Photos by Chris Norris. More details at the Mad Rollin Dolls Blog. Click images for larger versions.

Just in time for tonight's Mad Rollin' Dolls Semi-Finals the Fire Marshall has reduced the capacity at Fast Forward, the Dolls' skate rink, from 1000 to 600. This new capacity includes skaters, volunteers, Fast Forward staff, and audience. It also means they won't be selling tickets at the door (UPDATE: after calculating the tickets pulled from outlets early yesterday there will be some tickets available at the door, so get there early. Also, tickets will be on the shuttle bus leaving from the High Noon to go to the bout at 5:30 p.m.) and they may not be able to let in press (don't worry, Dane101 will still be covering the bout)! Zoinks! Damn you Smoky the Bear and your...safety. From the Dolls:

When writing about the season opener for Mad Rollin Dolls a few months back, I mentioned this:

The Quad Squad isn't flashy, but they know how to set up blocks and how to read each other well, so what they lack in finesse, they make up with in pure strength and timing.

It was meant as a compliment (and not a backhanded one either), and in the back of my mind, I always kind of wished I would have written a bit differently as I didn't want the team to take it the wrong way. Luckily, when contacting Joan of Anarchy about this interview, she mentioned this to me:

I thought you might like to know that Quad Squad really enjoyed your description of our team in the Jan bout article. Thanks to you, we've gained a new slogan for season 4: "we may not be flashy, but we get the job done."

Awesome. I'm glad I could help.

Recently, during discussion of the adoption of the Madison Platinum Bicycle Committee’s Report recommendations (full disclosure, I wrote this report), Alder Thuy Pham-Remmele (District 20) asked, amongst other skeptical comments regarding adoption of the report, "How is a 300-pound person going to ride a bike?" Story on the meeting here.

Thankfully, Thuy Pham-Remmele was the only member of the Council to vote “no” on the adopting the report, and the measure easily passed, clearing the way for many improvements to bicycling in Madison in the coming years.

With the Wisconsin Badgers Men's Basketball team out of the running for the NCAA Tournament and the Wisconsin Women falling to Villanova in the NIT last week, what is a Badger fan suffering from March Madness to do? Why not drop the ball for a puck and look to our very own Kohl Center? Downtown Madison will be packed tonight with Badger hockey fans as Wisconsin battles North Dakota for a spot in the Frozen Four.

Going in to tonight's bout North Dakota is a three seed while Wisconsin is a 17 seed. On Saturday, North Dakota topped Princeton 5-1 and Wisconsin topped Denver 6-2. North Dakota may be the higher seed, but Wisconsin goes into the match with the home ice advantage - the Badgers are 8-0 for playoff games played on home ice including five NCAA Tournament wins. The Sioux and Badgers are roughly even when it comes to previous battles this season. During their first meet and greet the Badgers shut the Sioux out with a 4-0 victory, however, the Sioux turned around and won the next game 3-1. The last time the Badgers won the NCAA Tournament was in 2006.

Besides ending Wisconsin's run to the NCAA Tournament's Final Four, the second worst thing about the Badgers taking a dive to Davidson is that every blogger in the world used it as an opportunity to make puns on Davidson's Stephen Curry's name (including me). "Davidson serves up Curried Badger," "Badgers get served - with Curry," "Curried Badger on the Menu," "Badgers Have No Taste for Curry," and the worst, "Badgers Get Stuffed with Curry." While I couldn't find an actual recipe for Badger Curry, I did find a recipe for Badger Casserole. Besides the puns, what else are bloggers saying about the Badgers loss to the North Carolina team dubbed "Cinderella"? (hat tip to Dane101's Jason Dean for calling the Davidson victory.)

Senno On Sports says it best, Davidson is now America's team, "Those students, joined by LeBron James in the student section, received a treat watching Curry. No matter where tiny Davidson ends this year’s run - no 10 seed has advanced to the Final Four and only one other, Kent State in 2002, has reached the Elite Eight - Curry’s tournament run will go down in NCAA lore."

This year when I entered a college basketball pool, I had my share of Cinderella teams picked to upset “the big boys.” My friends smirked when they saw I had Davidson beating Georgetown.

