AUDL Championship Weekend VI is all set for August 26-27 in Montréal, with semifinal match-ups #1 Madison facing #4 San Francisco and #2 Dallas facing #3 Toronto August 26 (4pm and 7pm ET), and then the winners meet in the AUDL Championship game August 27 at 1pm ET.
Madison beat Pittsburgh to win the Midwest title for the 5th year in a row. Dallas upset top team Raleigh in North Carolina to take the South crown for the 2nd year in a row, while Toronto beat the Breeze to win their 5th consecutive East Division title. San Francisco heads to Championship Weekend for the first time, beating the LA Aviators to win the West Division.
FOUR TEAMS QUALIFY FOR 2017 AUDL CHAMPIONSHIP WEEKEND
2017 marks the 2nd time that AUDL Championship Weekend has been held in Canada. Here are the venues and results from the first 5 years of AUDL Championships:
- 2012 Detroit: Philadelphia over Indianapolis, 29-22
- 2013 Chicago: Toronto over Madison, 16-14
- 2014 Toronto: San Jose over Toronto, 28-18
- 2015 San Jose: San Jose over Madison, 17-15
- 2016 Madison: Dallas over Seattle, 33-27
That means the records of the four finalists in previous championship games are as follows: DAL 1-0, TOR 1-1, SFO 0-0, MAD 0-2. Maybe it’s finally Madison’s turn. Maybe San Francisco will join Philadelphia, San Jose and Dallas as champions who have never lost a final. Maybe Dallas will repeat. Or maybe Toronto will join San Jose as the only two-time champions instead.
Who will be crowned champion this year? It surely won’t be the Breeze due to their 29-26 loss in Toronto last Sunday. Oddsmakers are predicting a Dallas vs San Francisco final despite the seedings indicating otherwise. Final Four seedings are purely mathematical and based on regular season results, but given that very few cross-divisional games are played in the AUDL during the regular season, competitiveness can vary widely among each semifinal team’s opponents. The South and West were widely considered the two strongest divisions this year, so it’s no surprise that the teams who survived those two divisions would be favored for the finals.
Tune in to see the action at 4pm & 7pm Aug 26 and 1pm Aug 27 (all times ET) at audl.tv/live, Eleven Sports Network on your television, and Whistle Sports on Facebook and YouTube.