Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
September 8, 2015 - National Basketball League of Canada (NBL Canada)

BASEBALL

Atlantic League: The independent Atlantic League has conditionally approved either an existing team or an expansion team to play in New Britain (CT) in 2016. The New Britain Rock Cats of the Double-A Eastern League will be moving to a new stadium in Hartford for next season. There has been speculation the Atlantic League's Camden (NJ) Riversharks team could relocate to New Britain. The Riversharks have suffered from low attendance the past few years and Camden officials have expressed interest in possibly replacing the Riversharks with a team affiliated with Major League Baseball. The Atlantic League is also reported to be taking a preliminary look at Raleigh (NC) for a possible team in the future.

BASKETBALL

National Basketball League of Canada: An ownership group has stepped forward to operate a new NBL-Canada team in Halifax (Nova Scotia) for the 2015-16 season. The team will replace the Halifax Rainmen team that ceased operations after the 2014-15 season. A new name and logo for the Halifax team is expected to be announced at the end of the month.

Central Basketball Development League: The CBDL announced it will start its third season in April 2016 instead of January as previously announced. The CBDL consisted of about five teams each of the past two seasons (2014 and 2015) with each team playing only a few springtime games as part of shortened seasons.

Christian Basketball League: The Christian Basketball League, which was recently announced as the first league under the American Basketball Association's Certified Affiliate League program, completed a very short 2015 summertime season with four teams called the Dallas United, Lake City Kingdom Riders (Lake Charles, LA), Questlife Warriors (Garland, TX) and the Unashamed Soldiers.

Women's American Basketball Association: The WUSBA, which has been trying to get off the ground with a summertime season since 2010, will try again in 2016 with 12 teams using junior college arenas across the United States as their playing venues. A proposed European exhibition tour of three WUSBA-sponsored teams this fall has been cancelled due to a change in scheduling for some European leagues.

FOOTBALL

Indoor Football League: The Spokane Shock indoor football team announced it is leaving the Arena Football League and will be part of the IFL for the 2016 season. This is the second AFL team to leave for the IFL, as the AFL's Iowa Barnstormers (Des Moines) moved to the IFL prior to the 2015 season. The IFL increases to 11 teams with the addition of Spokane, but it plans to announce a 12th team called the Minnesota Havok (Mankato) next week. The IFL is expected to again be aligned into two conferences with the Shock added to the Intense Conference and the Havok to the United Conference. The Spokane Shock played four seasons (2006-09) in the original AFL's minor league known as arenafootball2 and has been part of the new AFL since the league was reorganized for the 2010 season.

North American Indoor Football: The NAIF is planning to start its first full season of play in 2016 and will be holding a team owners meeting in October. Last month, the NAIF announced a new team called the Palm Beach Phantoms (West Palm Beach, FL) will play as a 2016 travel team. Two new NAIF teams called the CSRA Gladiators (Aiken, SC) and the Georgia Firebirds (Tifton) held an exhibition game this summer in Aiken.

HOCKEY

Northern Pacific Hockey League: The Tier-III junior-level NPHL announced the Cheney (WA) Icehawks team has been unable to establish a roster and will not be playing in the 2015-16 season. The Icehawks joined the NPHL as an expansion team last season.

United States Premier 3 Hockey League: The Adirondack Junior Wings organization, based in Troy (NY), has shut down its Tier-III hockey team to concentrate on growing its program at younger levels and will not be part of the 2015-16 USP3 season. The Adirondack Wings started play in the 2012-13 season as part of the Empire Junior Hockey League, which became the USPHL Empire Division last season and was renamed the USP3 for the 2015-16 season.

United States Premier Hockey League "" Midwest Divsion: The new Tier-III USPHL Midwest Division, which was created to become a 22-team league for the 2015-16 season through a merger of the Midwest Junior Hockey League (MWJHL) and the Minnesota Junior Hockey League (MnJHL), has already undergone some team changes since the merger was announced in March 2015 and is down to 18 teams. The former MnJHL team called the Minnesota Owls (Isanti) recently announced the team will go dormant for the 2015-16 season; the former MnJHL team called the Ironwood (MI) Fighting Yoopers folded; the former MnJHL team called the St. Louis Frontenacs changed its name to the St. Louis Storm and recently folded; and the former MWJHL team called the Soo Firehawks recently folded. The former MnJHL's Hudson Crusaders recently changed its name to the St. Croix Valley Magicians, while the former MWJHL's Motor City Monarchs (Fraser, MI) and Michigan Ice Dogs were renamed the Motor City Hawks and Michigan Wild, respectively. The USPHL Midwest Division will be aligned into eight-team Eastern and Western conferences for the 2015-16 season.

Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League: The Buffalo Regals team, which sat out the 2014-15 season in Canada's Junior-B GOJHL, failed to file certain paperwork with USA Hockey to allow the team to play in the GOJHL and will be forced to sit out the 2015-16 season. The team hopes to return next season.

SOCCER

Major League Soccer: The owner of the new FC Cincinnati soccer club, which will start play next season in the Division-III United Soccer League, wants to bring an MLS team to the city in the future. Just to the south, the owner of the USL's Louisville City FC wants the city to help build a 9,000-seat soccer stadium that could be expanded to 20,000, if an MLS team becomes available. The USL's Sacramento Republic FC announced a stadium design team should the city get an MLS franchise awarded. A new privately financed stadium is on track, but no actual construction will happen until an MLS expansion team is sold to the team's ownership group. The group trying to bring an MLS expansion team to Miami is apparently moving forward on a deal to have the MLS stadium located next to the Miami Marlins' baseball stadium.

North American Soccer League: The owner of the Division-II NASL's San Antonio Scorpions built a stadium that could be expanded for an MLS team and now wants to sell the stadium to the city of San Antonio and Bexar County to finance the stadium expansion. There has been some disagreement on the stadium purchase price by city/county officials, as there is no guarantee the city will get an MLS team if the stadium is expanded. The ownership of the San Antonio Spurs in the National Basketball Association own the rights to a potential Division-III team in the San Antonio area and could be interested in the stadium.

American Soccer League: The professional ASL, which will switch to a Spring/Fall season starting in 2016, has listed the AFC Lancaster (PA) Lions, Delaware Copperheads (Wilmington) and New Hampshire Bobcats as possible new teams for its second season. The ASL will also try to start a women's league called the Ladies American Soccer League.

OTHER

Canadian Lacrosse League (C-LAX): The five Ontario-based teams (Barrie Blizzard, Durham Turfdogs, Ohsweken Demons, Niagara Lock Monsters and Southwest Cyclops) that make up the C-LAX will be playing exhibition games next week against international teams leading up to the World Indoor Lacrosse Championships to be held later this month at the Onondaga Nation near Syracuse (NY).

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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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer(s), and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.