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NEED FOR SPEED: First year SAIT broadcast student Gaia Willis-Owen doubles as rollergirl Lulu Cthulhu

SAIT’s Lulu Cthulhu Dominates Track

I went to watch roller derby expecting something different. Way different.

Like so many children of the ’80s, I grew up with the not-so-awesome roller derby re-runs on TV. They seemed to be riding high on the professional wrestling wave started by the likes of Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior.

The moves seemed impossible. Women would lift their opponents up and throw them completely over the railing. You could see a powerbomb and a massive clothesline in the same 30-second sequence. Pretty crazy stuff. Completely staged, but crazy nonetheless.

This is the idea I had of roller derby before I went to the recent Calgary Tattoo and Arts Festival to check the sport out.

Going in, I was told to look out for “Lulu Cthulhu”. That’s the derby name of Gaia Willis-Owen, a first-year SAIT broadcast student. Figuring I would find her on her team’s bench, I asked one of the girls where she was.

“Oh, you’ll see her,” she said.

Oh. OK. What does that mean? Is she nine feet tall? Is she horribly disfigured? I would soon find out what her teammate meant.

Looking around, I couldn’t find a “Lulu” on the back of the plaid skirt and black T-shirt uniform of any of the Calgary girls.

Waiting until the warm-up was done and the announcers started introducing the players, I finally saw her. With an athletic build, Lulu was impressive on her skates as she did her warm-up laps. But there was still a question as to why Lulu’s teammate would leave me in such suspense about her.

This is right about the time I got a lesson in what roller derby has become.

No longer the cheesy fake sport that it once was, I witnessed some truly athletic rollerskating as Lulu began to show why she was infamous.

As the scoring system in roller derby unfolds, one player called a jammer must pass the whole opposing team to put up points. The blockers skate around an oval and try to stop these jammers from scoring with body checks, teamwork and grit.

Although she can play every position, and did so during the course of the game, Lulu was most effective as a blocker.

As the rival jammer would try to pass, Lulu would explode into flight and throw a vicious legal body check rivaling anything Dion Phaneuf or Scott Stevens has done on the ice.

And then it happened again. And again.

Within a span of about 40-seconds I saw three members of the rival Edmonton team violently slammed to the Stampede Corral concrete floor by a hard Lulu block.

There is a reason she is so good at contact sports.

“I always played ringette and hockey,” she explained to me later over coffee. “I stopped with sports until after my daughter was born and I needed something to jolt me back into life again.”

She heard about roller derby from a documentary on TV and hasn’t looked back since.

“I find how physical it is; it’s really cathartic and exciting,” she said.

And it shows when she steps on to the hard floor of the playing area.

Lulu or Gaia – depending on the day – is truly a force to be reckoned with in a very real way.

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