If somebody were to summarize hockey into a single sentence, one might use the following: a sixty-minute contact sport played on skates with the potential of extra person advantages. That same sentence can describe the sport of flat-track roller derby.

Today, we look at the latter as we learn how roller derby is played compared to the sport we all love, hockey.

Looking at the core of both sports, the most glaring similarity is that they are played on skates. The major difference is the type of skate used. While hockey is played with inline skates, roller derby prohibits the use of inline skates and instead opts for traditional roller skates.

Breaking down the core, we look at things such as roster size and positional play. For roller derby, a roster consists of 15 skaters. This is three fewer skaters than the typical 18 that will dress in the majority of hockey leagues.

Much like hockey, roller derby players fill different offensive and defensive positions within their clubs. For roller derby, a team will have up to five skaters on the track at any given time and those skaters will be broken into three different positions: the jammer, blockers, and pivot. Each of these positions is discernible to the audience via their helmet decals while on the track.

Similar to hockey, a roller derby has a 60-minute match time. The difference is how that match time is broken up: for roller derby, they split their 60 minutes into two 30-minute periods.

These 30-minute periods are broken down even further into multiple shifts known as jams.

Every jam is a maximum of two minutes, but any jam can be called short via the lead jammer initiating the jam-ending sequence.

How this works is when the first jammer for a team breaks out from the pack they are signaled by the officials as the lead jammer. The positive side of being the lead jammer is that it allows that player full control of the point swing in a specific jam.

Their goal becomes maximizing their own team’s points while looking for the perfect time to end the jam which would minimize any points their opposition could achieve in that jam. To end the jam, the lead jammer signals to the officials by consistently tapping their hips in consecutive order.

Roller derby is a contact sport. Much like hockey, contact comes with limits and if you perform an illegal check, such as a hit to the head area, a player will be assessed a penalty.

Penalties result in a trip to the box for a maximum of 30 seconds for a given player. If that player is a blocker or pivot, the opposing jammer will gain an extra point each time they lap the other team’s first blocker.

If the penalized player is a jammer, then the non-penalized team will go on what is known as a power jam.

A power jam allows only one team to score which can swing a bout in a given team’s favor. Jammers must still be careful in this situation as only one jammer is allowed in the penalty box at a given time. If the active jammer was assessed a penalty during a power jam it would release the penalized jammer, and result in the other team going on a power jam.

Any skater in a bout is allowed to be penalized up to six times. On a seventh penalty, that player will be removed for the remainder of the match.

With the off-season for most hockey leagues in full swing, the similarities between roller derby and hockey could be just what the doctor ordered for fans looking to find a summer sport they can enjoy in their local area.

Whether you are looking to play or watch, the roller derby associations have a plethora of resources and information for either women’s, men’s, or junior derby on their respective association's websites.