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(Enlarge) Charm City Roller Girl Lesa Bain gets her face made up by her sister, Michelle, while teammates on the Speed Regime prepare to be bridesmaids. (Staff photo by Drew Anthony Smith)

As her fiance and coach, Mr. Pistol, screamed instructions and encouragement from the sidelines, Pistol Whip led her team, the Speed Regime, to an 84-69 win over the Night Terrors in the penultimate bout of the Charm City Roller Girls season Saturday.

So ended the battle for third place in the league. But that's where this story begins. The women and their coach skated off the floor of the "Du" Burns Arena in Canton and into the VIP room to get ready for a wedding -- the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Whip, of Hampden.

While the crowd watched a men's exhibition bout and awaited the championship bout between the Mobtown Mobs and Junkyard Dolls, Mr. Pistol, aka Shawn Smith, changed from his green (the Regime team color) T-shirt into a white dress shirt, tie and black pants. He was getting hitched on his 37th birthday.

Pistol Whip, aka Lesa Bain, 29, changed into a funky white dress and a lime-green veil, its headband made from sweatpants. The bride wore skates. Her teammates, with names like Holly Gohardly, Reckless Endangerment and Buzz-Kill (Bain's sister, Sunny Jenkins, of Middle River), became bridesmaids. Each wore a green tutu and skates and held a rose. The ring bearer was Jenkins' daughter, Li'l Buzz-Kill, aka Eden Jenkins, 5.

Out they rolled and formed a loose line on the felt carpet surrounding the arena floor. Seated on folding chairs of honor were Smith's parents, John Smith Jr. and Madonna Smith -- "Mrs. Mr. Pistol," joked Shawn's brother, Patrick -- and Bain's parents, Allen and Linda Bain, all from the same small town outside Flint, Mich.

Friends formed an aisle for the couple as they walked onto the floor to the cheers of the crowd and players from the other teams, each wearing tutus in their team colors.

There to marry them was Cindy Lop-her, aka Tara Gebhardt, a project manager for a book publisher. She's a Roller Girl and Buddhist priestess (ordained online, she said).

Wearing a referee's shirt and using her best announcer voice, Gephardt told the crowd they knew Pistol Whip and Mr. Pistol as a beloved player and coach.

"But when they met nine years ago, they were just Shawn and Lesa," she said.

"Awww," said the crowd.

Good match

Lesa Bain and Shawn Smith met in 1999. Both were graduates of Davison High School, although seven years apart. They worked near each other in the landscaping industry and had seen each other around town, but didn't really know each other.

But Smith knew Bain's sisters, Sunny and Michelle, and a friend of Sunny's kept telling Lesa Bain there was someone she needed to meet.

"She really liked to set up people," Bain said.

Smith and Bain were formally introduced one day when Smith came to fix Sunny's car radiator. Sunny lived in Baltimore but was moving to California.

Smith drove out west with Sunny to help her get settled. He returned to find a note from Sunny's matchmaking girlfriend in his pickup truck, inviting him to meet Bain and the matchmaker at Sharky's, a pool hall in Flint.

But the two women ran late and Smith left the pool hall, thinking they had stood him up.

"I was a little upset," Smith said, grinning at his bride. "Look at her."

But Bain drove to his job the next day to apologize. They've been together ever since.

In 2004, they moved to Baltimore, a city they came to know well from visiting Sunny.

Smith is an ornamental plasterer for Hampden-based Hayles and Howe Inc. Bain is a financial analyst for Johns Hopkins' Bayview Hospital. They bought a house behind the old Robert Poole Middle School in Hampden.

After nine years together, they considered themselves a common-law couple, except that Maryland doesn't recognize common-law marriages.

"We were not really that big on the marriage itself," Bain said.

"We didn't need the piece of paper," Smith said.

But they were engaged for a long time, and wanted to formalize their relationship. A roller derby wedding seemed like a good way to do it.

"It was like, the championship was coming up and everybody would be there that we wanted to be there," Bain said.

The Roller Girls jumped at the chance to help. Reckless Endangerment (Laura Jansen) was the wedding planner. Mya Bloody Valentine (Nicole Young) helped with the public relations. Maiden China (Jeanne Graham, a florist) provided flowers, and Francis Skate Key (Mary Alice Yeske, manager of Charm City Cakes, in Remington) brought them a wedding cake, topped with two miniature roller skaters.

The girl on the cake even has tiny tattoos on her arms, like Bain.

Battle of the bouquet

And Gebhardt was there to marry them. In her best announcer voice, she said, "I now pronounce yoouuu .... husband and WIFE. You may now kiss the bride."

Bain threw the bouquet up for grabs to the other roller girls, who naturally fought for it. It ended up in shreds.

"I think everybody got a piece of that one," Gebhardt said.

The Whips walked off hand in hand, then went their separate ways to greet families, friends, guests and fans in the stands.

Smith wandered off to grab a can of beer. He was still holding it when he bumped into Bain a few minutes later.

"Can I buy ya a beer?" he asked playfully.

A wedding reception was planned for late that night at Della Rosa, a restaurant near the arena -- but first, there was something more important to do. The championship bout was starting.

"I've got to watch this," Smith said.

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