Letter of Invitation

Dear Colorado friends,

You are invited to attend the 2026 Roadrunner Scrimmage at Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU Denver) in Denver, Colorado! This British Parliamentary style scrimmage will be held at MSU Denver in our Central Classroom Building. We will offer three rounds of competition on Saturday, September 5, 2026. This scrimmage will follow YODL rules and procedures including a topic strike process using topic areas we will release about a month before the scrimmage. This is a free event open to anyone who would like to attend. Given the short nature of the event and the fact that it is a scrimmage, we are expecting a local draw. We will provide a light breakfast and lunch for all participants. Please register by no later than August 31 so we have time to order food and reserve rooms. Please send all correspondence to John Rief.

We look forward to hosting you at MSU Denver!

Sincerely,

John Rief, MSU Denver, jrief1@msudenver.edu 

Jason Jordan, MSU Denver, jjorda44@msudenver.edu                   

Staff 

Conveners: John Rief and Jason Jordan

Tab: John Rief

CA Team: Simon Bernhard, Alliton Flores Sanchez, TBA

For all registration questions and other pre-event assistance, please contact John Rief at jrief1@msudenver.edu.

Registration Information

There is no registration fee for this scrimmage. As this is a scrimmage, we are not requiring teams to be covered by judging. Please supply as many judges, especially chairs, as you can. We are planning to hire several judges but may not have enough to panel every debate without your assistance. If everyone pitches in, we can cultivate an excellent learning opportunity for our students.

Please enter your teams and judges on forensicstournament.net by Monday, August 31. Any teams that have registered by this time can make edits (including drops, additions, new team configurations, and changes to judging personnel) up until Friday, September 4. If you have questions or special requests, please email John Rief at jrief1@msudenver.edu.

Scrimmage Procedures

As noted above, we will follow YODL rules at this scrimmage including the topic strike and points of privilege procedures. We will not be using open adjudication. We will go over these rules at our pre-scrimmage briefing on Saturday morning.

We will use the YODL adjudication manual as our primary source for rules and norms throughout the scrimmage. While we will not be requiring judges to complete YODL certification, we do expect that everyone will be familiar with the YODL manual. Please note that while we are using YODL rules, this scrimmage does not count toward YODL points and is not officially sanctioned by YODL.

For any issues not addressed in the YODL manual, please consult the WUDC manual. Should any questions or concerns arise, these are the documents our CA team, tab, and scrimmage leadership will reference.

A slate of topic areas will be released around one month before the scrimmage. We will make these topic areas available on forensicstournament.net and via email to currently registered teams. Teams will be given an opportunity to recommend specific topic wordings to the CA team shortly after the release of these areas. The due date for suggestions will be provided once the topic areas are released.

Food

We will be serving a light breakfast and lunch. Please contact John Rief at jrief1@msudenver.edu with any dietary requests, restrictions, and allergies on or before Monday, August 31 using the DIETARY RESTRICTIONS SURVEY.

Parking

We will be paying for parking and will release a code to everyone a week ahead of the scrimmage. Please consult the attached map (below) for the best places to park.

Schedule

• Please note that all times are MDT (Mountain Daylight Savings Time) and are subject to minor modifications. You will be informed of any changes well in advance.

Saturday, September 5

• Check-in 8-9am (Central Classroom Building, Room 109)
• Drop Deadline* 9am (Central Classroom Building, Room 109)
• Briefings 9-9:30am (Central Classroom Building, Room 109)
• Round 1 10am (Central Rooms)
• Round 2 12pm (Central Rooms)
• Lunch* 1:30pm (Central First Floor Hall)
• Round 3 2:30pm (Central Rooms)                     

*Teams and judges who have not checked in by this time will be dropped from round 1 but can add back in for future rounds. 

**Lunch will be available starting at this time. Competitors and judges are encouraged to get food during deliberation and eat during post-round discussion.

Campus Map

You will find the Central Building in the lower right hand (southeast) section of campus on the interactive map linked above. The best parking area for the scrimmage is Holly. 

We hope to see you at MSU Denver in September!

Topic Areas (TBA)