Summers Eve-L | photo by M. Cogswell

When a young competitive figure skater is all grown up and the sequined outfits are embarrassing, not endearing, what sport can she turn to for a competitive outlet? If you’re Ann Arbor resident Tracy Toepfer, better known as Summers Eve-L, the choice is pretty obvious.

“Aggressive sports were always a part of our family,” says the 5-foot-4 blocker for the Devil’s Night Dames of the Detroit Derby Girls roller derby league. “Some of my friends think I have the temperament and attitude for the sport.”

From skating princess to derby queen, Summers Eve-L has a chance to win her first Detroit Derby Girls league championship on Saturday at Cobo Arena.

“I want to sip champagne in the locker room after the game then go to a kick ass after-party,” she says.

Skating princess to derby queen

It was a long-running joke between Toepfer and her friends that if roller derby ever made a comeback, she would be perfect for the sport. Short but powerful, with an athletic build and years of competitive skating experience in her muscle memory, she also had a mean enough disposition to relish the contact essential to successful roller derby.

Little Summers Eve-L / photo courtesy of the Toepfers

Toepfer (pronounced Tep-fur) read an article in Bust magazine the Gotham Girls Roller Derby, a New York City roller derby league.

“I was so jealous,” Toepfer says. She was going to be in New York City on business and decided to check out a bout. In the process of looking at the schedule online, she saw a link to an upstart roller derby league in Detroit. Toepfer watched one practice and was hooked. She signed up immediately.

Toepfer isn’t what you’d expect a roller derby all-star to be. She grew up in Dearborn Heights, graduated from the prestigious College for Creative Studies in Detroit and moved to Ann Arbor (“I love this city!”) to work with the local interactive development firm Enlighten where she serves as associate creative director. Toepfer and her colleagues work with Nickelodeon, Audi, the Food Network, HBO and Sony. She’s kind of a big deal.

Toepfer works in an office by day and skates by night. As in her academic and professional life, Toepfer rose to the top in roller derby. Playing for the Devil’s Night Dames, she quickly found her place as a blocker, using her aggressiveness, quick feet and sneaky hip checks to make a name for herself. In her first season, the Derby Girls travel team asked Toepfer if she was interested in joining up to compete against other derby all-star teams across the country. She jumped at the chance.

“Roller derby is like football without the ball”

“Roller derby is kind of like football without the ball,” says Toepfer. “Maybe like football if the ball was a human being.”

The ball is the “jammer” - the speediest badass on the team. It’s the jammer’s job to pass as many opposing players as possible in a two-minute period. Blockers (like Toepfer) assist their team’s jammer while trying to stop the other team’s jammer from passing them.

“There’s quite a bit of contact,” says Toepfer. Safety is important. No elbowing, tripping, punching or holding is allowed. Hip checks and shoulders are okay, but you won’t see a lot of professional wrestling clotheslines or body slams.

“I’m short, so I’m good at throwing hip checks at the sweet spot in someone’s thigh,” says Toepfer. As we speak, I feel my quadriceps twitch at the thought of such unfortunate trauma.

What to expect when you're expecting (a brawl)

If you want to sound knowledgeable about the sport, call roller derby games “bouts," just like boxing. The sport carries with it certain preconceived notions.

“It’s cliché that roller derby is for the tattooed rock and roll crowd,” says Toepfer. “Really, it’s grandmas, and babies and business people. Everyone you can imagine. The variety of humanity is impressive. People come expecting something and fall in love with the sport, not the novelty. Roller derby bouts are some of the best places to people watch.”

Injuries occur, but Toepfer counts herself fortunate to have remained healthy for most of her career. There is that incident in Austin. During the first two minutes of the opening bout at the 2007 national championships, Toepfer suffered her only major injury. Playing the top-ranked team in the tournament, the Rat City Rollergirls from Seattle, Toepfer was tripped and tore her hamstring.

“I didn’t want to go to the hospital,” Toepfer says. “I self-medicated with pain pills and beer. I still had a good time. I rode a rickshaw through the streets of Austin to the afterparty. It was fun.”

“Flattening strangers is more fun”

When Toepfer competes for the Dames, she battles girls who she’s come to know over the years, some of who compete on the travel team alongside her.

“Each of the four teams in our league has a distinct personality,” she says. “In the end they’re all your friends, which makes it hard to play against them. I love travel team because it’s a chance to unite as a league and there’s not as much guilt when you flatten someone.”

Sweet hip check | Photo by Collin Johnson

Her first goal is to win the league championship. Since the inaugural season of the Detroit Derby Girls, only two teams have won the league title - the Detroit Pistoffs and the Pistol Whippers. This year, the Pistoffs and the Pistol Whippers will be in the stands watching as the Devil’s Night Dames and the D-Funk All-Stars duke it out.

“It’s exciting that one team will win for the first time,” says Toepfer. “It’s good to have our sisters in suffering with us for the final bout.”

True bragging rights are reserved for nationals. That’s when the best of Detroit pits itself against the best that the rest of the nation has to offer. There are 78 teams in four regions in the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA), not to mention 48 teams in the WFTDA apprentice program. The Gotham City Roller Girls are tough. The Texas Rollergirls out of Austin are always a major player. The Olly Rollers out of Olympia, Wash. and Rat City are powerhouses. The association is full of teams with names like Assassination City (Dallas), No Coast Derby Girls (Lincoln, Neb.), Burning River Rollergirls (Cleveland) and the Lava City Roller Dolls (Bend, Ore.). Competition is fierce.

The Detroit Derby Girls are usually among the top 10 teams in the nation. They’re currently ranked #12 in the nation and #2 in the North Central region. Teams compete to qualify for regionals, then battle it out to advance to nationals. Last year, the Olly Rollers defeated the Texas Rollergirls for the national title. Could this be the year for Detroit?

Can roller derby work work in Ann Arbor?

With the steady growth of roller derby, leagues are popping up all over the map. Leagues from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Kitchener, Ontario, have joined the WFTDA apprentice program. In our own backyard, the Ann Arbor Derby Dimes are trying to get a league off the ground. The fledgling group is holding a meeting on Monday at Arbor Brewing Co. looking to round up skaters and volunteers for the new league.

“I hope it works,” Toepfer says. “I’d love to see the sport grow. There are teams in smaller towns than Ann Arbor. The trick is getting it all started. Ann Arbor is close to Detroit, so it could dilute our talent base, but because there are established leagues in the area, Ann Arbor will get plenty of help. I’m sure we’ll help their skaters, refs, statisticians and pitch in where they need help. We’re all a pretty tight family.”

Toepfer will transform into Summers Eve-L Saturday night and try to help the Dames capture their first league title. The D-Funk All-Stars are favored, but that won’t stop Summers Eve-L from laying the smackdown.

“Anything can happen,” says Toepfer. Like an ice skating princess growing up to be a roller derby queen.

(Richard Retyi is not an ice skating princess nor a roller derby anything. It’s his secret shame as a Canadian that he can’t skate very well. You should check out the Ann Arbor Derby Dimes meeting on Monday. They’ll be looking for skaters and volunteers. Feel free to email Rich at richretyi@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at Twitter.com/nixonlived. Oh, and read more stuff here and here.)