Wisonsin brought some of the team up to the Iron Mountain area to showcase what roller derby is all about. From there, Falls, who has experience playing in Minnesota, helped to organize the interest and create an Upper Peninsula team.
 
“"It’s a very unique experience," Falls says. "When I skated in Minnesota, derby was well established. Here, people are like, ‘you’re doing what?’ Getting that understanding of what we’re doing across is a little bit more of a challenge."
 
But that challenge has been something that Falls has really come to enjoy. She has found although people aren’t as exposed to derby, interest in the sport is just as strong in the Upper Peninsula.
 
"My favorite part is bringing something new, it’s a fun game to play but it’s really fun to bring something new to the area that people haven’t seen before," Falls says.
 
The team has seen as many as 40 women interested in one time, but according to Falls, they have about 20 women involved right now. The bouts will begin Oct. 29 and continue through the winter and into the spring. In derby terms, a "bout" is essentially the match or game. The tentative dates after that are Dec. 3; Jan. 14; Feb. 18; March 24; April 21; and May 19. At this time the Kingsford Krush will be playing bouts against itself: it’s divided into two teams who will play each other: the Jawbreakers and the Misfits. All of these women have gone through skills testing to prepare them for the rough nature of the bouts.
 
"In derby people are going to get hurt; it’s just the nature of the high contact sport," Falls says. "But you want to make sure people have the set of skills to be as safe as possible."
 
The rink, Skate Boulevard, is the brain child of Jenny Crossom and her husband Jeff, who started the rink because the poor economy had made living off of their cabinet-building business difficult. Around the same time, they were hosting children’s events through a local church and found that almost 500 children would attend each event. That suggested to them that children wanted something more to do in Iron Mountain. Crossom’s husband had previously worked in a skating rink, so he had some knowledge of how to do it.
 
"We needed to do something else (for children), so with (Jeff’s) background in skating and our experience in working with children, it was just an avenue we decided to try out and it’s worked out pretty darn good," Crossom says.
 
Escanaba’s new roller rink, Retro Station, has similar beginnings.
 
"I was in the trucking business, and I was looking for a way to get out, and I figured well we could do this," Al Lantagne says. He owns the Retro Station with his wife, Kim. High gas prices made him interested in other career opportunities and his wife had mentioned how much she had enjoyed the Escanaba roller rink when it existed many years ago. Further inspired by the success of the Iron Mountain rink, the Lantagnes decided to open the Retro Station in late December 2010.
 
The relationship between the two rinks is strong. When the Escanaba rink first opened, Crossom and her husband visited the rink to wish the Lantagnes good luck. Both owners hope to foster a presence of roller skating in the Upper Peninsula that people can enjoy no matter where they live.
 
"We just saw what a huge benefit that it’s been to our community, so we figure … the more roller rinks, the more participation there will be. And why wouldn’t you want that?" Crossom says.
 
The sense of community is also strong with roller derby. Falls hopes to do exhibition bouts with the Kingsford Krush in other Upper Peninsula towns to "increase awareness of the sport and maybe facilitate new leagues starting." The Retro Station in Escanaba has begun soliciting interest in roller derby and hopes to see it happen in the future.
 
Lucy Hough is a student at Northern Michigan University. She is studying history and journalism and works for the student newspaper, The North Wind.