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 United Soccer League Championship

Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
August 19, 2013 - United Soccer League Championship (USL)


BASEBALL

Pacific Coast League: With the relocation of the Tucson Padres to El Paso for the 2014 season, the 16-team Triple-A PCL announced a realignment of its two conferences and four divisions. El Paso will be part of the Pacific Conference Southern Division with the Albuquerque Isotopes, Las Vegas 51s and Salt Lake Bees. The El Paso name-the-team contest had five potential nicknames: Aardvarks, Buckaroos, Chihuahuas, Desert Gators and Sun Dogs.

South Atlantic League (SALLY): The Hagerstown Suns of the low Class-A SALLY are discussing a revised financing plan with more private funding for a proposed baseball stadium to be built in Fredericksburg (VA). The city of Hagerstown hoped to keep the Suns from relocating to Fredericksburg, but there has been little progress on site selection and financing for a new stadium there. With Columbia (SC) talking about building a new stadium to attract a SALLY team, the league's Savannah Sand Gnats have been mentioned as a possible relocation candidate. Columbia's former SALLY team called the Capital City Bombers moved to become the Greenville (SC) Drive for the 2005 season.

Pacific Association: The San Francisco area's East Bay Lumberjacks team in the independent Pacific Association has come under new ownership has been renamed the Bay Cal Lumberjacks. The Lumberjacks started the 2013 season as a semi-pro team scheduled to play a limited amount of road games against Pacific Association teams. When issues arose with the league's Vallejo Admirals team, the Lumberjacks were added as a full league member. The new ownership is trying to secure a permanent home ballpark for the team.

Diamond League: The proposed developmental Diamond League has postponed its start until the 2015 season. The league wanted to start in 2014 with six teams, but was unable to find enough suitable facilities. The league will continue to work toward developing eight teams for a start in 2015. Ballparks in Worcester (MA), Sussex County (NJ) and Atlantic City (NJ) were said to be under consideration.

Northern League: The group trying to revive the independent Northern League for the 2014 season announced plans to place a team in Dyersville (IA), which is about 25 miles west of Dubuque and home to the All-Star Ballpark Heaven complex with the field constructed for the movie "Field of Dreams". The league previously announced the Elkhart County (IN) Miracle as its first team.

Vail Valley Baseball League: A new summer-collegiate league based in Colorado called the Vail Valley Baseball League plans to start in 2014 with six teams.

BASKETBALL

Central Basketball League: The CBL, which operated with four teams in the Midwest for its inaugural 2013 season, recently announced regional directors for four new divisions that will be added for the 2014 spring season. These will include the East Texas/Louisiana Division, the Smokey Mountain Division, the Sunshine Division (Florida) and Georgia Division.

American Basketball Association: The ABA announced a new team called the Montgomery (AL) Black Hawks, which originally planned to start play in 2014-15, will start play in the 2013-14 season. After the ABA's proposed Lake City Kingdom Riders team based in Lake Charles (LA) announced plans to join the Central Basketball League, the league now lists a new Lake Charles-based team called the Louisiana Gators.

FOOTBALL

Arena Football League: The AFL announced an Anaheim-based expansion franchise has been awarded to a group that includes members of the rock band KISS. The new team will be called the Los Angeles KISS when its starts play in the 2014 season. The original AFL, which played from 1987 through the 2008 season before filing for bankruptcy, had the Los Angeles Cobras for one season (1988) and the Los Angeles Avengers for nine seasons (2000-08). The current version of the AFL started play in 2010. The Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association are reported to be in negotiations with the AFL to relocate a franchise to Portland, possibly the league's dormant Milwaukee Mustangs franchise. The city had a team called the Portland Forest Dragons for three seasons (1997-99) in the original AFL. The AFL and its AFL Global organization is trying to start up a six-team league in China by next year.

Professional Indoor Football League: An ownership group trying to bring an indoor football team back to Trenton (NJ) has submitted an application for a PIFL franchise. An indoor team called the Trenton Lightning was a 2001 expansion team in the now-defunct Indoor Professional Football League, but the Lightning folded during the season with an 0-6 record. The American Indoor Football Association announced the Trenton-based New Jersey Kings as a 2010 expansion team, but the Kings never played and the AIFA replaced them with a 2011 expansion team called the Trenton Steel. The Steel and several other AIFA teams eventually became part of the restructured Southern Indoor Football League for the 2011 season, but the SIFL disbanded after the season and the Trenton Steel did not return in 2012.

