With the Club Championships field set, these Power Rankings look at the teams still in contention for gold in Sarasota, and orders them according to ability, performance and x-factors. These are not seedings for the Club Championships, but rankings in order of who in the remaining field is the strongest.
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Talking Points
I’m so Surly
I have Surly in the top spot because I think that playing together as a core for a number of years makes them, simply put, the strongest team. Although they lost Kubulanza to Wheelchair, they did pick up new faces, Tim Murray perhaps the most notable. I put Wheelchair second because the roster is just nuts. The Bay Area/Vancouver connection isn’t new: they’ve played together on various Championship teams before (Nada Mooger at Kaimana, No Tsu Oh at Paganello and the non-Canadians on JAM). But still they may face unexpected issues and difficulties like Beyondors in 2009.
BoneDoG’s in Harmony
Boneyard at 3 and not above Wheelchair because they didn’t blow out Chesapeaked at Regionals. I have DoG at 4 because they seem to have integrated the 13 GLUM players (!) pretty well and won (?) the Arnold Sanchez sweepstakes.
Who’s Left?
I slipped Beyondors in next because of the roster and their comeback victory at Regionals over ex-Bravo. I put Chesapeaked (DC/Philly combo part II) due to a strong Regionals showing against Boneyard. Real Huck could be here too after a semis appearance last year but Regionals results looked weak and I didn’t recognize any major new names on their roster. I put Chalant next because they eliminated a Nationals team from last year (Figjam) that had improved its roster and because they played it close to Wheelchair. Reckon’s roster looks good and Atlanta is overdue for a breakout year but I couldn’t move them up. Of the last 3 teams — Tejas (Texas, ex Doublewide), Old Style (non-UW madison players) and No Country (Western Mass/Vermont) — I put in No Country because they looked good at Regionals, won their GTG by 10, and feature a very competent offense.
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