Roller derby is an aggressive, physical sport. It’s also one of the few contact sports dominated by women.

And it’s thriving. The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association has 457 member leagues on six continents.

But, now, those leagues have a new nemesis: Gentrification.

'It's The Perfect Venue'

The Rat’s Nest is the home of the Rat City Rollergirls, a four-team league in the International Women’s Flat Track Derby Association.

"It’s been a really great place," says Carmin Thomas, who’s been skating for Rat City since the league’s founding 16 years ago. "It’s kind of perfect."

The Rat’s Nest is an old warehouse north of Seattle. It’s located on a highway with a reputation for sketchy motels and frequent crime.

Exposed electrical wires are strung along one of the walls, and a couple of the metal rolling doors are partly open for airflow.

Most of the space is taken up by an orange track painted on the floor. There’s a table for officials and a loft for filming the game, so the girls can watch themselves afterwards.

"We have space on the side for bleachers," Carmin says. "We have enough bathrooms. It's the perfect venue."

And now, Rat City has to leave.

"Well, we're packing up this week. I think tomorrow doing the big move out for a lot of stuff," Carmin says. "We're putting everything in a storage unit for a while, which is really sad, taking down the posters off our wall and disassembling the bleachers, and it's just going to be an empty warehouse. It's hard for me to go up there. I'm supposed to help with that, but it's so sad."

Carmin's voice cracks.

"It sucks that it's gone," she says.

Not everyone would break into tears over a roller derby rink, but Carmin says she’s always been a crier.

"I’m a softy," she says. "I cry at the drop of a hat.

"One of my teammates actually made me this cry shield, which is a piece of paper with a silly picture of my face on one side and, like, a silly picture of a dog on another side. So I could hold this in front of my face because, once I started crying, other people would start to cry."

"Did it work to — that it wouldn't set off this chain reaction?" I ask.

"I think it made it more of a funny thing and kind of OK for me and for other people to cry," she says.

Fifteen years ago, when Carmin was 27, she heard three Seattleites were trying to start a roller derby league.

"And I said, 'Where do I sign up?' " Carmin recalls. "Because I’ve always, always wanted to do that. I always watched roller derby when I was very young with my great uncle Jack, because he loved watching roller derby. And I would go to the rollerskating rinks on Saturdays, and I’d always get in trouble for knocking people around a little bit, because that was something I always wanted to do."

So, Carmin went to the first practice ever held for this new league. At the time, she was working as an auto tech at a truck dealership.

Carmin Thomas grew up watching roller derby. So, when she heard that a local roller derby league might be forming, she decided she would finally give the sport a try. (Courtesy Eilís O'Neill)

"And I showed up covered in brake dust. And I had some, you know, the Elvis-style sunglasses on," Carmin says. "I walked in with some pigtails."

Carmin says all of the skaters were recruited to help get the derby league off the ground.

"We would have five hour long meetings at The Rendezvous over french fries and beers. And, you know, because of french fries and beers, it tends to last longer than it probably should and maybe not be as focused as it should," Carmin says. "But you get to know these people really intimately. And you work with them, and you try to make something of this little baby thing that you want to grow."

A year or two after Rat City’s founding, an old back injury Carmin had gotten working as an auto mechanic flared up. She couldn’t lift anything. And that was a problem, because she and her partner were moving.

Carmin has parents and a sister in Seattle, but they aren’t the people she called to help her move.

"I called my derby family — like, my teammates — I'm like, 'Hey, can you help me?' " Carmin says. "Maybe six people showed up. And, before I knew it, everything was packed up in the van."

Carmin says that’s the moment she knew this was her family.

"A group of women — strong women — they were my support group," she says. "They’re my, like, chosen family."

Carmin wanted to bring derby to the next generation, so she helped found Rat City’s youth league, the Derby Brats, which has since grown into one of the largest youth roller derby leagues in the country.

'Come On, Let’s Go! Wall Up!'

Mike Van Flandern is the current board president. He got involved because of his younger daughter, Erin.

"She has struggled since a very young age with with anxiety," Mike says. "When she experiences the anxiety, she tends to shut down, to disengage, and she begins to cry."

Erin gave her father permission to talk with me but didn’t feel comfortable doing an interview herself.

Mike thought sports might help Erin develop the skills she needed to cope, but ...

"She did not enjoy most athletics," Mike says. "She didn't enjoy team sports. She struggled when she felt like she was being watched or judged. And most of the sports just weren't fun for her. So she tried a large variety of things and gave up on most of them."

But one thing Erin did love was rollerskating. One weekend, when she was at a skating rink with her family, she saw a poster for a youth roller derby league.

The league was hosting a summer camp to teach newbies the basics. When Erin said she was game, Mike signed her up.

"At this derby camp, she would do these difficult things — be skating and have people pushing on her and touching her, and she would be falling down and failing to live up to her expectations. And she would burst into tears," Mike says. "And we would have difficult car rides home where she talked about the things that she was saying to herself: that she wasn't good enough and that she couldn't do this. But she loved the activity enough that she would face those fears and keep coming back."

Mike says when Erin started derby six years ago, she would never have opened her mouth in front of a stranger.

But the sport has changed her.

"When she’s out there and her team needs to pull back together, and she’ll scream at the top of her lungs, 'Come on, let’s go! Wall up!' " Mike says. "And I look at that and I think, 'Who is that kid?' I love seeing that side of her, and I love that derby brings that out of her."