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Amelia Faretra, nicknamed Eliza Jamilton, skates.

Heather Faretra, nicknamed “Stormy Heather,” was the first in the family to join a local roller derby league.

From left, Amelia Faretra, Heather Faretra, and Hannah Faretra, pose in their derby gear.

Action tends to clump together on the track at a New Hampshire Roller Derby League event.

Amelia Faretra, nicknamed Eliza Jamilton, skates.

Heather Faretra, nicknamed “Stormy Heather,” was the first in the family to join a local roller derby league.

From left, Amelia Faretra, Heather Faretra, and Hannah Faretra, pose in their derby gear.

Action tends to clump together on the track at a New Hampshire Roller Derby League event.

The Faretra girls of Methuen — mom Heather and her daughters Hannah and Amelia — are preparing to compete together in the New Hampshire Roller Derby League.

Heather Faretra, nicknamed “Stormy Heather,” was the first in the family to join. She’s a veteran skater now, competing as a blocker since 2015. She learned about the sport by chance, she said, when she came across tickets to a roller derby game.

“I didn’t even know roller derbies were real,” the 48-year-old said. “I thought it was just in movies and cartoons.”

Roller derby is a fast-paced competition played on a flat, oval track, with two 30-minute periods. In each period there are multiple units of play called “jams,” which last up to two minutes. There are 30 seconds between each.

There are only five players on the track at a time — four “blockers” and one “jammer.” Jammers, who are generally the faster skaters, score the points for their team by passing the blockers, grouped together as “the pack,” on the other team.

It’s a tough, fast-paced and physical game.

A rugby player in college, Heather Faretra is now a special education teacher who missed playing contact sports.

She joined the New Hampshire league soon after seeing her first game.

Amelia Faretra, Heather’s 18-year-old daughter, followed in her footsteps.

She started in a junior league, competing as both a jammer and a blocker, before progressing to the adult league.

She has since earned the nickname “Eliza Jamilton,” and plans to keep skating even after beginning classes at Simmons University come fall.

“We’re trying to figure out a plan for me to get to practice,” she said. “I still want to do it.”

Hannah, 22, is nicknamed “Hannibal Wrecked-Her.” She joined the sport most recently — in June.

She had always been impressed by her mother and sister, she said, and with their insistence, she laced up her own skates.

Hannah Faretra is starting in the rookie training camp but hopes to be able to play in the top league later this summer. She describes herself as a natural athlete and a 4-year member of the rowing team at the University of Rhode Island. She’s finishing up her doctorate degree now while also squeezing in her new roller derby training.

“It’s the one fun thing I get to fit into my schedule, so I make time for it,” she said.

The mother-daughter trio is not the first in their lineage to take to the rink.

“My grandmother was actually a big roller disco skater,” Heather Faretra said. “She used to go dancing at roller discos when she was younger.”

Roller derby events, dating back to the 1920s, evolved from roller skating races to a team sport and became popular in the 1960s. Some roller derby franchises emphasized theatrics more than the sport, with dramatic collisions and falls.

Popularity of the sport dwindled in the 1970s, and it wasn’t until the early 2000s that modern women’s roller derby began in Austin, Texas. The New Hampshire Roller Derby league has been around since 2007.

The team now has a roster of about 50 women ranging from Amelia, the youngest at 18, to women in their 50’s.

The Granite State league will play a doubleheader on Saturday, August 6, facing off against the Bay State Brawlers from Massachusetts. A scrimmage will follow.

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