Weekend Preview: 2/17/2012

By Justice Feelgood Marshall, Last updated Fri Feb 17 2012 3:07pm

Though most of the top WFTDA teams are still dormant for the winter, there's a significant amount of season openers scattered around the nation on this third weekend of the month.

Oly @ San Diego -- The Wildfires play host on the banked track to an Oly crew that bears extremely little resemblance to the all-star team that qualified for the last three WFTDA championship games. While mainstays Tannibal Lector and Sassy are present and accounted for, and lightly used Lil' Tonka and T'erin Traxx also make the trip, that's it for Oly all-star vets. Perhaps even more surprisingly, this version includes ex-Rocky Mountain and current Team Bionic members Psycho Babble and Ecko.

San Diego, for their part, is mostly the same as the crew that lost a tough 140-115 game against LA last month, led by jammer Kiki DiAzz, Kill'Em Al, Slamurai and Heidi Evidence. Longtime vets OB Noxious and Kung POW Tina are listed as alternates, though.

Saturday, 7pm Pacific. This bout will be available live on DNN courtesy of the San Diego Derby Dolls.

(20) Boston @ (18) Montreal -- This matchup has a good case for being one of the friendliest rivalries in the sport. Some combination of Boston and Montreal all-stars, b-teams and local teams have faced off at least once a year since 2007. Though the all-time series between their primary teams stands at 1-3, Montreal won the most recent one with a 112-84 upset almost exactly one year ago. This game is not officially WFTDA sanctioned, however.

The Boston Massacre had their 2011 season start going dramatically south about halfway through the year, although they finished with a decent showing at the East playoffs and ended up 7-10. Part of Boston's problem in 2011 was some heavy turnover from their 2010 season, and the roster upheaval appears to be continuing in 2012. Most notably, key jammer Claire D. Way is not currently on Boston's roster; other significant departures include Lady Shatterly, Quick Sandy, Anita Bangher, Etta Maims and Bumpus (formerly Pina Collidah). Boston's longtime veteran core appears to be reduced to Anna Wrecks'Ya, Lil' Paine, Lois Carmen Dominator, Maude Forbid and Sugar Hits, with almost everybody else a rookie or second-year all-star. (Note: an earlier version of the article stated that Lil' Paine and Shark Week were not on the 2012 BDD roster; they are. Oops.)

Montreal had an overall stronger season that had some pegging them as a dark horse for Championships, but they didn't have much success at the East playoffs, losing to Steel City, barely beating Carolina and barely losing to London in what was eventually voted Game of the Year in the 2011 DNN Reader's Poll.

Notably, both teams had very similar performances against a shared opponent at those playoffs -- Boston defeated Dutchland by 123 while Montreal beat the same team by 101. Montreal did considerably better against their other shared opponent London, though, losing by 2 while Boston lost by 47. In addition to being very closely ranked by DNN, they're officially ranked back to back in the East by WFTDA -- Montreal #6 and Boston #7.

Friday, 8pm Eastern; no live coverage scheduled.

(25) Cincinnati @ Grand Raggidy -- The bottom dropped out of Cincinnati's 2011 season in a big way right around the middle of the year -- after starting 3-3, they ended it 2-9, including upset losses to both Brewcity and Arch Rival at the North Central playoffs. Meanwhile, Grand Raggidy is on a 6-0 run dating back to August of last year -- though all but one of those wins came against sub-tournament-level competition (the one was a 7-point nailbiter over Brewcity). This is a key season opener for Cincinnati, who dropped from #5 to #8 in the region following the playoffs -- a loss to #11NC Grand Raggidy could eventually drop them out of their NC top ten for the first time ever.

Saturday, 6pm Eastern; no live coverage scheduled.

Toronto @ Fort Wayne -- Toronto had their WFTDA debut in August 2011 and have had a wildly varying set of results since then while going 3-2. In December, they lost by 199 points to Naptown before smashing Derby City by 267 points the next day. Fort Wayne alternated wins and losses for almost the entirety of their 2011 season, going 5-6 in sanctioned action; this year, they have one big 204-80 win, but it's over struggling NEO.

Though it's hard to predict this outcome - particularly since all of Fort Wayne's 2011 WFTDA action came between January and June -- there's reason to believe it could be a tight one. The teams had similar outcomes in their games with Grand Raggidy last year, with Fort Wayne losing 124-73 and Toronto going down 148-68. Toronto is officially ranked #17 in the North Central while Fort Wayne is #14, so it has the potential to be a WFTDA upset.

Saturday, 6pm Eastern. This game will be available live on DNN courtesy of the Fort Wayne Derby Girls.

Maine @ Atlanta -- This cross-region game (Maine is #10 in the East, Atlanta #4 in the South Central) probably won't do much to affect any rankings calculations, but it does have the potential to give each team early-season momentum, for different reasons.

Atlanta has been waiting a long time to erase the sting of their most recent game, when Nashville denied them a trip to Championships for the second year in a row by utterly clamping down in the third-place game of the South Central playoffs in a 213-38 win. Maine showed flashes of potential through 2011, but eventually went winless at their own Eastern playoffs, entering as the 9 seed and leaving as 10. They came close to some regional top-tens in 2011 (Boston, Dutchland) but couldn't get wins; a defeat of Atlanta would arguably be their best showing yet. So far this year, Maine is 1-0 with a 191-104 victory over Queen City (Buffalo, NY).

Saturday, 5pm Eastern. This game will be available live on DNN courtesy of the Atlanta Rollergirls.

In other WFTDA action, Bleeding Heartland plays at Derby City (season opener for both), the Oklahoma Victory Dolls look to bounce back from their 0-2 start when they visit Memphis (season opener for Memphis), Lowcountry (Charleston, SC) plays its first ever WFTDA match against 0-1 Charlotte, Tri-City (Kitchener, ON) crosses the border to open their season against Roc City (Rochester, NY; 0-0 in 2012, but 3-0 so far in WFTDA play); Jacksonville (0-0) takes on Gold Coast (0-1), Oklahoma City hopes to break a 0-7 all-time record in WFTDA play when they host Springfield (0-0 in 2012, 1-2 all time), Providence tries to bounce back from a 2-7 2011 when they visit Green Mountain (Essex Junction, VT; 2-5 in their inaugural 2011 season), and Des Moines plays only their second WFTDA sanctioned bout when they go to Omaha, who lost 9 WFTDA games in a row to close out 2011.

Power-ranked #21 Carolina is in non-sanctioned action against WFTDA apprentice league Columbia in a game that could put Columbia on the national radar -- though Columbia hasn't played any nationally competitive teams, they've been extremely dominant over their last few opponents, including recent wins of 223-88 over Dominion, 276-63 over Little City and 201-57 over Dixie. With Carolina in the middle of some rebuilding after the retirement of founding member Celia Fate and ace jammer Holly Wanna Crackya, they could be vulnerable to a strong performance from a young & hungry upstart.

Finally, there's also intraleague action available on DNN this weekend as Minnesota has a rematch of their very close 76-71 championship game between the Dagger Dolls and Rockits (part of a doubleheader with an indoor lacrosse match between the Minnesota Swarm and Colorado Mammoth).

Saturday, approximately 9pm. This game will be available live on DNN courtesy of the Minnesota Rollergirls.