Sports stats



AHL American Hockey League

Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
December 12, 2022 - American Hockey League (AHL)


BASEBALL

Texas League: A group called Diamond Baseball Holdings (DBH) has purchased the Wichita Wind Surge of the Double-A Texas League and stated it is open to changing the team's name, if fans think it needs to go. The "Wind Surge" nickname was not widely accepted when the team relocated to the city from the New Orleans Baby Cakes after the 2019 season. DBH also purchased the Texas League's Midland (TX) RockHounds team, which will remain in Midland. DBH has been purchasing other minor league baseball teams and expects to control 20 teams by the start of spring training in 2023.

BASKETBALL

American Basketball Association: The men's semi-pro ABA announced the Jacksonville (FL) Giants team, which has won seven of the last ten ABA championships, will not participate in the 2022-23 season. The team plans on returning next season.

SlamBall: The founder of SlamBall, which features a four-player type of basketball using a series of trampolines positioned in the normal shooting area of the baskets allowing players to spring toward the basket in an attempt to score, announced this past summer that this made-for-TV basketball hybrid will return to the United States in 2023 with a summer season played in Las Vegas and games to be rebroadcast across the country. SlamBall seasons were played and taped at one location in 2002, 2003, and again in 2008 and 2009, and rebroadcast across the United States. The organizers had hoped to create an official SlamBall League with individual franchises to be located at SlamBall complexes in select markets.

The Basketball League: The minor professional TBL announced its Montreal expansion team will be called the Montreal Tundra, or Toundra de Montreal in French, when it starts play in the 2023 season. The league's previously announced TRU-STL 2023 expansion team, based in St. Louis, is now called the St. Louis Griffins. The TBL has replaced last season's Bakersfield Magic team with a new team called the Bakersfield Majestics. The TBL operated with 44 teams in 2022 and currently lists 47 teams aligned in a 9-team West Conference, a 6-team Central Conference, a 19-team East Conference and a 13-team Midwest Conference. The 2023 season is supposed to start in March.

FOOTBALL

Great Lakes Arena Alliance: The GLAA is a new regional professional indoor football league organizing for a start in 2023 with initial teams to be based in Michigan, Illinois and Ohio. Three of those teams include the Michigan-based Southern Michigan Apex (Kalamazoo/Portage), Battle Creek Smoke (B.C. Smoke) and the West Michigan Ironmen (Muskegon), which has been part of several indoor leagues since 2016 and was a member of the loosely organized Arena Professional Football League in 2022. The remaining 2023 teams will soon be announced. The GLAA is also planning additional teams in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Kansas for 2024.

Women's National Football Conference: The semi-pro WNFC recently announced plans for its fifth season in 2023 and will again feature 17 teams across the United States. The league has changed from a two-conference (Pacific/Atlantic) alignment to a six-team Pacific Division, a six-team Atlantic Division and a five-team Central Division. The Phoenix Prowlers and Houston Heat will not return, but the league added the Nashville-based Tennessee Trojans and a new Houston team called the Houston Mambas. The WNFC season starts on April 1, 2023 with each team playing a six-game schedule through May 20, 2023.

HOCKEY

American Hockey League: The AHL's Rockford (IL) IceHogs were rebranded as the Screw City IceHogs for a game this week against the Iowa Wild. The temporary nickname paid tribute to the city's history in the manufacturing industry and being identified as the ‚¬Å“Screw Capital of the World ‚¬Â for its production of various screws, bolts and fasteners.

North American Hockey League: The Tier-II junior-level NAHL announced a new team called the Rochester (NY) Junior Americans will be added as an eighth team to the league's East Division starting with the 2023-24 season.

SOCCER

Canadian Women's Professional Soccer League: A new yet-to-be-named soccer league is looking to become Canada's first women's professional soccer league with play starting in April 2025. The league plans to start with eight teams aligned in east and west conferences. The Vancouver Whitecaps FC and the Calgary Foothills Soccer Club are the first two teams confirmed to be part of the new league and the rest of the teams will be announced in 2023. The men's Vancouver Whitecaps FC sponsored a women's team that last played in the 2012 season of the former semi-pro version of the United Soccer League's W-League. The Calgary Foothills club has had a women's team in the pro-am United Women's Soccer since the 2017 season and talked of trying to organize a Canada-based women's pro-am league back in 2021.

Liga de Balompie Mexicano: Mexico's independent professional LBM (Mexican Football League), which completed its 2022 season in July with seven teams and recently competed a six-week Cup Tournament with eight teams, announced the EFIX Soccer Club based from Xalapa, Veracruz has applied to join the league for the 2023 season.

League1 BC (British Columbia): Canada's pro-am Division 3 provincial league known as League1 BC, which operated with seven British Columbia-based teams in both a men's and women's division for its inaugural 2022 season, recently announced the Nanaimo-based Harborside FC has been added for the 2023 season as the league's first expansion team.

National Indoor Soccer League: The professional NISL, whose teams operate both a men's team and a women's team, announced the schedule for its second season will start on January 20, 2023 with five men's and five women's teams each playing a 16-game schedule into April 2023. The NISL had four teams in its inaugural 2022-23 season with the Rome (GA) Gladiators playing as a travel-only team. The Rome Gladiators will sit out the 2023 season and return in 2024, but the league has added two 2023 expansion teams called the Central Florida Crusaders (Orlando) and Tampa Bay Strikers. Each scheduled NISL game features separate men's and women's matches.

OTHER

Professional Volleyball Federation: The new PVF was announced this week as a proposed women's indoor professional volleyball league that plans to start play in February 2024 with eight to ten teams. A yet-to-be-named West Michigan team to be based in Grand Rapids is the league's first team and will be operated by the ownership of the American Hockey League's Grand Rapids Griffins. Additional markets will be announced soon.

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.

Check out the American Hockey League Statistics

• Discuss this story on the American Hockey League message board...

American Hockey League Stories from December 12, 2022


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.


Sports Statistics from the Stats Crew
OurSports Central