Derby News Network Power Rankings - February 2009
| DNN | WFTDA | W/L | Next | Notes | ||||
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1 E | 2009 0-0 2008 10-0 |
3/28 vs Boston | Except for a 5 point squeaker of a win over Philly in October, Gotham's been nearly untouchable for the past 15 months, and seem to only be improving. After winning their three bouts at Easterns by a total of 114 points, they then turned around and won their three bouts at Nationals by a total of 392 points. Most worryingly for future opponents, they did all this while without the services of an injured Beatrix Slaughter, one of their primary jamming weapons, and she'll be back in 2009 to step in for retiring Cheap Skate. Until somebody proves otherwise, Gotham will likely be the favorite in any matchup through 2009. |
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1 NC | 2009 0-0 2008 12-4 |
3/28 @ Detroit | Windy City's had four shots at Gotham in the past two years -- three of them in tournament championship bouts -- and every time it ends the same, with Gotham on top by around 50 to 60 points. WCR will want to find a way to break the #2 ceiling this year, but danger lurks from below, as they've got serious competition for the slot in Philly (who narrowly beat them in their last matchup) and Texas (who came within some poorly timed jammer penalties of doing the same at Nationals.) Their 2009 campaign will not include their most effective jammer of the 2008 cycle, as Kola Loka has retired. |
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2 E | 2009 0-0 2008 10-4 |
4/11 @ Carolina | A 2008 schedule brimming with strong opponents paid off for the Liberty Belles, who surprised most observers at Nationals by bouncing back from a 189-52 rout at the hands of Gotham to win a tight one over Texas the next day 114-95 in the third-place matchup. They also have the distinction of being the only team to give Gotham any trouble at all in 2008, with a 96-91 last-jam loss in the semifinals of Eastern Regionals. With this year's WFTDA National Championship Tournament scheduled to take place in Philly, look for an especially determined Liberty Belles team to try to become the first crew to win the WFTDA championship at home. |
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1 SC | 2009 1-0 2008 10-4 |
5/3 vs Atlanta | Gotham may have supplanted them as the most intimidating team in derby and Philly and Windy may have barely edged them at 2008 Nationals, but Texas remains one of the most consistently effective teams in the sport and continues to refresh their local talent with a higher-than-average influx of adept transfers from out-of-town. On paper, Texas would appear to have the weakest of the 4 new divisions -- of the other 16 South Central teams, only Kansas City, Houston and Dallas qualified for 2008 regional tournaments and all three of them were bounced in their first bouts -- making Texas the early favorite for another #1 seed going into 2009 Nationals. |
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i W | 2009 0-0 2008 13-3 |
4/18 @ Angel City | Some of Bay Area's most impressive 2008 performances were not wins, but rather impressive comebacks from imposing deficits against top teams. In June, they turned a 42-point deficit against Rat City into a mere 5 point loss; to top that, at Nationals they rallied from 46 down to lose by only 4 points to Philly. In between, Texas ended their impressive Western Regionals campaign with a clubbing in the tournament final. Always dangerous but somewhat unpredictable -- for example, their three 2008 battles with Northern California rivals Sacred City ended by the wildly different margins of 71, 15 and 224 points -- Bay Area seems capable of beating anyone at any time, so long as they retain their focus. They lose a retiring Kitt Turbo this year, but they've got a particularly deep talent pool and a palpable desire to prove themselves at the highest level. |
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1 W | 2009 0-0 2008 3-3 |
3/28 @ Rose City | When the Seattle team plays a disciplined and clean game, their bouts are a beauty to behold -- their 108-97 loss to Texas at 2008 Westerns was an instant classic -- but when that discipline falls apart, it can get hairy on the scoreboard, as it did in their unexpectedly large 94-point loss to Windy City at Nationals and a similarly lopsided unsanctioned loss to Rose City. Rat City faces a pretty dramatic lineup change this year, as big sister D-Bomb and little sister Blonde An' Bitchin transfer to neighboring Oly Rollers while their middle sister Femme Fatale hangs up her skates. Rat City has no shortage of talent ready to step up, but as always at the top level of derby, the important question will be whether the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts. |
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i E | 2009 1-0 2008 7-5 |
4/11 vs Philly | The most experienced team in the sport now has 32 official bouts to their name, but had a tough time against the upper echelons in last year's tournament play, narrowly defeating Boston by 2 points to qualify for Nationals and then losing their next three tournament bouts by an average of 56 points each. Carolina will have to navigate arguably the toughest of the 4 WFTDA regions if they want to make a third straight trip to Nationals, with Gotham and Philly holding the top spots while Boston and Charm City both threaten to take the next step in 2009. The crew from Raleigh takes a significant retirement this season, as longtime jamming stalwart Zella Lugosi hangs up her skates. |
