Fort Wayne Roller Derby (FWRD) is an Open Gender flat track roller derby league based in

Fort Wayne, Indiana Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Censu ...

. Founded in 2005 originally as Fort Wayne Derby Girls, the league currently consists of a women’s team and an open gender team that compete against teams from all over the United States and Canada. Fort Wayne Roller Derby is a member of the

Women's Flat Track Derby Association The Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) is the international governing body for the sport of women's flat track roller derby, and association of leagues around the world. The organization was founded in April 2004 as the United Leagues Co ...

(WFTDA).

History

FWDG was the first flat track roller derby league in

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

, founded in October 2005 by Danielle Nicolette (Abbott), who skates under the

derby name A derby name, roller derby name or skater name is a nickname used by a skater while playing or officiating roller derby. Derby names can be seen as an opportunity to adopt an alternative on-track persona. Many derby names are puns, and in some c ...

"Little D Evil" and Tonya Vojtkofsky, who skated as "Minx", after they saw the Rat City Rollergirls in Seattle. The league played its first exhibition bout in May 2006, to a crowd of 1,200 fans. According to Amber Recker, the first skater to respond to Minx's call for a new team, "We kind of had to get butts in seats by playing up the fighting and more of the sexy aspect of it. As we've evolved... we're much more sports driven". FWDG first played a team from another league in January 2007, when it took on the Gem City Rollergirls, and, in the same month, it joined the

, (and was announced as a new member by the WFTDA in May 2007) and by the end of the year was ranked 29th in the WFTDA.Current WFTDA Rankings
, ''

Derby News Network Derby News Network (DNN), based in Baltimore, was an internet broadcast network, founded in 2007, which featured the women's skating sport of roller derby. DNN used the internet to collect remote streaming video Video on demand (VOD) is a med ...

'', October 2007 In 2009, it formed a B team, scrapping its intraleague teams. In 2013, Fort Wayne hosted a WFTDA Division 1 Playoff at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. FWDG hosts the annual Spring Roll tournament, featuring women's, men's and junior roller derby games.

WFTDA competition

While Fort Wayne has hosted a WFTDA Playoff tournament they have yet to qualify to compete at one.

Rankings

In the community

The league also focuses on charitable fundraising, and had donated more than $26,000 to charities by June 2008, and $110,000 by September 2013.

References

{{Fort Wayne, Indiana Sports in Fort Wayne, Indiana Roller derby leagues established in 2005 Roller derby leagues in Indiana 2005 establishments in Indiana