DNN coverage of the 2008 WFTDA Tournaments is made possible through the generous support of Broken Cherry custom apparel and design services.

All bout start times Central.

8am: (8e) Madison vs. (9e) Minnesota

Tournament hosts Madison pull the opening slot for Eastern Regionals, facing off against Minnesota in a matchup notable for the fact that these two teams were seeded #1 and #2 in last year's Regionals. Times have changed, though -- both teams lost their first bouts that year, and had to spend the last year working to reclaim their previous cachet.

Madison has had somewhat more luck doing that than Minnesota, though. After some struggles in 2007, a year in which they did not win a single WFTDA bout, they've been making serious noise since June's ECE, where they reigned over Fort Wayne in a 250-38 rout and nearly surprised tournament hosts Philly, falling just 13 points short in a hard-fought 106-93 loss. They went on to upset ascendant Charm City in July in a thriller, 108-101, before easily winning a series of three bouts against somewhat more lowly ranked teams in #22 Dominion, #43 Burning River and #31 Brewcity. Most recently, though, very dangerous Texas ended their 4 game win streak with a 144-59 defeat in September.

Minnesota's been playing considerably longer than most flat-track teams, with their first interleague bout in November of 2005, but their all-time record is 6-11 and they've taken some heavy losses this year, getting pasted by Western tournament teams Rose City (71 points) and Bay Area (102 points), as well as being on the wrong end of one of the worst blowouts in WFTDA history back in July when Windy City dismissed them 206-18. Their only win against a tournament-level team this year was against Houston, the 11th seed from this year's Western -- and that by a relatively narrow 14 points.

The 8am start time is probably not one that any team particularly craves, but the slot may work in Madison's favor if they're able to get past Minnesota; the winner is next up at 6:15pm on Friday night against Gotham, a time much more likely to draw in the home-team fans than this opening-round bout.

Back Doris 1134 // Carrie A. HackSAW 24 // Chop Suzzy 311 // Darling Nikki 14 // Dolly Pardon Me 925 // Dutch Oven 2 // Jenny Knoxville 16 // Jewels of Denile 99 // Mauly Tov 131MJ // Mouse 4 // Mustang 66 // Ninja 21ish // Paine Mansfield 888 // Princess Die 5 // Stank Girl the Stench Wench 773W5 // Stevie Knocks 214 // Stitch 444 // Wildberry Punch 27

Angelfire C2 // Citizen Pain F16 // CleoSPLATra 42 // Demora Liza <0 // Flora Flipabitch 4 // Frau Scientits 23 // Hanna Belle Lector 37 // Harmony Killerbruise 75 // Honeydew Felon 25 to Life // Jawbreaker 86 // KillaHertz 808 // Lydia Punch 789 // Misfit Maiden 313 // Pain Gretzky 1337 // Rebel Stella 99 // Scarmen Hellectra 28 // Sparkle Ninja 1111 // Suzie Smashbox 91 // Vuedoo Prodigy LXIX

9:45am: #7e Boston vs. #10e Grand Raggidy

Last year, the Boston Massacre played in the most exciting bout of the 2007 Eastern Regional, when they came back to make up a 3-point last-jam deficit against Detroit in the opening round, with jammer Sarah Doom literally scoring the game-tying point just as the last second ticked off the clock. But unfortunately for the New Englanders, Detroit took the only overtime bout of WFTDA tournament history on the subsequent jam, booting Boston from the tournament.

While not quite as dominant as the higher-profile Windy City, Boston (ranked #14 nationally) has quietly been stringing together some of the most impressive defensive performances in WFTDA play right now. They've won their last three bouts by holding their opponents to extremely low point totals: 113-46 against Dallas in August, 114-38 against a fast Houston team in June, and -- in a record-setting performance, holding Ohio to just two jams worth of points in a 183-5 July victory.

Their wins have been impressive margin-wise, and their 2008 record stands at 4-1, but Boston hasn't recently been able to bring it home against a higher-ranked team -- this year they've only played one bout against a top-20 team, and while it was a well-matched thriller with tough, 12th-ranked Rocky Mountain, they were outlasted 111-93.

Grand Raggidy is currently ranked #19 nationally and has had a rocky 2-5 2008 thus far, but on the other hand they've had a tougher schedule  than Boston and have acquitted themselves nicely -- a 43 point loss to #7 Windy City (in April) and 12 point loss to #9 Detroit (in May) are far better results than many of those team's opponents have seen recently. Their most recent performance, though, found them on the wrong end of a significant upset, when #44 Arch Rival upended them in the championship bout of Fall Brawl II.