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i W | 2009 0-0 2008 6-3 |
2/22 @ Denver | The girls from Albuquerque are the biggest question mark in the top ten, as they followed up their astonishing tournament upset of 2007 champions and then-#1 Kansas City with three straight losses, including the most lopsided bout of the 2008 tournament cycle with a 157 point loss to Gotham at Nationals. On the other hand, eventual #3 Philly lost to Gotham on the next night by only 20 fewer points. Only more data will show where Duke truly deserves to be, and we'll get some hints this month, as February finds them the top seed in the Four Corner Feud mini-tournament with Tucson, Arizona, Rocky Mountain, Denver and Pikes Peak. |
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i SC | 2009 0-0 2008 5-2 |
3/7 @ Arch Rivals | After taking the 2007 WFTDA Championship title in full Cinderella fashion, Kansas City hit a rough spot last year at the worst possible time. In a tuneup bout just before Western Regionals, Windy City blew their doors off 155-39. Their title defense ended just one bout into Regionals in a surprise loss to Duke City, as Kansas City becoming the only bye team from either region to fail to advance to Nationals. While they did score definitive wins over Denver and Pikes Peak to close out their tournament experience, the primary memory was already set. In 2009, KCRW will be looking to regain their former #1 ranking but will have to do it without two of their best jammers, with both Snot Rocket and Xcelerator having retired at the end of the 2008 season -- they also lose punishing blocker Patti Wackin. |
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i W | 2009 0-0 2008 6-4 |
3/21 @ Oly | Rose City had tough luck in 2008, failing to qualify for the Nationals tournament held in their own city when Bay Area booted them from the Western tournament one game short of the prize. Like Kansas City, they did impressively in the consolation round, easily handling a tough Rocky Mountain team to win 140-71, but by that time their advancement hopes were over. They're one of the relatively few teams with post-Nationals data, with a 53-point loss to Texas in December 2008. |
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3 E | 2009 0-0 2008 9-2 |
2/28 vs Maine | In a 2008 tournament schedule full of dramatics, perhaps no team suffered a bigger heartbreaker than Boston, who came within a minute and a very unfortunately timed jammer penalty of scoring an upset of Carolina that would have sent them to Nationals. Boston looks to mimic Philly's 2008 strength of schedule in 2009, with bouts lined up against some of the WFTDA's most dangerous teams, including Texas, Duke City and Charm City -- and after a season opener this month against Maine, they'll become the first team to take a post-Nationals shot at #1 Gotham. |
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4 E | 2009 0-0 2008 9-2 |
2/21 vs Dutchland | The teams in the high teens are much more tightly packed than the top 10, and the relationship between Boston and Charm City's 2008 records is a perfect reflection of that. Charm City overcame a Rocky Mountain team that later went on to defeat Boston, but on the other hand Boston (barely) defeated a Madison team that had earlier (barely) defeated Charm City. We're giving the nod to Boston at the top of the teens on the strength of their impressive performance against veteran Carolina at Easterns, but the Baltimore girls will soon get a chance to settle this dispute head to head with a March 21 bout in Boston. |
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i NC | 2009 1-0 2008 8-3 |
3/28 vs Windy City | Detroit had a somewhat confounding run at Eastern Regionals in 2008, coming within 10 points of defeating the eventual #3 team in the nation in Philly, but apparently having more trouble with trying solve lower-ranked Charm City later in the same day, falling by 21 points. Detroit seems to be one big win away from returning to the top ten, but their biggest scalp so far is still Minnesota's from way back in the ancient history of 2007 -- since then, Detroit has not defeated a team ranked higher than themselves. |
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2 W | 2009 0-0 2008 12-4 |
2/22 @ Pikes Peak | Rocky Mountain is a bit of a question mark, as their performance at and after Western Regionals didn't seem to quite live up to the promise of their 5-game summer win streak -- they had more trouble than was expected in a defeat of Houston before taking two shellackings from Texas and Rose City. More surprisingly, though, in their one bout after Regionals, they very nearly lost a 96-92 bout to Tucson, a team sporting a modest 2-11 record through 2008. RMRG is the second seed in this month's six-team Four Corner Feud tournament, and their performance will be a major point of interest. |
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3 W | 2009 0-0 2008 10-3 |
2/21 @ Arizona | Pikes Peak erased the memory of a winless 2007 with a very active and successful run in 2008 with many memorable moments. Most notably, they nearly put together the biggest comeback in tournament history by whittling a 56 point deficit to just 15 in the Western Regionals opener against Duke City, and they seem to be genuinely poised for the next step in 2009. They have a great opportunity to do just that at the Four Corners Feud -- if they get past Arizona in the first round, they get a shot at Rocky Mountain, and a win there would certainly get their star rising. |
