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It’s another big weekend for North American tournaments, with the results potentially going a long way to shaping who will be qualifying for the US Nationals.

The biggest of the lot is undoubtedly the Denver Summer Sevens in Colorado. Acting as both a qualifier for San Francisco and the Championship Series qualifier there is plenty at stake. Both Denver Barbarians (home side) and The Gentlemen of Aspen have traditionally dominated the event and will be looking to join Belmont Shore, OMBAC, Life University, and Nova in the final Championship tournament to be held around the USA 7s IRB event next February.

New York Village Lions will once again host the New York Midnight 7s on Saturday. With the sides playing under the lights at Pier 40 on the west side of Manhattan from 6pm-Midnight. 2008 NRU champions Old Blue fresh from winning the PAC 7S and making the quarters at Cape Fear will enter as favourites.

Another big event is in Cleveland, the 11th annual Rock n Roll 7s hosted by the The Eastern Suburbs Rugby Football Club (ESRFC). On show at the Donald E. Krueger Park will be a Men’s Mid West Qualifier, Men’s Open, Women’s Open, Boys and Girls High School competitions.

Another qualifier for the Mid-West will take place at the Grand Rapid 7s. Milwaukee, Kansas City, Youngbloodz, Chicago Lions, University of Dayton, and Scioto Valley are all sides who have enjoyed success thus far in this region with previous tournaments being Firehouse and Taz 7s. The host team at Douglas Walker Park will be the Grand Rapid Gazelles.

There is also the 31st running of the New England 10s, with a Championships and Social competitions for both men and women, with Old Gold Rugby playing hosts again to 40 teams in the biggest tournament in the region in this traditional rugby hotbed.

The 32nd annual Can-Am 7s also kicks off this weekend in Ferndale, Washington. Hosts Chuckanut Bay are in Group II with 2008 runners up Bayside, Del Rey and Meralmomas. In Group I, Old Puget Sound Beach clashes with Pacific Rovers, Ellensburg and Missoula.

This tournament has a decidedly more American feel to it than in recent years, when Canadian teams dominated. But with many top players off with the Canadian national team, the number of Northern teams has dropped somewhat, and the number of American teams participating has increased.

All the American teams will be assessing whether, based on their performance in this tournament, they might want to make a run at the Pacific Coast championships later this summer.

Finally the Mid-Atlantic regions qualification process continues this weekend at the Energy 7s in Norfolk. It’s the second leg in the MARFU 7s championship series, which has a Premier division for teams looking to play for a national title, and an Open division for clubs looking to just have a little fun during the sumer.

The Premier Division is small, with only four teams, Charlotte, NOVA, Washington, and PAC, competing. Of these, NOVA might be favored at the moment, having made the final of the NOVA Battle field 7s earlier this summer.

As it is, it seems almost any team that shows up and wins a game will likely earn enough points for the MARFU territorial tournament.

After one of three of the qualifiers in the region Schuylkill River and NOVA lead the way with 8 points with PAC following behind on 4.5 points.

Belmont Shore hosts the second of two Southern California 7s qualifiers this weekend, even though they don’t need to win.

Shore won the Las Vegas 7s and so already have the #1 seed from SoCal for the national tournament. So this week, they will enter a completely different squad as Belmont Shore II, featuring the likes of USA player Justin Boyd, Tony Fratangelo and Nic Hawkins.

It’s certainly not a pushover team, and in fact while Shore II might be tested somewhat by Back Bay and Santa Monica, they really only have to worry about one opponent, OMBAC.

The San Diego club has a long history of success in 7s, but have lost some of their more experienced players and are still learning the ropes in many ways.

They’ve added some young guys like Kai Beech, who played with Aspen 7s last year, San Diego State star Duncan Kelm, who is on the USA radar, Tai Tuisamoa, a former pro basketball prospect, and USA 7s player Alex Ross.

Overall we can safely say that after another exciting weekend of 7s in the USA we will know alot more about who is heading to San Francisco after this weekend.