Muncie, 2023: Smalltown Smackdown
The last time we were in Muncie, Indiana, I was rooting for Barbed Wire Roller Derby (née the Barbed Wire Betties) of DeKalb, Illinois. This time it was Chicago-Style Roller Derby (née the DuPage Derby Dames + Chicago Outfit).
So much has changed over the last three years that it feels like roller derby has been in mothballs for decades. The last overnight road trip we had taken — driving road trip, that is — was also to Muncie for that 2019 Smalltown Smackdown. So, winding through the Indiana state highways, those three pandemic years now seem like a grim and ridiculously blurry dream state.
CSRD was not scheduled to play until Game 4. The host league, Cornfed Roller Derby (née Cornfed Derby Dames; yeah, like the Cramps’ tune) waited for their own 2023 Cornament debut in Game 3.
Northeast of Indianapolis, Muncie is the home of Ball State University of the NCAA’s Mid-American Conference (MAC). Being a MAC product myself, having graduated from Northern Illinois University a few lives ago, I have an almost instinctual affection for these communities, like DeKalb, Muncie, Kalamazoo and Kent, Ohio. While these cities host rival collegiate conference sports programs, I like to believe that we all share some level of sympathies for each other’s teams in their respective interconference competitions, like the GoDaddy(dot)com Bowl and other…
