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NBA G League

Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

by Dan Krieger
October 20, 2014 - NBA G League (G League)


BASEBALL

Eastern League: The Hartford (CT) city council has approved a downtown redevelopment project that will include a stadium for the relocated New Britain (CT) Rock Cats of the Double-A Eastern League. The city's planning and zoning commission still needs to give its approval, but if there a no delays the new stadium could be ready for the 2016 season.

New York-Penn League: The new short-season Class-A NYPL Morgantown (WV) team, which will be the relocated Jamestown (NY) Jammers, has released a list of ten nicknames to be used for voting on the Morgantown team name. The possible names include the Black Bears, Black Diamonds, Canaries, Coal Kings, Coal Sox, The Energy, Moonshiners, Muskets, Wild Ones and The Wonder.

Southern League: With construction moving along on a new stadium in Biloxi (MS) for the relocated Huntsville Stars of the Double-A Southern League, the new Biloxi team might be able to play most of its 2015 home schedule in Biloxi after playing some early season home games in Huntsville. There is an effort to bring a new Southern League team back to Huntsville in the future, if a new stadium is built.

Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League: The Glens Falls (NY) Golden Eagles team in the summer-collegiate PGCBL has been renamed the Glens Falls Dragons.

BASKETBALL

National Basketball Association D-League: The Austin Toros team in the NBA D-League has taken the name of its parent NBA team, the San Antonio Spurs, and is now called the Austin Spurs. The Austin Toros joined the league when the Columbus (GA) Riverdragons relocated to Austin for the 2005-06 season. The San Antonio Spurs purchased the Toros as its D-League affiliate prior to the 2007-08 season.

Universal Basketball Association: The men's UBA plans to add a division of at least four teams in Wilkes County (NC) for the upcoming 2014-15 season. Last season, the league had three regional conferences-Southeastern with six teams in Georgia, Western with six teams in Texas and Eastern with five teams throughout Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio.

American Professional Basketball League: The North Jersey Pros (Passaic) will not play in the 2014-15 APBL, but will play an independent schedule that will include some games played prior to National Basketball Association D-League games. The Pros would like to eventually become a D-League affiliate team. Before joining the APBL for the 2012-13 season, the North Jersey Pros were part of the 2010-11 season in the Eastern Basketball Alliance and the 2011-12 season in the Atlantic Coast Professional Basketball League.

East Coast Basketball League: The proposed new ECBL has added the Savannah (GA) Storm as its 11th team. Other teams could still be added prior to the league's start in late March 2015.

FOOTBALL

Arena Football League: The AFL's San Antonio Talons franchise will apparently be dormant for the 2015 season. The league took control of the franchise in December 2013 and operated the Talons during the 2014 season, but has yet to find an ownership group that will operate the team for next season. The team operated as the Tulsa Talons prior to moving to San Antonio for the 2012 AFL season.

X-League Indoor Football: After announcing earlier this month that the Chicago Blitz would be joining the X-League, the Chicago Blitz has been released from its contract and the team will not be part of the X-League in 2015. The Chicago Blitz played its inaugural season in 2014 season as part of the Continental Indoor Football League. The X-League also announced the Bloomington (IL) Edge has joined the league for the 2015 season. The Bloomington Edge played one season (2012) in the Indoor Football League and the past two seasons (2013-14) as part of the Champions Professional Indoor Football League. The head of the X-League wants to create a season-ending championship tournament that would include the champions of the X-League, Professional Indoor Football League, Indoor Football League and the new Champions Indoor Football.

Champions Indoor Football: A proposed indoor football team called the Gary (IN) Dawgs, which was to be an expansion team in the newly created CIF, announced the team will be dormant in 2015 and will work toward starting play in 2016. Prior to the departure of the Gary Dawgs, the CIF had ten teams aligned into five-team CIF North and CIF South divisions. The CIF recently announced its 2015 schedule that will feature only nine teams with Gary removed from the CIF North division. The CIF was created through a merger of the Champions Professional Indoor Football League and the Lone Star Football League after the 2014 season.

American Indoor Football: The AIF announced the Chicago Blitz has been added for the 2015 season. The Blitz was a new team in the 2014 Continental Indoor Football League and originally announced plans to move to the X-League Indoor Football for 2015. The AIF currently lists 11 teams and will finalize its 2015 team lineup after a league meeting next month.

