The latest:

>> And before anyone knew it, roller derby had careened back into our lives. The Seattle flat-track league to which my girlfriend belongs -- the Rat City Rollergirls -- is only one of more than two dozen leagues that have sprung up in the past few years, while ESPN has busied itself with staring into its own navel.

While derby coverage remains scarce, the media is slowly catching up with the pack. CBS News recently ran a story -- without forged documents, even! And Wayne's Derby World follows the action, though its coverage seems to favor the Texas leagues above all others. (That's fair: Texas is where derby was born anew. The Lone Star State even has the "King of the Hill" episode to prove it.)

The question is when you'll be able to watch this stuff on TV, or when (or if) the all-volunteer leagues will be tempted by corporate beer money and the shitheels at Spike TV. It's tough to predict whether these wheels have that kind of traction, but it's easy to say this: There's no way you can convince me that televised roller derby would be less exciting than the "Hollywood Squares" of the oughts: celebrity poker. A society that's content to watch Kevin Pollack fucking play cards is in desperate need of a high-speed hip-check into the wall.
posted by Geoff Carter at 11:52 AM