Pittsburgh's Steel City Derby Demons Are Hell on Wheels

The land of the sugar plums fairies may be sweet, but in the land of Sugar Plum Scary, these girls are hell on wheels.

Just ask the thousands of fans who turn up at Romp n' Roll in Glenshaw, Pennsylvania to watch The Steel City Derby Demons (SCDD), Pittsburgh's only all-female, flat-track, roller derby team.

Founded in 2006, The SCDD are new members of The Women's Flat Track Derby Association and are comprised of three teams: The Steel Hurtin' is the Varsity team, and the B-Unit and the Blitzburgh Bombers are the Junior Varsity teams

A Little History...

Roller Derby was first founded in 1935 during the Great Depression by Leo Seltzer. It started out as a long distance track race in which collisions and falls occasionally occurred. When Seltzer realized that those collisions and falls were the most exciting part of the sport for spectators, he changed the rules in order to encourage such contact. However, most of the body checks and fights were largely staged, but it didn't matter -- the fans loved it.

By the 1980s the sport rapidly declined, mostly due to the cost of travel and the competition with other forms of entertainment.

In 2001 roller derby made a comeback beginning in Austin, Texas and soon other cities followed suit by developing their own individual leagues. Roller derby is now considered a legitimate sport, but while today's leagues pay homage to the theatrical history of the sport through colorful uniforms and stage names, nothing about the sport is fake anymore -- the elbow throwing and body checks are all very real.

Roller derby today...

According to the SCDD Web site, "With a post-feminist, punk-inspired DIY (do-it-yourself) ethos and a hearty helping of raunchy rock'n'roll, this ain't your grandpa's roller derby. Gone are the co-ed teams (in favor of red hot, girl-on-girl action). Traditional time-out penalties have been replaced with a spin of the much-dreaded Penalty Wheel, which dispenses wild consequences, from spankings to spontaneous karaoke, for fouls committed during play."

They may look like something out of Rocky Horror, but these girls have heart. The SCDD aren't just a derby team; they also act as a nonprofit organization and have donated proceeds to local women's shelters as well as to cancer research and to the Autism Center of Pittsburgh.

The SCDD are comprised of strong, independent women who aren't afraid to get down and dirty. With skaters like Sugar Plum Scary, Electric Cher and Betty Bone Crusher, you know that when going to watch the SCDD, you're going to have a rockin' rollin' good time.