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2 NC | 2009 0-0 2008 9-7 |
5/9 @ Cincinnati | At the time of Eastern Regionals we'd have categorized Madison, Detroit, Charm City and Boston as teams with nearly no daylight in between them, but a couple of late '08 unexpected outcomes drop Madison a little bit below that family: a 2 point loss to Minnesota (who they'd smoked at Easterns, 143-67) and a 131-54 (unsanctioned) rout at the hands of Carolina in December. Time will tell if this slip is temporary. | ||||
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4 W | 2009 0-0 2008 4-8 |
2/21 @ Tucson | Steadily improving throughout 2008 on the back of an ambitious schedule, Denver entered Western Regionals as the lowest seed but exited with two upset wins. Denver already took down Tucson once last year, and if they can repeat that at the Four Corner Feud, it'll put them in a semifinal with Duke City that will be a true test of how much they learned from the Regionals experience. |
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2 SC | 2009 1-0 2008 4-10 |
5/2 vs Atlanta | Like the top of the teens here, it seems like any of the bottom four teams could beat each other on any given day. Houston had impressive but unsuccessful contests with Rocky Mountain (lost by 25) and Pikes Peak (lost by 13) at Regionals -- once they score their first win on a team of that caliber, look for this speedy team to rise a few slots. | ||||
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3 NC | 2009 0-0 2008 12-7 |
2/21 @ Grand Raggidy | Cincinnati proved they shouldn't be taken lightly with a surprising defeat of Carolina last summer, but they weren't able to replicate that success against lower-ranked teams come tournament time. Cincy might be one of the least predictable teams in the sport, with recent point margins and outcomes generally bearing little similiarity to what the incoming rankings would have suggested. | ||||
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4 NC | 2009 0-0 2008 7-7 |
4/25 @ Grand Raggidy | In December, Minnesota arrested a worrying slide with a dramatic 2-point home victory over longtime rival Madison, but that was the brightest point in a rough 2008 that saw them drop upsets to Cincinnati and Denver while taking triple-digits losses to top-ten teams like Windy City and Bay Area. Minnesota hosts the North Central regional tournament this September, and will definitely be hoping to step it up a couple notches in time to succeed on that stage. |
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i NC | 2009 0-1 2008 5-2 |
3/7 vs Kansas City | The St. Louis team blasted out of nowhere to upset Cincinnati and Grand Raggidy along the way to winning the Fall Brawl tournament last year, but after a solid loss to Detroit in January, there's still not quite enough data to be sure where they deserve to be. We'll get a big piece of the puzzle filled in next month when they take on neighboring Kansas City. | ||||
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i W | 2009 0-0 2008 2-11 |
2/21 @ Denver | Once the #2 team in the nation, and the first ever to defeat godmothers of the modern sport Texas Rollergirls, Tucson suffered a telling stumble in the first round at 2007 Nationals and subsequently found wins much much harder to come by in 2008. They did manage to finish a rough year with a moral victory, taking a narrow 96-92 loss to tough Rocky Mountain. That bout no doubt gives them fresh hope heading into the Four Corner Feud, where RMRG is seeded #2 -- but they have to get past Denver first. |
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i NC | 2009 0-0 2008 7-8 |
2/21 vs Cincinnati | Grand Raggidy has long been an impressive team without impressive victories; though they came relatively close to Detroit (12 point loss) last year, all of their wins were over rebuilding teams (Providence) or lowly ranked ones (Brewcity, Ohio, Burning River & Fort Wayne.) GRRG has yet to prove themselves successfully against a top-20 team. | ||||
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i NC | 2009 1-0 2008 6-0 |
2/21 @ Omaha | Though North Star only gained WFTDA membership in December, they've been a team to watch for some time -- they've haven't lost an interleague matchup since 2007 (the 3-0 record above only reflects bouts played against WFTDA teams; all told they were 7-0 in 2008) and they surprised Minnesota in a November tournament in Sioux City (though the bouts were not regulation-length.) After lingering long in the relative shadow of cross-town Minnesota, the rivalry North Star brings to play could be the hottest one in WFTDA if both teams qualify for this September's North Central tournament. |
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4 SC | 2009 0-0 2008 3-8 |
2/7 vs Atlanta | In 2008, Dallas ran up against one rising star after another, dropping bouts to Charm City, Pikes Peak, Boston, and a one-point squeaker to eventual tournament darlings Duke City. The bouts they won, they won quite handily, averaging a win margin just a hair shy of 100 points, and bringing their year-long average point margin to just -1. But after a rough turn at Western Regionals that saw them fall to Houston, Denver, and struggling Tuscon to end their year, they'll need to show some fire against Atlanta on the 7th to hold their spot in the top 25. |
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| Key: | |
| E | WFTDA East region |
| W | WFTDA West region |
| NC | WFTDA North Central region |
| SC | WFTDA South Central region |
