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IFL Indoor Football League

Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
April 26, 2021 - Indoor Football League (IFL)


BASEBALL

Appalachian League: The former advanced Rookie-level Appalachian League, which was has been converted to a summer-collegiate league under the Major League Baseball's Prospect Development Pipeline, will start play on June 3, 2021 with each of the ten teams playing a 54-game schedule. The league has kept the same markets, but each team has a new name. The East Division includes the Bluefield (VA) Ridge Runners, Burlington (NC) Sock Puppets, Danville (VA) Otterbots, Princeton (WV) Whistlepigs and Pulaski (VA) River Turtles. The West Division consists of the Bristol (VA) Stateliners, Elizabethton (TN) River Riders, Greeneville (TN) Flyboys, Johnson City (TN) Doughboys and Kingsport (TN) Axemen.

Double-A Central League: The Corpus Christi Hooks of the Double-A Central league announced the team will be called the Corpus Christ Honey Butter Chicken Biscuits for each Wednesday home game during the 2021 season as part of a promotion with the Whataburger restaurant chain.

Frontier League: The Frontier League held a dispersal draft for the Ottawa Titans, which was to be a 2021 expansion team until it decided to sit out the season. The team's United States citizens were dispersed to other U.S.-based teams or became free agents, while the team's Canadian citizens were placed on a new Team Quebec, a combination of the league's two Quebec-based teams called the Trois-Rivieres Aigles and Quebec Les Capitales (Quebec City). The Titans were planning to start the 2021 season playing all games in the United States, but decided to hold off its inaugural season until 2022 after the two Quebec teams decided to combine for the 2021 season and would have left an uneven number of teams.

West Coast League: The summer-collegiate WCL announced an expansion team called the Springfield (OR) Drifters will start play in the 2022 season. The team will be the league's fourth Oregon-based team.

BASKETBALL

Canadian Elite Basketball League: The seven-team professional CEBA has pushed back the start of its 2021 season from June 5 to June 24, 2021 with each team still playing 14 games. The league had already reduced its 20-game season that normally started in May to a 14-game season starting in early June.

Official Basketball Association: The men's semi-pro OFA started its inaugural 2021 season this week and lists 35 teams in four regional divisions (Central, North, East and South). The league also lists 18 independent teams and 11 alternate teams.

Professional Basketball Association: The new men's spring-summer PBA plans to start play this year with a season running from early May through August. The league consists of various new teams and other teams from leagues like the American Basketball Association, Premier Basketball League and Maximum Basketball League. The PBA currently lists a 42-team Eastern Conference with four regional divisions and a 44-team Western Conference with four regional divisions.

Florida Basketball Association: The semi-pro FBA started its 2021 season last weekend with eight teams. The FBA's 2020 spring-summer season was cancelled due to the coronavirus (COVID-19). Since the FBA's last regular season in 2019, the league has lost the Fort Lauderdale Herd, Palm Beach Knights and Space Coast Stars (Melbourne), but added expansion teams called the Gainesville Mighty Oaks, Brevard County Bobcats (Melbourne) and Clermont Crocs.

FOOTBALL

Canadian Football League: After cancelling its 2020 season due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the nine-team CFL stated it will play this season and has targeted August 5, 2021 for the start of the 2021 season. Each team's schedule has been shortened from 18 to 14 games. The CFL states it has a contingency plan in place should factors delay the start of the season beyond the August date.

Indoor Football League: The IFL started its 13th season this weekend with 12 of its 17 franchises participating. The IFL started the 2020 season with 13 teams but was forced to cancel the season after only two games due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The IFL added the Louisville Xtreme and Northern Arizona Wranglers (Prescott Valley), along with the Massachusetts Pirates (Worcester) from the National Arena League. The league's 2020 teams called the Cedar Rapids River Kings, Oakland Panthers, Quad City Steamwheelers and San Diego Strike Force decided to sit out the 2021 season and an expansion team called the Columbus (OH) Wild Dogs announced it will not start play until the 2022 season.

European League of Football: The new ELF, which will play American-style football with eight teams in Germany, Poland and Spain, announced its inaugural 2021 season will run from mid-June to early August with each team playing seven games. The North will include Germany's Hamburg Sea Devils, Berlin Thunder and Leipzig Kings with Poland's Wroclaw Panthers, while the South will have Germany's Frankfurt Galaxy, Cologne Centurions and Stuttgart Surge with Spain's Barcelona Dragons.

HOCKEY

American Hockey League: The National Hockey League's New Jersey Devils are reported to be relocating its Binghamton Devils AHL affiliate out of the city, possibly becoming the Utica (NY) Devils for the 2021-22 season. There has been no word on where the AHL's current Utica Comets team, which is affiliated with the NHL's Vancouver Canucks, will move or the future of the Binghamton market.

ECHL: The ECHL's Worcester (MA) Railers announced the team will return to play for the 2021-22 season after sitting out the 2020-21 season due to effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Ontario Hockey League: The 20-team major-junior OHL announced this week the league has cancelled its entire 2020-21 season without playing a regular-season game. The OHL had hoped to play a shortened season in some hub cities, but there was an increase in coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and the province had recently issues a new stay-at-home order.

United States Premier Hockey League: The Tier-III USPHL announced an expansion team called the Lake Tahoe (CA) Lakers has been added to the USPHL Premier Division for the 2021-22 season. The area had previous Western States Hockey League junior-level teams called the Lake Tahoe Blue for two seasons (2013-15) and the renamed Tahoe Icemen for three seasons (2015-18).

SOCCER

USL Championship (United Soccer League): The Division-II professional USL Championship league started its 2021 season this weekend with 31 teams each playing a 32-game season. Teams are aligned in an Eastern Conference with an eight-team Atlantic Division and an eight-team Central Division, and a Western Conference with a seven-team Mountain Division and an eight-team Pacific Division. The league operated with 35 teams last season, but lost the Philadelphia Union II, Portland Timbers 2, Reno 1868 FC, St. Louis FC and North Carolina FC, and added the Oakland Roots SC.

USL League Two (United Soccer League): The pre-professional USL League Two recently announced a team in Portland (OR) called PDX FC will be part of a four-team Northwest Division with all teams based in the state of Oregon.

National Independent Soccer Association: The Bay Cities FC based in Redwood City (CA) has applied to join the Division-III professional NISA and could start play in 2022 if approved. An Atlanta-based team is finalizing and developing a new stadium and will join the NISA when that is complete. A proposed Providence (RI) team is still trying to join the NISA in the future.

Women's Independent Soccer League: The proposed new Division-II professional WISL announced its first team will be the Los Angeles Force. The associated men's Los Angeles Force team is part of the professional Division-III National Independent Soccer Association.

OTHER

American Ultimate Disc League: The 22-team professional AUDL recently announced the 2021 schedule for its 19 teams based in the United States. Each team will play a 12-game schedule from early June through August. These teams are aligned in a five-team Central, an eight-team Atlantic and a six-team West division. The AUDL's three Canadian teams-the Montreal Royal, Ottawa Outlaws and Toronto Rush-are not participating in the regular-season due to cross-border travel restrictions. These teams will play a separate Canadian Cup schedule that is still to be announced.

Dan Krieger is the creator of the Weekly Sports League & Franchise Report, which has been tracking changes in the sports world's leagues, teams and nicknames since April 2007.



Indoor Football League Stories from April 26, 2021


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.


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