VALLEY DOLLS

WASILLA — By day, ”Dolla Billz” is an officer at Northrim Bank. “Anita Lobotomy” studies to be a microbiologist. And “Sinda Freek’n Rella” designs children’s clothes and works as a nanny.

A few nights a week, however, they don protective pads, pricey roller skates, decorative helmets and creative alter egos to become the Valley’s first roller derby girls — the Denali Destroyer Dolls.

Founded and led by a well-known fixture at a local chamber of commerce who calls herself “Jane Bondage,“ the Triple Ds are 42 strong already in less than a year.

Ranging in age from 21 to 49, the Dolls come with a variety of skill levels, skating experiences and physical strengths. But they all seem to be in it for the same reasons: fitness, fun, friendship and fantasy.

But it’s not a sport for the faint of heart or muscle.

“Everybody gives 110 percent,” Bondage said Friday during a rather grueling two-hour practice at Pioneer Peak Elementary. “There are a lot of things that every one of these women could be doing other than being here, but they’re dedicated enough to give it their all every time. I have an administrator, I have a teacher, I have a graphic artist, I have a nurse practitioner, I have an executive banker, I have an executive director, I have people who work part-time, people who work full-time and I have moms who stay at home.”

Bondage hatched the idea of bringing roller derby to the Valley after seeing the Rage City Roller Girls at a bout in Anchorage two years ago.

“I was completely mesmerized by what they were doing and how they did it,” she said of the league that’s been the leader in Alaska roller derby for the past four years.

She learned that, for the most part, roller derby has become less of a blood sport in the last 30 years. There’s much less of the staged, WWE-type of action on banked tracks of the 1970s, though there are a few places in the world, such as Australia and London, that continue that tradition, she said.

She said there might even be a group starting at Royal Skate in Anchorage that is keeping with the traditional “beat-the-crud-out-of-you” attitude.

“We won’t skate them,” she said. “Borderlining on assault is not where we want to be. It doesn’t do anybody any good. Just because you can beat someone up doesn’t mean you should.”

These days, the sport is more about strategy, endurance, skill, and creativity on flat tracks. It requires lots of training, dedication, commitment and competitiveness, while also making safety the No. 1 priority.

“It’s still a bruiser sport,” Bondage explained. “There are still a lot of falls and the occasional broken bone. But we train to be as strong and as safe as we possibly can to minimize injuries.”

Sinda Freek’n Rella knows all too well how dangerous it still can be. During the league’s first scrimmage in the Pioneer Peak gym against one of the Anchorage teams April 2, the 30-year-old blonde beauty collided with another skater and smashed into a metal door, dislocating her ankle and breaking bones in her left foot.

Nine screws and a plate later, she is forced to sit on the sidelines for at least the next five months, she said.

Born and raised in the Valley, the former ballerina hadn’t skated since she was a kid and loved the freedom and camaraderie she felt on her derby skates. She’d even purchased a ticket for the Dolls’ trip to the biggest roller derby event in the world, Rollercon, in Las Vegas in July.

“I have all these medical bills now and I don’t have insurance,” she said with a nervous giggle. “I was thinking I should get insurance, but I wanted to wait until we actually started having real bouts. I figured I’d be fine until then. Guess I jinxed myself.”

Dolla Billz, on the other hand, was celebrating the fact that she’ll get the cast removed from her left arm Monday.

It was the second time she’d injured herself roller-skating. The first time was when she was in the second grade. She broke her left arm then. This time it was just her left wrist.

But she still loves the sport and hopes her young daughter, dubbed “Four Quarters,” sees it as an inspiration.

“I used to race legend cars at North Star Speedway, but my husband and I decided last year it was time to do something else,” she said as her daughter, MeKenna, used a tennis ball to clean off the black scuff marks from the gym floor at the end of the evening. “She’s seeing that it’s a strong, independent women’s sport. It’s not like racing, where it’s dominated by males. I figure if I can make it in that world, this is cake.”

Even 35-year-old graphic artist “Tundra Wookie” manages to find a niche serving as a referee after undergoing hip replacement surgery last summer.

Suffering from osteoarthritis passed down through her family, Wookie still works out with the Dolls two nights a week and hopes her 18-year-old daughter decides to join her on the track when she’s older.

“She can’t skate until she’s 21, but she’s been helping ref,” she said. “She’s on the verge of trying to decide if this is for her or not. It hurts. Learning to skate hurts. But every time you put your skates on, you learn something new and conquer something else.”

One mother of two known as “Jett Black” said she feels being a derby girl is her destiny after discovering her mother was on a roller derby team in Oklahoma in the 1970s.

Wearing skimpy, hip-hugger shorts with “Betty Boop” scrawled on the rear, Jett can’t think of anything else she’d rather be doing as a hobby.

And her parents couldn’t prouder of her, she said.

“When I called my dad in Kenai and told him I joined a derby team, he started crying,” Jett said.

It’s that sort of positive attitude that Bondage loves to see in her Dolls. She’s hoping the league can become officially sanctioned by August and compete locally for fans soon thereafter.

And she expects the Triple Ds to be around for many years to come.

“We want this to be a long-term thing here that will eventually split into two separate teams under the Destroyer Dolls umbrella,” she said, explaining they would be called The Mat-Su Maidens and The Valley Vixens and would still be involved in local charities and fund-raisers that benefit the community. “Last week we collected more than 1,000 pounds of canned goods and nonperishables for the Wasilla Food Pantry. And next month we’re raising money for a North Pole derby girl who has stage two breast cancer. So we’re not only helping improve our own lives with a fun, healthy activity, but the lives of others as well.”

For more information on the local roller derby league, visit denalidestroyers.org.

Contact K.T. McKee at kate.McKee@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.