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 Major League Lacrosse

Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
April 20, 2015 - Major League Lacrosse (MLL)


BASEBALL

Atlantic League: With the New Britain (CT) Rock Cats of the Double-A Eastern League moving to a new stadium in Hartford next season, the independent professional Atlantic League has expressed interest in a possible team being placed in New Britain. The independent professional Can-Am League and the summer-collegiate Futures League have also been mentioned as being interested in the New Britain market.

International League: The new owners of the Pawtucket (RI) Red Sox in the Triple-A International League unveiled plans for a proposed new stadium in Providence (RI) where it wants the team to move to by the start of the 2017 season. The stadium will rely on some public subsidies that could present a problem for the financing plan. The league started its 2015 season earlier this month with the same 14 teams aligned into a six-team North division and four-team West and South divisions.

Pacific Coast League: The 16-team Triple-A PCL started its 2015 season earlier this month and has the same alignment as last season with each American Conference and National Conference consisting of two four-team Northern and Southern divisions. There were several changes in Major League affiliations since last season with one resulting in a team name change. In the off-season, the Oklahoma RedHawks were sold to an ownership group led by a minority owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and part of the purchase agreement involved switching the team's affiliation from the Houston Astros to the Los Angeles Dodgers. With this affiliation change, the RedHawks were renamed the Oklahoma City Dodgers.

Texas Collegiate Baseball League: The East Texas Pump Jacks of the summer-collegiate TCBL have moved their home from Kilgore to Tyler, about 25 miles west, where the team will play on the campus of University of Texas-Tyler. The team has played the past seven seasons in Kilgore.

BASKETBALL

American Basketball Association: The ABA announced new teams called the Lansing (MI) Sting, Tulsa Twisters and Texas Red Wolves, based near San Antonio in New Braunfels, have been added as expansion teams and are expected to be part of the 2015-16 season. The league's AM-MEX Swarm moved during the ABA playoffs last month to the Laredo Energy Arena and was renamed the Laredo Swarm. The Swarm was originally announced as a 2014-15 ABA expansion team called the Central Texas Swarm (Eagle Pass), but could not work out a venue and moved across the Mexican border to Piedras Negras as the AM-MEX Swarm in November 2014.

Midwest Professional Basketball Association: The six-team MPBA, which had two teams each in St. Louis and Chicago along with teams in Bloomington (IL) and Champaign (IL), successfully completed its inaugural 2015 season. The league stated it has about six teams from other leagues that have expressed interest in joining the MPBA for its next season in 2016. The MPBA schedule ran from early January to early April with each team playing 20 games.

FOOTBALL

American Indoor Football: The Cleveland Saints, a new team in the AIF for the 2015 season, has apparently folded with an 0-4 record and is being replaced on the AIF schedule by a team called the Cleveland Pack. The Saints had replaced another Cleveland-based AIF team called the Cleveland Patriots that folded after playing in just the 2014 season.

Rivals Professional Football League: The RPFL, which wants to develop players for the National Football League and Canadian Football League, plans to return for a second season in 2015 with four Michigan-based teams. The RPFL played a short season in 2014 with four teams, but the Akron Blaze and Southern Michigan Mustangs have been replaced by the Oakland County Racers and Pontiac Generals. The Detroit Cougars and Macomb County Bearcats have returned from last season. The RPFL season has each team playing an eight-game schedule from June 13 to August 8, 2015. All games are played at two locations, one in Mount Clemens and another in Pontiac.

Women's Football Alliance: The outdoor full-tackle WFA started its 2015 season last weekend with 41 teams across the United States. Teams are aligned into a 24-team American Conference with 6 regional divisions and a 17-team National Conference with 5 regional divisions. Some of the new teams for this season include the Boston Renegades, Daytona Waverunners, Arlington Impact, Dallas Elite, South Texas Lady Crushers, Mile High Blaze, Utah Falconz, St. Louis Slam, Ventura Wolfpack, Pacific Warriors and Sin City Sun Devils. The regular season runs to mid-June.

HOCKEY

Federal Hockey League: The head of the FHL said that a judge's order for the league to pay $800,000 as part of a lawsuit by a former player could cause the league to fold or try to reorganize as a different entity. The FHL does not have the money to pay the judgment and filed an appeal in December 2014.

Ontario Hockey League: With the Erie (PA) Otters of the major-junior OHL filing for bankruptcy last week and expected to be sold, there has been speculation as to where the team could move. Brantford (Ontario), which had the previous Brantford Alexanders team in the OHL, along with Cornwall (Ontario) and Buffalo (NY) have been mentioned as possible relocation candidates.

North American 3 Eastern Hockey League: The junior-level NA3EHL officially announced a Brooklyn-based team called the New York Aviators will join as the league's 13th and final team for the 2015-16 season. The league operated with ten teams in 2014-15 and has added three new teams - the Aviators, Northeast Generals (Canton, MA) and Skyland Kings (Stockholm, NJ).

Eastern Ontario Junior Hockey League: The Canadian Junior-B EOJHL has entered into an affiliation agreement with the 12-team Junior-A Central Canada Hockey League for the 2015-16 season. Sixteen of the 22 EOJHL teams from the 2014-15 season will move to a new CCHL development league known as the CCHL-2. CCHL teams will assign and recall specific players to and from CCHL-2 teams as part of the affiliation.

SOCCER

Professional Futsal League: The proposed new PFL, which hopes to start league play in the fall of 2016, will hold its second international tournament to be called PFL SuperCopa. The event will take place in Orlando this coming August with two top Brazilian futsal teams and two other teams yet to be named.

Women's Premier Soccer League: The pro-am WPSL has posted its alignment for the 2015 season that will start early next month. As of now, the league has 81 teams aligned into 12 regional divisions.

OTHER

Major League Lacrosse: The field lacrosse (outdoor) MLL started its 15th season last week with the same eight teams as last year - the Boston Cannons, Charlotte Hounds, Chesapeake Bayhawks (Annapolis, MD), Denver Outlaws, Florida Launch (Boca Raton), New York Lizards, Ohio Machine (Columbus) and Rochester Rattlers.

Major League Ultimate: The MLU professional ultimate Frisbee league started its 2015 season this weekend with the same eight teams as last season. The Eastern Conference includes the Boston Whitecaps, New York Rumble, Philadelphia Spinners and Washington DC Current, while the Western Conference features the Portland Stags, San Francisco Dogfish, Seattle Rainmakers and Vancouver Nighthawks. The MLU is in its third season and operates under a single-entity ownership with central investors and centrally run teams. The competing professional ultimate league called the American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL), which started play in 2012, has individual franchise owners that operate their own teams. The MLU teams in Seattle, San Francisco, Vancouver, Washington (DC), New York and Philadelphia also have AUDL teams operating in their markets.

Dan Krieger is the creator of the Leagues, Teams & Nicknames 2013-14: "The Leagueology Almanac" , 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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Major League Lacrosse Stories from April 20, 2015


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