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Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
April 22, 2014 - Continental Indoor Football League (CIFL)


BASEBALL

Pacific Association of Professional Baseball Clubs: The Hawaii Stars and Maui Na Koa Ikaika, the 2013 Hawaii-based teams in the independent Pacific Association, will not be part of the 2014 season. The owner of those teams has purchased the league's Vallejo (CA) Admirals team. A new team called the Pittsburg Mettle, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is expected to be added for the 2014 season. In addition to the Vallejo Admirals and Pittsburg Mettle, the league has two other California-based teams called the Sonoma Stompers and San Rafael Pacifics.

Frontier League: Officials in the Milwaukee suburb of Franklin (WI) endorsed a financing plan for a new ballpark that could become home to a Frontier League team. The city wants the ballpark to be part of a larger mix-used development. Nothing has been finalized and a vote will take place later this month.

Eastern League: The Double-A Eastern League recently started its 2014 season and marked the start of the Akron RubberDucks team, which had operated as the Akron Aeros since the 1997 season. The new team name is a tribute to the city's tire industry.

BASKETBALL

National Basketball Association Development League (D-League): The NBA's Detroit Pistons officially announced its new NBA D-League affiliate will be based in Grand Rapids (MI) starting with the 2014-15 season. A group of local investors purchased the league's Springfield (MA) Armor team and moved it to Grand Rapids. Under a "hybrid affiliation", the Pistons will run the basketball operations while the local group manages the team's day-to-day operations and community relations. The team is accepting suggestions for a new name. The Springfield Armor joined the D-League for the 2009-10 season and became the exclusive affiliate of the NBA's New Jersey Nets (now Brooklyn) starting with the 2011-12 season.

National Basketball League of Canada: The NBL-Canada recently completed its third season and is facing financial issues going into the off-season. Some teams have been struggling to make required league payments and the league has several outstanding bills. A proposed expansion team in the Niagara Region that was approved by the league earlier this year has decided not to join the league. An ownership group wanting to bring an expansion team to St. Catharines (Ontario) back in 2012 decided to withdraw and could try again once a new 5,000-seat arena opens in the fall of 2014.

Tobacco Road Basketball League: The East Carolina Stealth, an independent team playing as a travel team in the 2014 TRBL, is now listed as the Triangle Stealth.

American Basketball Association: The ABA announced it has added an expansion team called the Miami Storm for the 2014-15 season. The ABA had previous Miami teams called the Florida Pit Bulls (2005-06), the Miami Tropics (2006-07) and the Bahama All Pro Show team, which played games out of Miami from 2007 to 2009 and returned to play a few ABA games over the past two seasons.

Women's United States Basketball Association: The proposed WUSBA, which has been trying to get off the ground since 2010, recently announced plans to operate its inaugural season from early June to late August 2014. The league has confirmed four locations-Miami, Tampa, Atlanta and Washington (DC)-that will each host four teams. The league had hoped to start with 7 locations and a total of 28 teams.

Beautiful Ballers League: The women's BBL is planning its second spring-summer season and has two new teams called the New York Queen Bees (Queens) and Long Island Ice that will join the league.

FOOTBALL

Continental Indoor Football League: Most of the players on the CIFL's Port Huron Patriots have left the team due to lack payment and completion of the team's last two games looks doubtful. One of the co-owners of the league's Louisville-based Kentucky Xtreme, which suspended operations earlier in the 2014 season, is trying to start a new team called the Louisville Firebirds for the 2015 season of the Professional Indoor Football League.

Independent Women's Football League: The outdoor IWFL has started its 2014 season with 26 teams aligned into six regional divisions. Six of the teams are considered as Tier-3 teams that play six-player outdoor football until they can develop a full squad. The New York Sharks, Pittsburgh Passion, Utah Jynx joined from the IWFL from the 2013 Women's Football Alliance, while the Huntsville Tigers joined from the 2013 Women's Spring Football League. New Tier-3 teams for 2014 include the North County Stars (San Diego), Missouri Thundercats (Kansas City), Hillsboro (OR) Hammerheads and the Ventura Blackwidows, which played in the 2013 WSFL.

