Scraped knees and fishnets

Her name is Mollie Tuff Cocktail, and it ain’t by accident. In this flamboyant sport of grit, flare and skates, the name is nearly as important as the costume, and the official registry of roller derby skating names is a hallowed institution.

“It’s unbelievable,” says Corinna Owens, public relations representative for the Ventura County Derby Darlins and a member of that team for one year. While scanning an online national registry, she laments the time fusing puns and intimidating buzz-words, only to realize her top choices for a moniker have already been claimed.

“You think you’re being so incredibly intelligent and quick-witted,” she says.

On Oct. 27, the Derby Darlins, coached by Celtic Cowgirl, hosted its first major intramural event, the Battle for the Coast 2007 Roller Derby Tournament. Owens has a rather historic connection to roller derby, which dates back to the Depression era: Her great aunt was a Thunderbird Skater when such an association was “unbecoming for a young woman.” Decades later, when Owens found roller derby to be a perfect fit, she had little opportunity to join. After a friend stumbled upon the Derby Darlins’ MySpace page, a somewhat skeptical Owens held her breath and hoped for the best, knowing how difficult it would be to actually form a league. When practices began, she showed up with bells on.

“It kind of takes over all of our lives,” she says.

The 35-year-old single mother with a full-time job on the side dispels popular misconceptions about “derby.” Although in the 1970s and ’80s, flamboyant dress and tournament shenanigans gave the sport a laughable, “theatrical” edge where, Owens says, “It looked a lot like wrestling and got kind of cheesy,” full contact outside of the game is never staged.

A team consists of four “blockers” and one “jammer.” The two teams skate counter-clockwise around the rink and try to prevent the opposing jammer from getting through their pack. Each time she does and successfully completes a lap around the track, she scores a point.

All the elbowing, violent hip-checking and vicious posturing ensues.

Owens, now in her first year with the league, lists a fractured ankle, broken tailbone and pulled muscles as her own collateral damage.

“Let’s face it: You get 30 or 40 girls together, you’re gonna have cattiness and everything else,” she says. “There are fights, and the injuries are real.”

Which is not to say that glitzier spectacle has disappeared entirely from the rink.

“To be honest, how exciting is it to see some girl skate around in a circle?” Owens says. “It’s kind of like football. There has to be some draw to it.”

That draw is generally costuming, and the roller derby norm is generally fishnets and short skirts, with funny things written on athletes’ under-garb to enhance the spectacle of seeing them wipe out.

But although throwing on intimidating, femme-warrior threads and hitting the deck with a vengeance might seem a relatively primal way to blow off steam, the formation of Ventura’s own league has been more bureaucratic than badass. Establishing the correct insurance, and finding a permanent home, as well as solidifying nonprofit status, “has been a huge undertaking,” Owens says.

But she says the Ventura County Derby Darlins are now solidly based in Camarillo’s Freedom Park Roller Hockey Rink. The sport has been made more legitimate by the formation of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA). Becoming a WFTDA-sanctioned league, eligible to compete on the national level, is the goal of any amateur league worth its weight in salt.

Now firmly established in the county, Owens sees “derby” as a positive outlet for young women especially and, for all the bone-crunching, sees the benefit of the league as twofold: first, as a charitable organization focused on sports and women’s coalitions.

Secondly, it’s group therapy.

“It’s kind of where you can release your inner vixen, or villain, or whatever character you want to be, and people will embrace it,” Owens says, “but it’s also really positive.”

She adds, “There are some girls that have had some less-than-perfect home lives, and roller derby is like an extended family, very inviting and accepting and encouraging. I’ve had girls tell me, ‘This is my life right now. This is where I fit in and where I'm OK.’ ”

Derby Darlins players run the social gamut, and businesswomen, waitresses, students and professionals are all represented on the team. And the only age cap, Owens insists, is “if you can put on a pair of skates and your body can take it.”

Last week’s tournament included vendors, live music, three 20-minute periods, more than 120 real live derby girls and an awards period, presenting such accolades as Best Rink Rash and Best Character.

“Hopefully, it’s going to be an annual event to get all the California leagues here,” Owens says.

And although, like the sport, the future of derby in Ventura County is unpredictable, Owens says, “I hope it stays around at least long enough for my 8-year-old to make it onto the league.”