OMG Rollergirl! Do you believe that Nationals are THIS WEEKEND! Hundreds of skaters and thousands of fans from all over the country (and some not even from this country) will be descending upon Philadelphia to watch the best women's flat track derby teams duke it out for the National title. Your beloved WCR All-Stars will be one of the 12 teams competing for the title, and as North Central Regional Champions, won't be in action until Saturday, as they get a first-round bye.

With WFTDA's competitive restructuring in this year-- we went from 2 regions to 4, the Nationals structure looks a bit different than the past two years. Like previous years, this is a single elimination tournament, however, with the addition of 4 teams, the structure is different. In the first round, each of the teams that finished 2nd (Gotham, Madison, Kansas City, and Rocky Mountain) will face a team than placed 3rd (Boston, Detroit, Houston, and Denver) in their regional tournament. First-round winners then meet up with one of the four regional champions (Philly, Windy City, Texas, Oly) for a spot in the semifinals.

Windy City's first bout is at 12:30pm (Central) on Saturday and it'll be against the winner of Kansas City (SC #2) or Denver (W #3). If the All-Stars win that bout, they'll play again on Saturday night (6:45 Central), against the winner among Oly (W #1), Gotham (E #2), and Detroit (NC #3). Our friends at Derby News Network will be providing text- and video-casts of all the action this weekend, but be sure to tune in during the WCR game(s)!!!!

A couple more handy links...

Full schedule for Declaration of Derby

DNN preview of Nationals Teams (they forgot to mention 12 folks in the "skaters to watch" part for WCR though...)

And the great promo commercial for the tournament, featuring the Philly Roller Girls!

We'll be updating the blog all weekend with score and bout updates! See you in Philly!