HOCKEY

American Hockey League: The British Columbia-based Abbotsford Heat, which is the AHL affiliate of the National Hockey League's Calgary Flames and the league's westernmost team, will be moving from Abbotsford to a yet-to-be named new location for the 2014-15 season. There has been speculation the Heat could move to Glens Falls (NY), since the city is losing the AHL's Adirondack Phantoms team that is moving to a new arena in Allentown (PA) for the 2014-15 season. Since Abbotsford is about an hour from Vancouver, there has also been speculation the NHL's Vancouver Canucks would eventually try to move its AHL affiliate to Abbotsford.

Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League: The Ontario Hockey Association recently rejected a request by Canada's junior-B level GOJHL to be reclassified as a junior-A level league.

North American 3 Hockey League: The Tier-III junior-level NA3HL, which is affiliated with the Tier-II NAHL, has approved expansion teams in Nashville (TN) and Decatur (AL) for the 2014-15 season.

SOCCER

Major League Soccer: The MLS announced the city of Atlanta has been granted the league's 22nd franchise and will most likely start play in the 2017 season. The Atlanta expansion team will play in the new football stadium to be built for the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League. The 19-team MLS will grow to 21 teams when the New York City FC and Orlando City SC Lions start play in 2015. Atlanta has a current Division-II team called the Atlanta Silverbacks that plays in the North American Soccer League. The city has had some history with teams in previous top professional soccer leagues. The former Atlanta Chiefs started play in the 1967 National Professional Soccer League, which merged with the United Soccer Association to form the original NASL in 1968. The Chiefs played through the 1972 season before becoming the Atlanta Apollos for one more season in 1973. Another Atlanta Chiefs team joined the NASL in 1979 when the Caribous of Colorado moved to Atlanta. This version of the Chiefs played three outdoor seasons (1979-80) and two winter indoor seasons (1979-81) in the NASL before folding. Also, the NFL's Minnesota Vikings are again planning to talk with the MLS about securing a Minneapolis-based expansion team that would play at its new football stadium that should be completed in 2016. Major League Baseball's Minnesota Twins and the NASL's Minnesota United FC have partnered to also try to bring an MLS expansion team to a proposed soccer-specific stadium in downtown Minneapolis.

National Women's Soccer League: The nine-team Division-I professional NWSL, which features national team players from the United States, Canada and Mexico, hopes future affiliations of its teams with men's Major League Soccer teams will help the league survive. Currently, the 2014 expansion Houston Dash is affiliated with the Houston Dynamo of the MLS and the NWSL's Portland Thorns are affiliated with the Portland Timbers of the MLS.

Professional Arena Soccer League: As of now, at least six of the seven teams from the 2013-14 Major Indoor Soccer League are trying to join the new 20-team league to be created with teams from the PASL.

The Baltimore Blast, Milwaukee Wave, Missouri Comets (Independence), Rochester Lancers, St. Louis Ambush and Syracuse Silver Knights left the MISL after the 2013-14 season. The future of the MISL's seventh team called the Pennsylvania Roar (Reading) was in doubt. The Rochester Lancers were still working on getting their release from the United Soccer Leagues, which operated the MISL for the past three seasons.

OTHER

Major League Ultimate: The MLU semi-professional ultimate disc league has started its second season that runs from April 12 to June 21, 2014. The league will have the same eight teams as last season with the Boston Whitecaps, New York Rumble, Philadelphia Spinners and Washington DC Current in the Eastern Division, and the Portland Stags, San Francisco Dogfish, Seattle Rainmakers and Vancouver Nighthawks in the Western Division.

American Ultimate Disc League: The men's semi-professional AUDL recently started its third season that will run from mid-April to mid-July 2014. Last season the league had 12 teams split into six-team East and Midwest divisions. A new team called the Montreal Royal replaced the departed New Jersey Hammerheads in the East and the league added a new five-team West division with teams called the Salt Lake City Lions, San Francisco Flamethrowers, San Jose Spiders, Seattle Raptors and Vancouver Riptide.

Dan Krieger is the creator of the "The Leagueology Almanac 2012-13", which tracks the changes in league alignments, franchise movements and team nicknames in today's sports world. The publication is currently available at www.amazon.com.

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Continental Indoor Football League Stories from April 22, 2014


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