By day, Canyon View Vineyard Church looks like any other church. But on Thursday nights at 6 p.m., the church hosts the Grand Junction Roller Girls team. They certainly don’t fit the typical church group, but that is what roller derby is all about.
Founder Jack-Knife Jezzibelle says that roller derby provides a place where “women in the valley can come and have fun and not worry about drama.”
Jezzibelle started the league with a Facebook page, and after two days, it had over 400 fans. Word quickly spread, and about 30 girls showed up to the first practice. The first practice ended with a broken ankle, but that hasn’t stopped them.
“We love showing off our bruises, they’re like our trophies,” Jezzibelle said.
Now, the league has about 35 girls who skate, all of whom have different backgrounds.
“We have stay-at-home moms, engineers and full-time students. They have the drive to compete and win,” Jezzibelle said.
The team will travel to Denver, Utah, Greeley, and New Mexico for tournaments. The team hopes to host tournaments in the Grand Valley.
The rules of roller derby can be hard to understand. Each team sends out five girls. One girl, on offense, is the jammer. The other four girls are blockers. The objective is for the jammer to pass the opposing team’s blockers. For each blocker they pass, they score a point. However, blockers cannot throw an elbow, or use their head to block the jammer or another blocker, and they also cannot take headshots. Biting, scratching and hitting are prohibited.
Although the sport isn’t a free-for-all, it’s a rough sport that takes a certain level of toughness. At the start of the Roller Girls practice, they skate a few laps, then get right into perfecting their “fall and slide” techniques. They take turns going through different falls, starting with going down on one knee, then progressing into the various slides.
“These are the basic skills the skaters learn on day one. They have to learn these in order to protect themselves from injury,” Jezzibelle said.
One of the most important aspects of roller derby is a girl’s derby name.
“Your derby name is your alter ego,” co-captain Anna-Marie Wells said.
Her derby name, Ammunition Anna, comes from her love of guns.
“Sometimes we come up with names for each other, and sometimes we name ourselves. It’s a huge part of the team,” Jezzible said.
While the name is the alter ego, another thing that sets these girls apart are their outfits.
“We have t-shirts with our logo on it, and the only other requirement is that they wear fun knee socks,” Wells said. Other requirements include helmets, wrist guards, elbow pads, knee pads, mouthguards and of course, quad speed skates.
When asked what skills are needed for a roller derby girl, Jezzibelle simply laughed and said “a vagina.”
“Anyone can come out and skate with us. We have had girls who have never skated a day in their life and are now awesome skaters. You can be any size, shape, skill level, and can still come out and compete,” Jezzibelle said.
The team, however, can use any guys that want to help out.
“We need referees. Most bouts have 12 referees because there is so much going on at one time,” Wells said. “The roller rink in Grand Junction closed down ten years ago and nothing new has been built. We’d like a permanent place to call home.”
The team has been working on the necessary paperwork to become a club here at Mesa State, which they hope will help them find a permanent home.
“We used the church because one of the girls on our team is a youth pastor here, and they’ve let us use it, but we can’t host bouts here, so we’d like to get a place for that,” Jezzible said. “If the weather is nice on Sundays, we go to Canyon View park and have scrimmages.”
As the popularity of the sport grows in the valley, it can bring success to the ladies of the GJRG. Meanwhile, they’ll keep skating and having fun. If anyone is interested in joining the team or wants more information, they can contact the team at gjrollergirls@gmail.com.

hrutt@mesastate.edu