The girls from Grand Rapids are sporting a roster that seems to have a considerable amount of turnover since the 2007 Eastern Regionals (where they were unlucky enough to be Gotham's first-round opponent and went to a 206-47 defeat), but experienced veterans Jackie Daniels, Dot Matrix and Mira MaHeiney will be back to try to make this year's tournament run a little deeper.

Anna Wrecksya 101 // Claire D. Way 1984 // Etta Maims B52 // Harley Quinn 9669 // Harlot Fevah 99 // Krushpuppy (843) // Lois Carmen Dominator 11 // Maura Buse 34B // Pussy Venom 28 // Quick Sandy 24 // Sarah Doom 4 // Shelby Shattered 0 // Sheryl Crowbar 37 // Sugar Hits 1001 // Tootsie 8 // Triple Deck-Her 3D

Angie Warhaul 34 // Bette Mangler 00 // Costa Lotta Chaos 98 // Crazy Beyond Carin 96 // Dot Matrix 117 // Jackie Daniels 07 // Keisha Mei Ash 8 // Lindsay Blowhan 01 // Lucy Morals 77 // Mira MaHeiney 22 // QuarterBoy 69 // Racey Wreck'hell 32 // Shutter Speed 28 // Terrorhawk 56 // The Vindicator 24 // Tone Loco 41 // Viva la Boom 36

11:30am: #5e Detroit vs. #12e Providence

Detroit, like Windy City, was a surprise finalist at the 2007 Easterns after beating #2 Minnesota in their Nationals-qualifying bout. Also like Windy City, their reward for their feat was to get trounced at Nationals -- Rat City dropped a 110-point defeat on them in the opening round.

Since then, Detroit has been playing often and almost always winning; with a 7-bout winning streak, they were tied with Gotham for the longest active winning streak in WFTDA until Texas ended it in September. However, their relatively weak strength of schedule caused Philly to inch past them in the WFTDA rankings and take the last bye for the Eastern tournament -- of the eight bouts they've played since last year's Nationals, only half of them (wins over Dominion, Grand Raggidy and Cincinnati, and the loss to Texas) were against teams that qualified for this year's tournaments.

Almost all of the Detroit crew comes in with tournament experience from last year -- this is a veteran squad that is unlikely to be fazed by the pressure of high-profile play. While their best known players are probably the inexhaustible, powerful jammer/blockers Racer McChaseher (MVP of Eastern Regionals) and the bone-shattering Killbox, this is a deep team with exceptional endurance and very punishing defense.

Providence, in fact, just missed qualifying for this year's Easterns themselves -- the original 12 seed in the East, Virginia Beach's Dominion Derby Girls, were forced by a short roster to drop out, and their slot fell to Providence. With their nonstandard entry to Regionals, this is most certainly a team that will want to prove itself.

PRD took a long hiatus after last year's Eastern Regionals, and though their 2008 started out on the right foot with a convincing 60 point victory over a young but tough team in Connecticut, they took two unpleasant lumps directly afterwards -- they were narrowly upset by unranked WFTDA upstart Maine, and then got all but completely shut down by Rocky Mountain, unable to break single digits in a 137-9 loss.

They did have a dramatic victory at June's ECE, coming back from a significant halftime deficit to barely defeat Atlanta, but Charm City swamped them on the next day, handing them a 131-62 defeat.

Providence is far from lacking talent, with a solid jammer crew that features Hysterica!, Craisy Dukes and Cleo Patronize, rowdy blockers in Burnin' Helen, Baby Fighterfly and Lotta Pain and some double threats in DaSilva Bullet and Rhode Kill -- but they'll need to have all their elements working together perfectly if they're going to upset the very tough Detroit squad.

The winner here goes up against 4th seed Philly to start the Saturday action at 8am.