Professional Indoor Football League: The Erie (PA) Explosion announced the team has joined the PIFL for the upcoming 2015 indoor football season. The Explosion had been part of the Continental Indoor Football League for the past two seasons (2013-14). This is the fifth league for the team that is on its third nickname. The Erie team came about when the Pittsburgh RiverRats moved to become the Erie RiverRats for the 2008 season of the American Indoor Football Association. The RiverRats came under new ownership and were renamed the Erie Storm for 2010. The team moved to the Southern Indoor Football League for 2011 and changed its name to the Erie Explosion. The Explosion played in the United Indoor Football League for 2012 before moving to the CIFL. The PIFL announced its 2015 schedule that will again feature eight teams. Erie replaces the Georgia Fire (Rome) team that did not return from last season.

HOCKEY

ECHL: After adding seven teams from the former Central Hockey League last week, the 28-team AA-level ECHL has started its 2014-15 season. The ECHL started last season with 22 teams, but the San Francisco Bulls folded during the season and the Las Vegas Wranglers were forced to sit out this season due to arena issues. The league also added an expansion team called the Indianapolis Fuel, or Indy Fuel, for the 2014-15 season.

North American 3 East Hockey League: USA Hockey's Tier-II North American Hockey League, which also operates the Tier-III level North American 3 Hockey League, has added the junior-level Northern States Hockey League (NSHL) to its organization and renamed it the North American 3 Eastern Hockey League (NA3EHL) for the 2014-15 season. The ten-team NSHL started play in the 2012-13 season and had been operating outside USA Hockey as part of the Amateur Athletic Union. Since the 2014-15 season in already underway, the NAHL plans to have the NA3EHL seek USA Hockey certification as a Tier-III league starting with the 2015-16 season. The NA3EHL teams include the Cape Cod Islanders (Dennis, MA), East Coast Minutemen (Salem, NH), Jersey Shore Wildcats (Pleasant Point), Lockport (NY) Express, Maine Wild (Biddeford), New England Stars (Hudson, NH), New Hampshire Fighting Spirit (Laconia), Roc City Royals (Rochester, NY), Syracuse Stampede and Wilkes-Barre (PA) Miners. The East Coast Minutemen started the NSHL season as the Junior Mariners.

Federal Hockey League: After operating with only four teams last season, the FHL has started its 2014-15 season with six teams. The Danbury (CT) Whalers, Danville (IL) Dashers and Dayton (OH) Demonz have returned, while the new Watertown (NY) Wolves replace last season's Watertown Privateers. The league added two other new teams called the Berkshire Battalion (North Adams, MA) and SouthWest Pennsylvania Magic (Greenburg), or SWPA Magic. After playing one road game, the SWPA Magic is having ownership issues and already cancelled two home games scheduled for this weekend.

Northern Pacific Hockey League: The Vancouver (WA) Vipers of the Tier-III NPHL have folded after playing only eight games on 2014-15 schedule. A proposed new team called the Tacoma Knights failed to make it to the start of the season and the league is currently at only six teams.

SOCCER

United Soccer Leagues PRO: The Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders FC of Major League Soccer (MLS) announced they will each own and operate USL PRO league teams starting with the 2015 season. The Los Angeles Galaxy was the first MLS team to own its USL PRO league team, the Los Angeles Galaxy II, in the 2014 season. The Portland USL PRO team will be known as the Timbers 2, or T2, and play its home games at Merlo Field on the campus of the University of Portland. The Seattle USL PRO team will be called the Sounders 2, or S2, and play its home games at Starfire Sports Stadium in Tutwila (WA). In an effort to eliminate its MLS Reserve League, all MLS teams will either operate or have an affiliation with a USL PRO league team in 2015. The USL PRO plans to add other teams in Austin, Charlotte, Colorado Springs, Louisville, St. Louis, and Tulsa for the 2015 season.

OTHER

American Ultimate Disc League: The pro-level AUDL announced a new team called the Los Angeles Aviators will be added to the Western Division for the 2015 season. The league now lists a total of 23 teams.

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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NBA G League Stories from October 20, 2014


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