But embracing their cartoonish, superhero identities of Maya Mangleyou, Estrogeena Davis, and Elle L Cool Jam, to name but three skaters — that’s always been part of the allure of their passionate pursuit.

The athletes in the Boston Derby Dames — Boston’s first and only all-female, flat-track roller derby league — have certainly taken their share of hits through the years.

On Jan. 31, however, the Dames as a whole face a much tougher hit: being locked out of their training space in Somerville’s Union Square, one they’ve called home for the past three years.

Their landlord’s news that their building and surrounding land had been sold came as a shock, but an almost inevitable one given its proximity to the recently revamped Assembly Row development. With a new MBTA Orange Line station on board and an extension of the Green Line down the tracks, rents and housing costs in the area have been increasing.

The space, rented at $4,000 a month, isn’t pretty. Yet the women don’t want to leave.


One flight up from an auto repair shop in an industrial neighborhood, the cavernous second-floor space features a coated cement floor marked by long cracks crisscrossing the three yellow painted circles of their flat track. A line of rusted steel support beams runs through the center of the room, with two beams smack dab in the innermost circle — a place the skaters do their best to avoid — wrapped in blankets tied with rope.

Joslyn Vendola, aka "McSlammer" is pictured at a practice session of a Massachusetts roller derby team in Somerville. Jim Davis/ Globe Staff/Globe Staff

But the skaters say that they’ve been lucky.

“We love this floor,” said board member Kelli ‘Coopa Troopa’ Cooper of Somerville, a 32-year-old nurse practitioner, citing the smooth surface, perfect for fast skating.

“Some surfaces are grippy,’’ she said. “People are really picky about the stickiness.”

When the Dames were founded in 2005, they rented roller rinks, hockey rinks, and gyms on a per diem basis. It’s a path they might need to traverse again while scouring Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville for a new permanent spot that’s accessible 24/7.


“We don’t need much,” said Karen ‘Tara-dactyl’ Tarkulich, 24, of Jamaica Plain, a museum program coordinator who is a member of both the league’s executive board and its search committee.

“A floor that is flat and smooth,’’ she specified, preferably wooden or coated cement, “a space that’s 120 feet by 85 feet, which includes an outer lane for the ref’s skating and for safety, so you don’t get hit and go into the wall. And there can’t be poles in the space, or they have to be 5 feet or further from the track.’’

The ideal space, Tarkulich said, would be in a safe neighborhood close to public transit, like “a grocery store that’s closed, or any kind of industrial building or former warehouse.”

Tarkulich sighs at the thought of per diem renting again.

“It’s testing if you don’t know where you’re going to practice day to day. Skaters need different wheels for different surfaces,” she said. “It changes the way you skate when you constantly have to relearn how to skate on a different surface.”

The space in the building that is being sold isn’t pretty, but it has been their practice home for years. Jim Davis/ Globe Staff

The league, she said, owns a “sport court,’’ a heavy, portable cover that can overlay a flat surface, but it requires a few intensive hours to transport, install, and deconstruct.

“This is more than a sport,” said Katherine ‘Space Invader’ Rugg, 28, of Somerville, who works at the Bruised Boutique (“the world’s largest derby skate shop”) in Nashua and skates with both the Boston Massacres, the league’s travel team, and with the Cosmonaughties, one of its four home teams.


“It’s a community gathering for women, and also for young girls.”

Indeed, interest in the sport has grown so much, said Rugg, that a junior roller derby league recently formed for girls ages 7-17.

“It is a unique situation,” said Rugg, “but it’s definitely possible. It’s not a golden unicorn within the city. We definitely have certain needs, but it is possible.”

Kathy Shiels Tully can be reached at kathytully@verizon.net.