The Windy City Rollers is Chicago’s premier all-female flat track derby league. As a figure skater, the Ultimate Sports Wife was asked to join the team a couple of years ago and always wanted to attend one of their “bouts.” However, the problem with prior seasons was that the league skated at The Stadium in Cicero – a bit of a jaunt for an evening from Wrigley Field.

This season the team moved to the UIC Pavilion (home of the Chicago Sky and UIC Flames) and began selling their tickets on ticketmaster.com. Not to mention their tickets are $20 each! These three facts made their event more attractive to attend.

On Saturday night, the Ultimate Sports Wife and I decided to attend the Windy City Rollers Bout #3 after missing the first two. In my opinion the event is relatively expensive although the crowd was pretty decent so maybe they are charging the right price. There is no discount on parking which costs $13 and the tickets are $21 from the box office window ($16 if you have a student id).

The Bout
The first bout was between Double Crossers and The Fury. The second bout was between Hell’s Belles and Manic Attackers. Roller Derby bouts are split up into two halves in which the second bout waits during the first half of the first bout and vice versa. The rules of roller derby are pretty simple. Five players from each team are on the track – one pivot, three blockers and one jammer. Jammers start 20 feet behind the pack and attempt to race through the pack to gain lead jammer status. The lead jammer then attempts to accrue points by passing blockers from the opposing team. At the end of the night, Double Crossers defeated The Fury 98-81 and Hell’s Belles defeated Manic Attackers 107-78.

Post Game Dining
We briefly considered heading to the official post-bout party at Bottom Lounge. However, the best part about attending an event at the UIC Pavilion is eating in Little Italy. Thus, we decided to eat dinner at Tufano’s Vernon Park Tap located at 1073 W. Vernon Park Pl. Tufano’s is conveniently located on the other side of UIC Pavilion’s parking lot. Thus, we walked from the arena to the restaurant and back to the parking lot after dinner.

Just over one mile from the UIC Pavilion is Greektown where we went to Dugan’s Drinking Emporium located at 128 S. Halsted St. Dugan’s actually had Saturday night drink specials which are sometimes hard to find in Chicago.