Boo D. Livers 24/7 // Bytch Ryder 44 // Cookie Rumble 33.3 // Del Bomber 76 // Devil Kitty 20 // Diesel Doll I-75 // Elle McFearsome 6 // Fatal Femme 46 // Honey Suckit 1974 // Kat Von D'stroya 90028 // Killbox 989 // Polly Fester 100% // Racer McChaseHer 2.8 // Roxanna Hardplace 3cc // Sass Knuckles 200 // Summers Eve-L 68 // Vega Vendetta 181// Vicious Vixen 0

Baby Fighterfly 1000 Corpses // Burnin' Helen 73 // Cleo Patronize 10 // Craisy Dukes High 5 // DaSilva Bullet 47 // Elle Razor 3X // Fo'Shizzy Borden 40 whacks // Hot Sauce 101 // Hysterica! 42 // Jean Harlot 1937 // Jetta von Diesel VR6 // Kid Ace 2+2=5 // Lotta Pain 64 // Malady D'Amour 11 // Rhode Kill 90mph // Sass E. McNasty 8-ball // Shelby Bruisin' 2morrow // Trophy Knife 84 // Violent Vixxen VXN

1:15pm: #6e Charm City vs. #11e Cincinnati

Charm City and Cincinnati are the only two teams in this tournament that weren't invited last year, and it seems as if both of them have been particularly eager to prove themselves against the older competition in the past year.

Cincinnati, in fact, is the only first-round team that Charm City's busy all-star team has not previously played -- during their two-year existence, the Baltimore girls have taken advantage of neighboring Philly's yearly ECE to get in regional bouts, defeating Grand Raggidy and losing to Detroit in March 2007 and defeating Providence in June 2008.

All the rest of Charm City's regional bouts, oddly enough, have been last-jam nailbiters -- the Boston bout took place some time ago in April 2007, ending 102-100 for Boston. Much more recently, they were bested by Madison 108-101 in July, and back in December of 2007, they squeaked past Minnesota 73-69. Their overall 2008 record is 6-1.

Charm City sports one of the most dynamic skaters in the sport in Joy Collision, who matches blinding speed to incredible dexterity as a jammer and also demonstrates amazing speed control as a blocker. Dolly Rocket and Mibbs Breakin' Ribs bring very different styles to the pivot position, but are both very effective with the stripe. Also to keep an eye on is jamming from perpetually exuberant crowd favorite Flo Shizzle, exceptionally exasperating positional blocking from Frenzy Lohan, and tireless contributions from Lady Quebeaum from both the jam line and the pack.

It's hard to pin down the somewhat inconsistent Cincinnati team -- they've been very busy this year with 11 WFTDA bouts to their credit and gone 7-4, but it often seems that their performances, whether negative or positive, are not what one would have predicted from the matchups on paper. In June, they were only able to pull out a 32-point victory over the lowly-ranked, #41 Steel City -- but then just two weeks later, turned around to upset #19 Grand Raggidy by a wider margin, 110-73.

More recently, they scored one of the biggest upsets of 2008 with a 74-69 July victory over #4 Carolina -- but two months later, were completely dominated by #9 Detroit in a 140-29 rout. The outcome of this opening-round bout is likely to be contingent on which Cincinnati team shows up.

Phenomenal jammer Sadistic Sadie tends to get most of the accolades on this team, and is known to jam multiple times in a row in close bouts, but there's more to the Cincy lineup, particularly the pack work of Blu Bayou and Panterrorize and backup jamming from Hannah Barbaric and CandyKICKass.

The winner here gets a very serious challenge as a reward: they'll face 3 seed Windy City at 9:45am on Saturday.

Angthrax 33 // Cheeta Torpeda 37 // Coach Ballbricker 13 // Dolly Rocket 6 // Duchess of Torque 200/lb ft // Flo Shizzle 24/7 // Frenzy Lohan 119 // Holly Go Hardly 415 // Joy Collision 747 // Lady Quebeaum 34 // Mibbs Breakin' Ribs 1010 // Pistol Whip 44 // Pixie Rocket 69 // Psycho78 78 // Radar Love i // Reckless Ndangerment 116 // Rosie the Rioter 100%

Arche Enemy 45 // Blu Bayou 75 // candyKICKass 32 // Cherry Chock 0 // Dr. McDerby 15 // Hannah Barbaric 85 // Ima Payne 23 // Jewel B. Hurt 78 // June w/ a Cleaver 21 // Jungle Lacy 83 // Killian Destroy 4 // Mae C. Stars 9 // Panterrorize 41 // Ruff'n the Passer 29 // Sadistic Sadie 76 // Shirley Temptya 60 // Sista Sacralicious 66 // Sk8 Crime 69 // Sk8r Kinney 11 // Trauma Tease 3