Tri-City tops Connecticut, Montréal routs SoCal in Ontario playoffs

Tri-City Thunder and Montréal New Skids on the Block turned a routine playoff Saturday into a loud signal that the Ontario bracket was tilting hard toward its top contenders. Tri-City beat Connecticut CT All Stars 134-98, while Montréal crushed SoCal The Kraken 339-37 at Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex in Waterloo, Ontario.

The results came in the 2026 WFTDA North America Playoffs - Ontario, a June 5-7 event hosted by Tri-City Roller Derby and seeded from the April 1, 2026 rankings. WFTDA’s bracket had Tri-City, the No. 4 seed, opening Saturday at 10 a.m. EDT against the winner of Friday’s Connecticut-Santa Cruz game. Montréal, the No. 1 seed, followed at noon against the winner of Friday’s SoCal-Bradentucky matchup.

Tri-City’s 36-point win mattered because it did more than protect the home ice feel of the tournament. A playoff team that can separate from Connecticut by that margin has room to manage jams, stay organized in the pack, and avoid the kind of frantic late-game scramble that can blow up a seed line. For a host team, that is the cleanest kind of statement: not a runaway, but a result that says the building can still belong to its own league.

Montréal’s performance was the number that stopped the bracket cold. A 339-37 final is a 302-point margin, and it landed as one of the weekend’s most eye-catching results in Ontario. That kind of score does not happen unless a team controls nearly every phase of the game, from initial engagement to scoring conversion to defensive pressure that keeps the other side from ever settling in.

The seeding also shaped the stakes around both wins. WFTDA noted two Ontario swaps, including Montréal and Connecticut moving to avoid a potential Montreal A/Montreal B semifinal, and Santa Cruz and Bradentucky shifting to avoid a Southern California matchup after the trip to Ontario. Those adjustments left the bracket with a strong built-in test for the favorites, and both Tri-City and Montréal answered on Saturday.

Tri-City now carries a home playoff result that keeps it relevant in the Ontario conversation, while Montréal’s blowout made the rest of the field feel the gap. By the time Saturday’s first two games were over, Ontario had already split into two stories: a host team trying to keep climbing, and a top seed reminding everyone why it entered the weekend at No. 1.