Nevada Day Roller Derby tournament returns to Carson City

The second annual Nevada Day roller derby tournament will be held this weekend at the Carson Community Center.

The “Battle for the Silver Skate 2019” is hosted by the Carson Victory Rollers. It will feature not only Nevada teams but women’s teams from Idaho and California.

The event is free and open to the public.

Spokesman Stormi Noll said the two-day tournament begins Saturday with “seeding games” to determine rankings at 10 a.m. in the Community Center gymnasium. Those games last 30 minutes each.

Day one will end with a coed exhibition bout.

The second day of the tourney begins at 9 a.m. and will feature full one-hour bouts to determine which team is champion this year.

The teams that have signed up in addition to Carson’s Victory Rollers are the Battle Born Derby Demons, also from Nevada, Flood Water Derby Rollers, the Outlaws and Lockford Liberators, all from California, and the Idaho Rebel Rollers.

Members of the different junior teams won’t compete this year but will skate in the Nevada Day Parade.

Noll said the number of teams around the West is expanding and that the sport is becoming more accessible with flat track skating instead of the expensive high-banked tracks of the 1970s.

Roller Derby, Noll said, was always more of a woman’s sport than a male sport.

“There just aren’t enough men skaters to create an all-male league,” she said.

But she said the junior teams for those in high school and younger are mostly coed.

She said that’s why Carson is looking to add an adult coed team to its roster next year.

To grow interest in roller derby, Noll said the Victory Rollers are hosting a program beginning Nov. 5. She said it’s a five-week non-skating program to teach people the rules and how to play. After five weeks, she said they will teach people to skate and learn to actually play the game.