“The Big East is the best conference in college hoops,” a friend informed me. “Georgetown will slow them down and make them play their style of basketball.”

After beating Georgetown last weekend 74-70, the Davidson Wildcats meet the Badgers in the Sweet 16 Friday night at 6 p.m. Those that once scoffed at my bracket now hope I am wrong, as I have the feisty Davidson team beating the Badgers.

The Mad Rollin Dolls have released the brackets for the April 12 semi-final bouts. Quad Squad landed a number one seed followed by the Vaudeville Vixens (2), Reservoir Dolls (3), and Unholy Rollers (4). So the match-ups will be:

Vaudeville Vixens vs. Reservoir Dolls
Quad Squad vs. Unholy Rollers

Team logo montage borrowed from the Mad Rollin Dolls website. Three years of Mad Rollin Dolls coverage can be found right here on Dane101.com.

No one is willing to play nice this season and lucky for us that means damn fine skating and strategy that I can only appreciate and never fully understand. We enter Saturdays bout with last years champs the Reservoir Dolls yet to pull off a win. The Res Dolls are 0-2, Vixens 1-0, Unholies 1-0 and the Quad Squad undefeated. This bout puts the Quad Squad against the Vixens and the Res Dolls face off against the Unholy Rollers. Tonights final scores dictate the rankings for April 12 semi-finals.

The first half of the Quad Squad vs Vaudeville Vixens Darling Nicki pulls off 10 points for the Vixens in jam 2, Stitch hits the crowd hard-- announcer Val Capone mics "Life is hard. Roller derby is harder." Harlot penalties out in jam 5 allowing Lil Miss jam control for the Quad Squad and 5 points evening out the score-- which stays close all half closing at QS:39, VV:43.

Last night the Reservoir Dolls' co-captain Mouse became only the second Mad Rollin Doll jammer in the history of the Madison roller derby league to break the 500 point mark. She went into Saturday's bout against the Unholy Rollers with 475 points and ended the evening with 513. Mouse joins the Quad Squad's Jenny Knoxville as the only two Mad Rollin' Dolls to break the 500 point threshold and are only two of a small few in all of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association who have made the landmark. You can read a previous interview dane101 conducted with Mouse and tune in tomorrow for Sarah's full write-up of the dramatic Saturday night bout. Photo courtesy of Neil Stechschulte.

Well, I'm pretty much done. I chose my alma mater, UConn, to go all the way and they lost yesterday to San Diego with an 18-foot jumper in overtime. As usual, all of my NCAA Tourney hoop dreams are left in the hands of the Lady Huskies who rarely let me down, but no one pays attention to Women's Basketball in Wisconsin, so I'm left all alone in my quiet cheering (worth mentioning, the Wisconsin Women's Hockey Team could pull off a three-pete today if they beat Minnesota-Duluth in the final match-up of the Frozen Four). In order to salvage my bracket at all I need upsets of major proportions today and tomorrow. No one in my office pool has Wisconsin making it out of the Sweet 16 so if they make it to the finals I can at least win a free lunch. Today the Badgers take on the Kansas State Wildcats at 3:20 Central. Below is a round-up of blogger predictions.

Wisconsin came out on top of Cal State Fullerton last night to win 71-56. There was some sloppy play throughout the game and early on it looked like Cal State could be heading for an upset of our mighty red and white. Wisconsin will go on to play Kansas State Saturday. Below is what the bloggers have to say about last night's game:

Badgercentric has the best overall breakdown of the entire game. He gives the Badger MVP to Krabby who had his best game last night. Badgercentric also points out, "30 wins for the second straight season. Just think about that for a minute. Thirty wins, two years in a row. Given where this program was 20 years ago, it's simply amazing the levels it has reached in the last 10."

It's NCAA tournament time, and there are three things you can expect every year:

1.One team will get a bid they don't deserve based solely on past reputation (see Kentucky).

2.There will be upsets. Oh yes, there will.

3.Wisconsin fans will complain about their seeding.

I'm as big a Badger fan as anyone, but come on, this complaining is getting old. Yes the Badgers could have been a No. 2 seed and probably deserved to be. Yes, we all know how the Badgers "get screwed" every year by the committee. However, it could be worse. We could be Butler.