It’s trivia night at your local bar, and you’re asked to name a sport that emerged in the 1930s, sold out stadiums and arenas and graced network television stations multiple times per week. Oh, and it was played by men and women — together.

Chances are the answer “roller derby” would not roll off your tongue. But the wildly

popular “rugby on wheels” was once a national — and even worldwide — sensation.

While traditional sports have since usurped roller derby’s stardom, the sport continues to be played globally, and its focus on inclusivity has remained untouched.

Today there are 443 member leagues operating in cities across six continents, including in Colorado Springs.

Natalie Wirt is president of Pikes Peak Roller Derby, a nonprofit league founded in 2005.

“I think what folks like about roller derby is that it’s a nontraditional sport that’s aggressive in nature. It’s a good outlet for frustration from everyday life,” Wirt said.

Born out of the desperation for entertainment during the Depression, roller derby made its debut Aug. 13, 1935, at the Chicago Coliseum.

The brainchild of Leo Seltzer, a Chicago sports promoter who learned that 90% of Americans at that time owned skates, derby began as a walkathon on skates before evolving a few years later to a full-contact, track-based game of skill.

Requiring strategy, brute strength, athleticism and a modicum of violence, roller derby teams were composed of men and women playing on the same team, by the exact same, full-contact rules.

It quickly grew in popularity, becoming a paid, professional sport that attracted fans around the world. In fact, more than 27,000 people packed Shea Stadium in 1973 for the triple-header world championships.

After a dip in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s, a group of women in Austin, Texas, revived the sport in 2001 and added some flair.

Taking a note from Austin’s drag and punk scenes, the league encouraged players to wear colorful, attention-grabbing outfits, don bold makeup and create clever alter egos using “punny” names. The league also moved from a banked to a flat track, and teams around the world began to pop up following this model.

That spirit lives on at Pikes Peak Roller Derby, where you’ll see names such as Slugs-n-kisses, Count Smackula, trisarahtops and Pepper Slay.

“It’s purely creative on the part of the skater,” said Wirt, who goes by Cherri Springer.

“Back in the very beginning, there used to be a roster that was maintained where you had to cross check your name and not duplicate with anyone who played roller derby. However, with the spread of roller derby, that’s impossible.”

The present-day governing body of roller derby — the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association — was formed in 2004. Pikes Peak Roller Derby joined the association upon its founding.

The local roller derby league is made up of five teams — three home teams and two travel teams. Its all-star team is the only one that plays for a ranking within the WFTDA. The league also created a junior team last year, which is coed.

“Everything falls under the umbrella of Pikes Peak Roller Derby as a league, so we’re all league mates even though we may be on different teams,”

Wirt said.

Derby is played with 10 players on a flat track at one time. Each team has one jammer — designated with a star on their helmet — who scores the points, and four blockers who attempt to prevent the other team’s jammer from scoring points, as well as helping to clear a path for their jammer.

The games, called bouts, last 60 minutes, broken into two-minute jams. A point is scored for each opposing blocker that a team’s jammer passes.

Unlike the early years where limbs and bodies flew everywhere, there is no punching, kicking or throwing elbows and no contact with another player’s helmet or below the knee. As many as seven referees — four on the track and up to three outside the track — make sure these rules are followed.

Perhaps the most important aspect of roller derby is the family it builds, Wirt said.

“It builds a family, our teams. Nowadays we start with a boot camp for our new skaters and that’s where they really start building a community,” Wirt said. “It’s that sense of community when we get together and do parades and events, not just skate together, that I think appeals to a lot of people.”