Preview: Midwest Brewhaha

By Justice Feelgood Marshall, Last updated Fri May 21 2010 5:30pm

MILWAUKEE, WI -- This Saturday and Sunday, Milwaukee's BrewCity Bruisers host the Midwest Brewhaha, a two-track, 20-bout event featuring 11 WFTDA sanctioned and 6 WFTDA regulation bouts, many with potential WFTDA tournament seeding implications.

Follow DNN's live coverage of the Brewhaha all weekend long! First bout kicks off at 10am Central. DNN's coverage of the Midwest Brewhaha is presented by Riedell Skates.

Hosting league Brewcity has two particularly interesting matchups to close the action on each day. On Saturday, Brewcity takes on Burning River in a rematch of an intense bout at 2009's North Central regionals. There, Brewcity managed to erase a 30 point deficit in just under 6 minutes to tie the game and win a very rare overtime match, 126-116. That match left Brewcity in 7th place for the tournament and Burning River in 8th, but their fortunes have gone in separate directions since then -- Brewcity currently officially sits at 5 in the North Central while Burning River holds the 10 spot after an upset 99-77 loss to Naptown last December. Burning River has not yet played this year, while Brewcity has gone 2-0 with wins over Fort Wayne and Arch Rival.

On Sunday night, Brewcity takes on an up-and-coming challenger from the South Central region, Tampa Bay. TBDD has only played on two weekends thus far in 2010, but has picked up 7 bouts in that amount of time in the Clover Cup and Franky Panky tournaments. Their record on the year is 3-4, but they came impressively close to a top-25 team when they nearly completed a big comeback on #20 Dallas but fell just a bit short at 131-111 at Franky Panky. An upset of Brewcity here would go a ways towards further raising the national profile of this steadily improving league.

For those with an eye on rankings, the weekend's marquee game comes on Sunday at 5pm, when Windy City (#1 in the North Central region via WFTDA, #9 nationally via DNN) takes on Madison (#3 NC WFTDA, #10 nationally via DNN). Madison narrowly upset Detroit in the semifinals of the 2009 North Central regionals but was solidly defeated 150-56 in the championship bout by Windy City. This rematch offers a shot at revenge, but it may be an even tougher road than last time. Since the NC Regionals, Madison has lost one of their major weapons with Juke Boxx transferring to Minnesota, and the already very strong WCR team now features nationally renowned Jackie Daniels (who transferred from Grand Raggidy this year). Windy City has not lost to a North Central team in over three years.

There are some notable matchups elsewhere on the card as well; the tournament's sole Western Region team, Jet City, has a chance to impress with bouts against Philly's B-team the Independence Dolls, Arch Rival, and Sioux Falls. The Chicago Outfit also takes a shot at the Independence Dolls on Saturday, along with a battle with previously-mentioned Tampa on Sunday. And Omaha, who turned some heads by coming within just 11 points of Nationals regular Kansas City last month, gets an opportunity to demonstrate that score wasn't an outlier with battles against Ohio and Grand Raggidy.

Full rosters follow on the next page.