FPHL Federal Prospects Hockey League

Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
March 27, 2023 - Federal Prospects Hockey League (FPHL)


BASEBALL

Minor League Baseball: Minor League Baseball (MiLB), which includes 120 affiliated teams across 4 levels and 11 different leagues, announced 95 teams will participate in the 2023 Copa de la Diversión, or Fun Cup, by taking alternate Hispanic team names for select games throughout the season. Eight new teams have joined the Copa de la Diversión and four previous teams will take new names this season. Five teams from independent Major League Baseball Partner Leagues will also participate in the sixth season of the Copa de la Diversión.

Northwest League: The Eugene (OR) Emeralds of the high Class-A Northwest League announced the team will play four games this season as the Exploding Whales to commemorate the 1970 attempt to use a half-ton of dynamite to remove the carcass of a sperm whale that had washed up on the Oregon Coast.

BASKETBALL

American Basketball Association: The semi-pro ABA announced teams called the Daytona Beach Red Devils, Fayetteville (NC) Cherubim and Savannah Storm have been added for the 2023-24 season.

National Basketball Association G-League: The NBA G-League's Fort Wayne Mad Ants team, which is the G-League affiliate owned by the NBA's Indiana Pacers, is still trying to finalize an arena lease for next season and is hoping to play more home games in Fort Wayne next season. Of the 24 home games between the Showcase Cup and the 2022-23 regular season, 8 have been played at the Pacers' arena in Indianapolis. There has been speculation the G-League team could move to a new 8,500-seat arena to be built in the Indianapolis area for the Indy Fuel hockey team of the ECHL and to be completed in 2024. For now, the G-League informed the Pacers that their G-League team will no longer be able to play more than five games in Indianapolis as long as Fort Wayne is designated as the team's home.

Women's Premier Basketball Association: The six-team developmental WPBA, which is based in the Bay Area of California and assists players looking for opportunities to play overseas, announced it will return for a second season from June 10 through August 13, 2023. All games during the 2022 were played at one location in Oakland.

FOOTBALL

The Arena League: The proposed new six-on-six indoor TAL, which recently announced Springfield (MO) as the location for the first of four teams to start play in the summer of 2024, announced it has decided on the other three markets that will also have first-season teams. The league's second market will be announced next month, the third in May and the fourth in June. The TAL has stated it wants to keep teams in the same region to minimize travel costs.

Major League Football: Although no team names have been posted, the proposed new fall-season professional MLF has posted a schedule for 20 teams that will each play 14 games from September 10 through December 17, 2023. The ten-team Eastern Conference will have New York, Rochester and Connecticut in the North; Birmingham, Mobile, South Carolina and Georgia in the South; and West Virginia, North Carolina and Virginia in the Central. The ten-team Western Conference will have Oakland, Portland and Sacramento in the North; Dallas, Houston and San Diego in the South; and Iowa, Kentucky, Arkansas and Dakota in the Central.

HOCKEY

Federal Prospects Hockey League: A potential ownership group in Topeka (KS) announced it has been in discussions with the minor A-level FPHL about bringing an FPHL expansion team to the city for the 2023-24 season. The new team would be called the Golden City Bombers. Renovations to the Apex Center in Wytheville (VA) are expected to start soon for a yet-to-be-named 2023-24 FPHL expansion team. The city of Baton Rouge (LA) hosted three FPHL regular-season games this season and that city has also been mentioned for a possible 2023-24 FPHL expansion team.

Ontario Hockey League: The Hamilton (Ontario) Bulldogs of the major-junior OHL recently played its last regular-season game in the city for a while. The team is moving to become the Brantford (Ontario) Bulldogs for the next three seasons while renovations are undertaken at Hamilton's FirstOntario Centre.

SOCCER

National Women's Soccer League: The Division-I professional NWSL started its 2023 season this week with the same 12 teams as last season and aligned in a single-table format. Each team will play a 22-game schedule through October 15, 2023. The league's Challenge Cup tournament will return in 2023, but instead of starting the season with the tournament as it did the past two seasons, the Challenge Cup will run concurrently with the 2023 regular-season schedule. For the Challenge Cup, the 12 teams will be aligned into four-team groups and each team will play at least six games as part of group-play with the top four teams moving on to semi-finals followed by a championship game.

MLS NEXT Pro (Major League Soccer): Major League Soccer's developmental reserve league known as the MLS NEXT Pro started its 2023 season this week with 27 teams, each of which is affiliated with an MLS team and will play a 28-game schedule through September 24, 2023. An Eastern Conference has a seven-team Central Division and a six-team Northeast Division, while a Western Conference has a seven-team Frontier Division and a seven-team Pacific Division. Of the 21 teams from last season, the league's only independent team called the Rochester New York FC did not return. The league added seven MLS affiliates for 2023. Three MLS affiliates called the Atlanta United 2, LA Galaxy II and New York Red Bulls II joined from the 2022 Division-II professional USL Championship league, while four MLS teams added new affiliates called the Austin FC II (Austin FC affiliate), LAFC2 (Los Angeles FC affiliate), Huntsville City (Nashville SC affiliate) and Crown Legacy (Charlotte FC affiliate). .

Major Arena Soccer League 2: The Rochester (NY) Lancers of the MASL2, which is the second-division developmental league to the Major Arena Soccer League (MASL), has signed an agreement to become the developmental affiliate of the MASL's Baltimore Blast.

National Independent Soccer Association - NISA Nation: The amateur-level NISA Nation, which serves as a developmental league for the Division-III professional NISA, started its 2023 Spring Season this week with a ten-team Southwest Division and a five-team Pacific Division. Teams are located in Arizona, California and Nevada. The NISA Nation Spring Season runs through June 3, 2023.

OTHER

Major Series Lacrosse: Canada's Ontario-based summertime indoor Senior-A MSL announced it will operate with six teams in the 2023 season. The four participating teams from 2022 called the Brooklin Lacrosse Club, Cobourg Kodiaks, Peterborough Lakers and Six Nations Chiefs will all return. Prior to last season, a dispute over the 2020 relocation of the Brampton Excelsiors to Owen Sound resulted in neither team participating in the season. This dispute has been settled and both the Brampton Excelsiors and a team now called the Owen Sound North Stars will be part of the 2023 season. The MSL announced the Oakville Rock, which sat out the 2022 season, will again sit out the 2023 season.

Major League Cricket: The new professional MLC held a 2023 player draft last weekend for the six teams that will participate in the inaugural 2023 season, which will feature 19 games played over 18 days in July 2023 with most of the games to be played a new MLC cricket venue in Grand Prairie (TX). The recently announced team names include the Texas Super Kings (Dallas), San Francisco Unicorns, Los Angeles Knight Riders, Seattle Orcas, Washington (DC) Freedom and MI New York, which will be operated by the Mumbai Indians club.

Professional Bull Riding - Team Series: The PBR announced it will return for a second season of the PBR Team Series with the same eight teams as last season: Texas Rattlers (Fort Worth), Arizona Ridge Riders (Glendale), Austin Gamblers, Carolina Cowboys (Greensboro, NC), Kansas City (MO) Outlaws, Missouri Thunder (Ridgedale), Nashville Stampede and Oklahoma Freedom (Oklahoma City). The 2023 season will feature ten weekend events from July 24 through October 10, 2023 followed by a Team Series Championship weekend in Las Vegas (October 20-22, 2023). The season will include each of the eight teams hosting all other teams for a three-day weekend bull riding and western lifestyle festival event in their respective city, along with two neutral site weekend events in Cheyenne (WY) and Anaheim.

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.

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