United Football League: The owner of the Sacramento Mountain Lions from the UFL, which suspended its 2012 fall season and failed to complete it as planned in the spring of 2013, says the league could restart with a spring season in 2014 once some of the league's old debts are paid off.

HOCKEY

American Hockey League: With the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League planning a move from Long Island (Nassau County) to Brooklyn for the 2015-16 season, there has been some speculation the Islanders will move their Bridgeport (CT) Sound Tigers AHL affiliate to the Nassau Coliseum once planned renovations are completed.

Northern Pacific Hockey League (NorPac): The Tier III junior-level NorPac announced it will add a sixth team based in Everett (WA) for the 2013-14 season. The league had six teams last season, but the Glacier Nationals (Whitefish, MT) have moved to the American West Hockey League after splitting its 2012-13 schedule between the NorPac and AWHL. The NorPac wants to add 2 more teams next year and eventually grow to 10 or 12 teams in Washington, Oregon and Idaho by the 2016 season. The city of Everett has a major-junior team called the Everett Silvertips in the Western Hockey League.

Federal Hockey League: The FHL announced its 2013-14 schedule that will include four teams-the Danbury (CT) Whalers, Danville (IL) Dashers, Dayton Demonz and the renamed Watertown (NY) Privateers. The Privateers were called the Thousand Islands Privateers for the past three seasons. The team spent its first two seasons (2010-12) based in Alexandria Bay (NY), about 30 miles north of Watertown, but kept the Thousand Islands name when it moved to Watertown for the 2012-13 season.

SOCCER

Evergreen Premier League: The proposed new EPL, which is an elite-level adult men's soccer league based in the state of Washington, has announced four additional new teams called the Wenatchee United FC, Seattle Stars FC, WestSound FC and FC Three Rivers (Tri-Cities) that will be part of the league's inaugural season starting in May 2014. The EPL now has six teams with the previous announcement of two other teams in Bellingham and Tacoma and would like to start with eight to ten teams.

United Soccer Leagues - PRO: The Toronto Lynx organization, which has a men's soccer team in the USL Premier Development League (PDL), wants to move that team to Hamilton (Ontario) where the team would move up a level to the Division-III USL PRO league. Hamilton is currently building a new replacement stadium for its Canadian Football League team. The goal is to have the new Hamilton-based soccer team share the new stadium and become the USL PRO affiliate for the Toronto FC of Major League Soccer. Currently, 4 of the 13 USL PRO teams have affiliations with an MLS team. Hamilton had a previous PDL team called the Hamilton Rage that played two seasons (2011-12) before moving to become the K-W United FC (Kitchener-Waterloo) this season. The Toronto Lynx started as a Division-II USL team playing eight seasons (1997-2004) in the USL A-League and then in the renamed USL First Division for two seasons (2005-06). The Toronto Lynx moved down to the USL PDL for the 2007 season at the same time the FC Toronto team started play in the MLS. With the 2013 season coming to an end, there are some questions as to whether the expansion Phoenix FC Wolves will return for a second season.

OTHER

National Lacrosse League: The group selected to redevelop the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island (NY) expressed interest earlier this year about placing an indoor NLL franchise in the facility. A proposed NLL team could be at least two years away as renovations are expected to take about 15 months. The league had a team called the New York Saints based out of the Nassau Coliseum from 1989 to 2003 and the former New York Titans played half of their home schedule in that arena during the 2007 season.

Major League Ultimate: The MLU, one of two professional Ultimate Frisbee leagues, will not be expanding in 2014 as previously announced and will most likely not be merging with the other league called the American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL). The eight-team MLU recently completed its inaugural 2013 season with a four-team Western Conference and a four-team Eastern Conference. During the planning stages for its first season, the MLU announced plans to add a Midwestern Conference in 2014 with teams in Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and Toronto. The 12-team AUDL recently completed its second season in 2013 with six-team Eastern and Midwestern divisions. The AUDL owners buy a franchise with rights to a team and run it independently. The MLU is a single-entity operation with central investors running the teams.

Dan Krieger is the creator of the "The Leagueology Almanac 2011-12", 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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