Rolling with the punches

By Ron Kantowski

Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 | 2 a.m.

The last time anybody saw the banked roller derby track in Patrick and Lali Outhoummountry’s back yard in northwest Las Vegas it looked like a pretzel, or an ampersand with twisted metal hanging from it. It was virtually destroyed by a mighty wind storm in June 2008.

It was a sad day for local roller derby when Mother Nature called off the jam.

But Patrick and Lali O. — her roller derby name, for reasons that should be clear — had the banked track, one of the few remaining on the West Coast and star of the opening scene of the first “Charlie’s Angels” movie, rebuilt at a cost of about $30,000. Their homeowners’ insurance paid for part of it. Patrick and Lali O. paid for the rest. It was a small price to pay, Lali O. said, to keep alive her dream of holding an old-school, banked-track roller derby match in Las Vegas.

That dream becomes a reality at 7 p.m. Saturday when the suitably named Las Vegas High Rollers will host the Los Angeles Black Hawks at the Las Vegas Roller Hockey Center, where the track will be assembled.

It’ll be just like old-time roller derby with the exception that legendary Charlie O’Connell won’t be skating. But “Charlie O.” of the famous San Francisco Bay Bombers does appear on the old-school poster commemorating the event, and the coincidental use of the letter “O” in their names has many roller derby fans wondering if Charlie O. and Lali O. have more in common than their skating pastimes.

“They think he’s my father,” Lali O. said.

Another roller derby legend, Patsy Delgado, was expected to skate with the Hawks before recently undergoing surgery. But one of the sport’s biggest heels — team “owner” Mizz Georgia Hase — will reprise that role as the antagonistic leader of the visitors.

She’ll probably be the one you want to throw your program at.

Barring Raquel Welch showing up in her form-fitting Kansas City Bombers jersey, Lali O. said she doesn’t expect to break even on her first foray as a roller derby promoter.

“But kids love it,” she said, and if the High Rollers and Hawks can rumble around the banked track and make a few of them smile Saturday, it will have been worth the effort.