Serving the community since 1926
WEEK OF FEBRUARY 13, 2025
VOLUME 98 | ISSUE 11
$2
Denver Roller Derby keeps sport thriving 20 years on
King Soopers takes steps to handle strike
BY ERIC HEINZ ERIC@COTLN.ORG
The Denver Roller Derby squads are gearing up for their next seasons, and to start the year off, various teams that play out of the Overland neighborhood rink competed against one another in late January in friendly exhibition matches. There are several levels of travel teams that practice and compete under the Denver Roller Derby umbrella as well as junior levels. Denver Roller Derby was established in 2005. Skaters at the January opening weekend events at the 2375 S. Delaware St. rink said they got involved with roller derby because of the great community and competitive nature of the sport. The stands were packed for the opening event. Elizabeth Borre, also known by her derby name “Ell on Wheels,” said when she moved to the city a little more than three years ago, she started researching roller derby leagues and found her south Denver spot. “I like just the community, the fact that there’s so many people and we’re all involved in so many different things in Denver,” said Borre, who mainly plays in the jammer position for the Denver Roller Derby C-tier home team. “It’s great to just have connections, and also just have, like, a family. It’s just a giant family.” One of the skaters for Denver Roller Derby’s Mile High Club team, the top tier travel team, is “Miss Tea Maven,” originally from New York City. Maven said she has been competing in roller derby for nearly 20 years, and she said she will try to compete for a spot on Team England during the upcoming Roller Derby World Cup. “It’s really the only sport in the world right now, or one of the only ones, that is women-centric, and women-first, or for people that identify as a woman or nonbinary,” Maven said. “The women’s version is more popular than the male version, and I feel like it’s one of the few sports that actually celebrates women being just as awesome.”
Grocer hires temp workers to keep stores open BY TAMARA CHUANG THE COLORADO SUN
Members of the Denver Roller Derby junior teams compete in January during an event to kick off the year.
SEE ROLLER DERBY, P8
VOICES: 10 | LIFE: 12 | CALENDAR: 9
PHOTO BY ERIC HEINZ
As day one of a planned twoweek walkout began, about a dozen King Soopers employees were up before dawn on Thursday, pacing in front of their store in Centennial. Some walked the perimeter on the sidewalks as cars passed by. All carried white signs with red lettering asking customers to not patronize their employer. Their union representative with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 forbade them to speak to a reporter, even as one employee questioned why not? Why aren’t they allowed to tell the people why they are outside the store instead of inside? At a Safeway parking lot across from a King Soopers on Thursday, union officials held a news conference and said the workers at the two Pueblo stores would join the strike starting Friday. Local 7 President Kim Cordova said she spoke for the workers, who feared repercussions by the employer. Intimidation is part of the union’s multiple unfair labor practice claims against the Kroger-owned chain. “King Soopers has some big problems. I mean when you have 96 to 100% of the workers vote to strike, there’s real issues,” Cordova said. “And here we are for the second time in back-to-back bargaining cycles. Here we are with another unfair labor practice dispute against King Soopers.” More than 10,000 King Soopers employees in the Front Range are involved, which is a few thousand more than three years ago when King Soopers walked out in January 2022. More contracts have expired. They’re protesting unfair labor practices, which allege surveilling and disrupting discussions between workers and union reps. A “last best and final offer” from the company was rejected in mid-January. SEE STRIKE, P6
DENVERHERALD.NET • A PUBLICATION OF COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA