Where all the action happens.
Each year, ICDA partners with five different high schools and Harper College in Palatine to host six tournaments, providing debaters with the opportunity to earn awards and hone
their skills.
While the competitions all offer the same opportunities for experience and recognition, each one offers certain unique experiences too - from Tournament of Champions (TOC) qualifying bids to costume parties before Halloween. Whether serious, funny, or exciting, ICDA tournaments let students bond over their love for Congressional Debate, not just compete.
Click on each tournament page to learn more about the event, or to access legislation and results when they become available.
(For the most up-to-date information, refer to the rules section.)
Registration
All tournament business, including payment of fees, is handled through tabroom.com, the National Speech and Debate Association's online tournament administration platform.
Each school is allowed to register a maximum of 45 varsity debaters and 20 junior varsity debaters. Depending on the number of debaters they register, each school will also need to provide a certain number of adults to act as judges on the day of the tournament. The registration fee for each debater is $10.
Schools also pay for pizza and submit legislation for the next tournament during registration.
Tournament Day
Each tournament is held on a Saturday. Tournament schedule is as follows:
Committees/Coach and Judge meeting | 8:00 a.m. - 8:15 a.m.
Session 1 | 8:15 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.
Session 2 | 11:00 a.m. – 1:15 p.m.
LUNCH | 1:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Session | 3 2:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.
End-of-day voting occurs after the end of session three. Awards are given out sometime after that, depending on how quickly results are processed.
Teams can purchase pizza when registering for the tournament in order to ensure debaters have something to eat during lunch. However, debaters are welcome to bring their own food as well.
During the lunch session, each school sends one captain to participate in the captain's meeting, where all the captains discuss possible changes that could be made to ICDA in order to improve the tournaments.
Results
While awards are handed out at the end of the tournament, results take a little longer to be released. Usually, judge feedback and speech scores are released on tabroom immediately following the end of the tournament. Then, more comprehensive results (which detail the overall performance of every debater) are released in the coming days.
Sometime after this, the legislation for the next tournament will be released to allow schools adequate time to research and prepare before the competition.