Maine Roller Derby retires Calamity Janes team name

Friends, Family, and Fans, we wanted to talk today about an important change coming for Maine Roller Derby’s
Home Team Season. As we know, our state is taking the lead in many changes to improve the lives of its citizens, including the Indigenous people whose land we occupy. Our international governing body, the WFTDA, has also been hard at work on training and education around improving diversity and inclusion practices. With these actions happening throughout the roller derby community, we looked inward to consider our own actions and policies to ensure we are also moving forward.

This consideration led us to look at the home team The Calamity Janes. Though this name has history with our league, the historical narrative for the person of “Calamity Jane,” or Martha Jane Cannary, is more complicated and challenging. Martha Jane was a frontierswoman, born and raised during the westward expansion. Though the truth to her history is clouded with tall tales and conflicting accounts, she claimed to ride with General Custer and the US military to hunt the Indigenous people of the plains.

In solidarity with the increased awareness and advocacy for Indigenous people in our state and country we move to retire the team name of Calamity Janes and as a league decide on a new name that better represents our values as a league. Our next steps in the process is to discover the new name for our “Red” home team. Something that embodies our spirit and celebrates our culture. We look forward to sharing the new team name and logo in the near future.

Regarding the Mascot Bill: “The bill, L.D. 944, would prohibit any public school or college in Maine from adopting “a name, symbol or image that depicts or refers to a Native American tribe, individual, custom or tradition” for use as a mascot, logo, nickname or team name, as well as on letterhead.”