From The Detroit News by Liz Hill:

Detroit's roller derby league is crashy, trashy fun for everyone

For a sport that involves so much trash talk, so many violent crashes and a ton of broken bones and blood, Detroit's rough-and-tumble all-female roller derby league is surprisingly family friendly. Maybe that's because most of the participants -- despite nicknames like Lady McDeath, Juicy Contusion and Summer's Evil -- have families of their own.

Christy Schoonover, 33, is called Cat's Meow when she's whizzing around the track in the Masonic Temple's third-floor drill hall, where the Detroit Derby Girls play their home bouts, but off the track, she's just Aunt Christy, or Mom.

Schoonover's team, the D-Funk Allstars, lost their bout with the Pistolwhippers at the championship doubleheader last Saturday, but her 4-month-old daughter Alice -- aka Kitten Meow -- didn't seem to mind. Even amid a raucous crowd of costumed children, proud parents and random booze-fueled fans.

"It's a sisterhood," says Schoonover, who has been skating (and shoving and sneering) with the derby girls since February 2005. "I feel like I'm in a sorority and a gang, all rolled into one. You can take out your aggression. ... But you can also bring your family here -- my two nieces come out, my parents, my husband."

But it's not all pats on the back and singing "Kumbaya." Some people just like to watch a rumble.

"I just like competition," says Jeff Skaistis, 23, who has also attended home bouts of the Kalamazoo Derby Darlins.

Skaistis' friend, Grace Gahmin, 20, is a little more blunt. "I like seeing girls fight," she says.

To read the full story, please go to The Detroit News