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Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
May 25, 2015 - X-League (X-League)


BASEBALL

Pecos League: The independent Pecos League started its fifth season this week with eight teams aligned into a four-team Southern Division and a four-team Northern Division. The league had ten teams last season, but the Raton (NM) Osos, Douglas (AZ) Diablos and Bisbee (AZ) Blue did not return. The league added the Las Cruces (NM) Vaqueros team, while the Taos (NM) Blizzard moved to become the Garden City (KS) Wind for the 2015 season. Other teams include the Las Vegas (NM) Train Robbers, Santa Fe (NM) Fuego, Trinidad (CO) Triggers, Alpine (TX) Cowboys, Roswell (NM) Invaders and the White Sands Pupfish of Alamogordo (NM). Teams will play a 70-game schedule through July.

Can-Am League: The independent Can-Am League started its 2015 season this week with six full-schedule teams and two partial-schedule teams. The four teams from last season called the New Jersey Jackals (Montclair), Quebec Capitales (Quebec City), Rockland Boulders (Pomona, NY) and Trois-Rivieres Aigles (Quebec) have returned, along with new teams called the Ottawa Champions (Ontario) and Sussex County Miners (Augusta, NJ). In the month of June, each Can-Am team will play a series against a visiting all-star team from Japan's independent Shikoku Island League. For the rest of the season through early September, a travel team called the Garden State Grays will also be part of the Can-Am League schedule. For the fourth season in a row, the 2015 schedule will feature inter-league games between teams from the Can-Am League and the independent American Association.

South Atlantic League (SALLY): The Savannah Sand Gnats of the low Class-A SALLY will be the team moving next season to the new ballpark under construction in Columbia (SC). There was speculation the owner of the Sand Gnats could purchase another team and move it to Columbia, if Savannah had moved forward on a new stadium for the Sand Gnats.

East Coast Baseball League: The new six-team independent ECBL was to start play this past week, but it looks as though the inaugural season will not start as planned and the league appears to have folded. The owner of the league's Watertown (NY) Bucks team, which was the only one of six teams not owned by the league, pulled out of the ECBL this week and quickly formed the new North Country Baseball League (NCBL). The new NCBL will feature the Watertown Bucks, a Watertown-based travel team called the Road City Explorers, and two other former ECBL teams called the Newburgh (NY) Newts and Old Orchard Beach (ME) Surge. Two proposed ECBL teams in Ontario called the Niagara Wild and Waterloo Whiskey Jacks have apparently folded. The ECBL planned to have a travel team as its sixth team.

United League Baseball: The San Angelo (TX) Colts, a longtime member of the independent ULB, have failed to follow through on a reorganization under Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will now face liquidation under Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The ULB did not have enough teams to play a 2015 season.

Frontier League: A group of investors is looking to build a baseball stadium in Hamilton (OH), just north of Cincinnati, for a Frontier League team. The league's Florence (KY) Freedom is based just south of Cincinnati and played its inaugural 2003 season in Hamilton while waiting for completion of its stadium. At that time, there also was interest in placing a team in Hamilton, but a stadium deal never panned out.

BASKETBALL

National Basketball League of Canada: The new NBL-Canada team to be based out of St. Catharines in the Niagara Region of Ontario for the 2015-16 season plans to announce its name in a press conference next week.

American Basketball Association: The ABA's Southern Illinois Monarchs team has moved back to the South Bend (IN) area and has been renamed the Northern Indiana Monarchs. The South Bend-based Michiana Monarchs joined the ABA in the 2010-11 season and moved to Mount Vernon (IL) as the Southern Illinois Monarchs for the 2013-14 season.

FOOTBALL

Indoor Football League: The owner of the Wichita Falls (TX) Nighthawks, an expansion team in the 2015 IFL, announced the team will return for a second season in 2016.

X-League Indoor Football: The city of Albany (GA) is close to approval of a lease agreement that would allow a new X-League team called the South Georgia Heat to start play in the league for the 2015 season.

HOCKEY

Federal Hockey League: The low-level minor league FHL announced a team called the Berlin (NH) River Drivers has been approved and will start play in the 2015-16 season. The league had announced a team called the Berlin RiverDrivers in July 2014 for the 2014-15 season, but it was dropped prior to the start of the season.

Western States Hockey League: The junior-level WSHL, which is a sanctioned league under the Amateur Athletic Union/United Hockey Union and not USA Hockey, plans to elevate its standards from the Tier-III to the Tier-II level of play for the 2015-16 season. The league also announced a new Western Prospects League that will operate at the Tier-III level for the 2015-16 season.

North American 3 Hockey League: The junior-level Tier-III NA3HL, which is affiliated with the Tier-II junior-level North American Hockey League, announced a new Lafayette-based team called the Louisiana Drillers will be part of the 2015-16 South Division. The league also announced the Rochester (MN) Ice Hawks team, which has been part of the Tier-III Minnesota Junior Hockey League (MnJHL) for the past several years, will join the NA3HL for the 2015-16 season. Most of the other MnJHL teams have moved to a new Tier-III Midwest Division of the United States Premier Hockey League for the 2015-16 season.

SOCCER

Major League Soccer: The MLS expansion team called the Los Angeles FC announced plans to locate its new soccer stadium in downtown Los Angeles at the site currently occupied by the Sports Arena. The new arena construction will take longer than expected, so the team will not join the league until the 2018 season instead of 2017. The league's current Los Angeles Galaxy team plays at the StubHub Center in Carson. The MLS commissioner plans to meet with investors in Miami to discuss stalled efforts to build a new soccer stadium for a Miami-based expansion team. The Miami expansion group recently met with the University of Miami about building a joint stadium for the MLS team and the school's football team.

La Liga Femenil: The Mexican Soccer Federation announced the creation of a developmental women's soccer league that will start play this fall. At least 12 teams representing 10 Mexican states will play an inaugural season from September 2015 to May 2016. The league will operate in conjunction with the women's Mexican national team. The league will start with Under-13 and Under-16 leagues and plan to start a U-20 league in 2016.

North American Soccer League: As Major League Soccer tries to build a new stadium for a proposed Miami-based expansion team, the men's Division-II NASL announced it will add a new team called the Miami FC for the 2016 season.

OTHER

National Lacrosse League: The ownership of the Minnesota Swarm from the indoor NLL announced the team will not return to the Twin Cities next season and will relocate to a different market for 2016. The Swarm joined the NLL as an expansion team for the 2004 season. The owner of the NLL's Edmonton Rush franchise stated the team could be moved out of the city after this season with Saskatoon (Saskatchewan) mentioned as a possibility.

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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X-League Stories from May 25, 2015


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