CASPER — The transformation from preschool teacher, respiratory therapist and legal assistant to their on-track personas of Meladjusted, Breath Taker and Merciless Mamacita involves helmets, kneepads and a desire to hit somebody.
Hit them hard, while moving fast.
Flat-track roller derby in Wyoming is not only surviving, it’s thriving and continuing to attract women and men from all walks of life for a few hours of rowdy exercise and semi-controlled mayhem.
Casper’s A’Salt Creek Roller Derby competes with others from communities around the Cowboy State who don’t mind getting a little sweaty, a little uncouth and wear their bruises like war decorations.
While roller derby may seem like an excuse to strap on some skates and just start barreling into people, there’s a method to the madness. The aggression is funneled through moves like hip checks and blocks with the objective of keeping the opposing team’s “jammer” from passing through and scoring points.
Call it a grown-up version of red rover.
“I love the athleticism that comes with it and the fact that it really is a sport,” said Melanie Tuck, a member of the Casper team and a preschool teacher. “Miss Mel is my preschool name, and my derby name is Miss Meladjusted. It’s kind of a play on maladjusted, but it still kind of fits my life.”
Conditioning is important. Each team has a “jammer” with a star on the helmet who has the ability to score points. The other four team members play both offense and defense trying to stop the opposing jammer from getting through a rolling blockade while helping their own team’s jammer pass the opponent’s for points.
Teams competing at the Mills roller rink during a recent bout boasted names such as The Jameltoes, The Unicorns, The Drama Llamas, The Bad-ASSetts and the Hazards of Oz.
Strategy And Hitting
Believe it or not, there are other rules, and referees on skates who enforce them. Like any other sport, they call the penalties while an announcer helps the audience by calling the play-by-play as the skaters muscle their way around the track.
While brute force works, teams also employ various strategies to knock opponents out of bounds or create an opening for their jammer to score.
“There’s a lot of gameplay and strategy involved,” Tuck said. “The lead jammer can call off jam to prevent other team from scoring.”
Tuck, 40, an original member of the Casper team, said she came to the sport in 2009 through a friend’s sister who lives in California and was part of a roller derby team. The sister suggested they start one of their own.
They did, which help from a roller derby team from Laramie.
“It just took off from there,” Tuck said.
She said the pandemic interrupted scheduling and matches, and 2024 is the first year everybody is back to full schedules.
Roller derby teams in Wyoming can be found in Rock Springs, Cheyenne, Casper, Laramie, Riverton and Jackson.
Tuck said the Casper team’s season lasts from April through October. Rink availability is a major factor in how many events take place, as well as the schedule of other teams around the state. Many of the referees are shared by all the Wyoming teams.
Tuck said the Wyoming teams are regulated under the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA). There are men who play on the Casper team, but other teams in the state are all women.
“There are different rules depending on what you are signed up under WFTDA,” Tuck said. “We are not a sanctioned team, so we are an all-gender team. And some of the other teams, even though they don’t have men on their team, have allowed us to bring our teammates with us to play against them.”
Casper pre-school teacher Melanie Tuck, 40, enjoys roller derby as means of exercise and letter her get her aggression out. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Both teams form a jam to keep the jammers at left and far right, designated by stars on helmet, from getting through. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
A scoreboard at the rink keeps track of team wins and loses during the tournament. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
A referee follows the jam on the rink. Referees follow matches closely and call penalties which can send a player to the penalty box. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
A jammer speeds around the track to get back to the jam where she can score more points. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
Injuries Happen
Players need to sign liability waivers and are required to wear a helmet, mouthguard, wrist support, and elbow and knee padding.
Even so, injuries are part of the game.
A’Salt Creek team member Jessica Cotton was off her skates at a recent bout with an injury after being tripped up while playing jammer a few weeks earlier and twisting her knee. Cotton, a respiratory therapist, calls herself Breath Taker when on skates.
“I chose Breath Taker because I am really fast and I also give and take breaths from people when I am playing,” she said. “I am breath-takingly fast.”
Cotton joined the Casper team after asking a friend who looked fit what she was doing for her workouts. The answer was roller derby.
“So, I showed up for practice and somebody let me borrow their skates and I never looked back,” she said. “The next day, I went out and bought everything for roller derby, and then I just joined the team and I have been on ever since.”
Like Tuck, Cotton said she continues to do roller derby because of the relationships that are formed. There are also roles for people who don’t want to skate to become part of the roller derby community.
“Every single game we have to have 25 people who are off skates to make it go,” she said. “(There are) non-skating officials who run the penalty tracking, the scoreboards, the lineups, all the documentation for it.”
Stress Relief
At a recent Casper bout, Rock Springs’ Chelsea Lund, whose skater name is B.O.B., served as a referee on the outside of the track calling penalties. She’s been into roller derby since 2010 and likes hitting people.
“You can get out there and play hard, you could skate fast, you could hit people and then everybody is still friends after the game, so it really appealed to me,” she said.
Lund said her day job is a teacher. She finds roller derby allows her to work out some stress. Because of shoulder surgery this year, she took the referee role, but she misses contact.
“It’s been interesting finding an outlet for my stress because I haven’t actually been playing,” she said.
The Rock Springs team has 15 members, and Lund said she finds the “camaraderie” of being with a group of women rewarding, all of them trying to stop the opposing team’s jammer from scoring points.
“There is this partnership and sense of belonging that comes from working toward that goal,” she said.
Jackson skater Kristen Heikkila, 40, also was enjoying her time in Casper as Merciless Mamacita. She said she chose the name because during her first derby season several years ago, she learned she was pregnant.
“I was trying to incorporate being a mama into my name and make it sound tough,” she said.
Heikkila had a friend in Idaho who did roller derby in 2012, and when she learned Jackson was starting a team, she joined too.
As chief legal assistant at the county attorney’s office in Jackson, she loves the “therapy” of being on the track and “getting hit and giving a hit.” She also appreciates the culture and family-like support she gets from her roller derby teammates.
“It’s a way to sweat it out and have the support of my teammates when I am going through stuff,” she said.
Members of the Cheyenne roller derby team became the Hazards of Oz for the Mills tournament. They are from left, Amber Brandt, Sam Lejeune, Melanie Pace, Nicole Romine, and Megan Copple. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Members of the Skate n Bake team try to keep the jammer from the opposing team, kneeling at right, from scoring points. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
A skater at right, puts a block on the opposing team’s jammer, designated with the star on her helmet. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
The Wagon Wheel roller rink in Mills, Wyoming, is the home rising for the Casper-based A’Salt Creek Roller Derby team. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
The Drama Llamas team includes a member with an ominous name. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
‘Hazards Of Oz’
Members of the Cheyenne roller derby team arrived at Casper’s event as the Hazards of Oz.
They were all dressed in characters from the classic movie with Cheyenne’s Melanie Pace taking on her alter ego, Dandy Lion.
Teammate Sam Lejeune, the Scarlet Witch, said she enjoys the fact that she can hit people on the rink and afterward be friends. She works as a systems analyst at a hospital in Cheyenne. She said her team also has an attorney and farmer.
“We run the gamut with jobs from all walks of life. It’s awesome,” she said.
Tuck said those interested in joining adult teams must be at least 18. Some teams have junior squads. Skating is not a prerequisite; members will teach people how to skate.
Tuck has seen skaters in their 70s get on the rink.
“There is no age limit, there is no body type, it is for everyone if you put the work into it,” she said. “ You just need the heart to do it. We teach everyone to skate, and you do have to have a little bit of aggression because you do have to hit people.
“So, if you are scared to hit somebody, then it’s probably not for you.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
