It's Time! Indoor Football Weekly #11

Credit Our Sports Central

That's right boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, IT IS TIME. The 2017 Indoor Football season starts this weekend! It's been a long and grueling offseason we know, but we get into full swing with 4 regular season games and 2 preseason games this weekend!

And now we'll take another walk down memory lane. Last week we covered 1999 and today it's on to the year 2000. While both the IFL and IPFL survived (the IFL even thrived) in 1999 they would come back, however they weren't alone. A new league called the Xtreme Football League was being set up to take place, primarily in the deep south. That league was bought out by a league known as arenafootball2, better known as the af2 in July of '99. The IPFL would have 7 clubs in 2000, only Mississippi and Idaho returned from '99 though. In the IFL on the other hand all 8 teams returned with a whopping 13 expansion clubs for a 21 team league! The IPFL played a 16 game season and again saw all 7 of it's clubs survive the year. The Mississippi Fire Dogs would take down the Portland Prowlers, in Portland, in the 2000 IPFL Championship game. The IFL however went from playing just 12 games to 14 in 2000. A grueling 4 round, 12 team playoff culminated in IFL Gold Cup 2000, where the hometown Peoria Pirates smacked the Bismarck Blaze 69-42. As of 2017 we actually have some teams still remaining, the Omaha Beef (IPFL now CIF), Sioux Falls Cobras (now Storm in the new IFL), and Sioux City Attack (IPFL now Bandits in the CIF) are all still kicking. Markets that have clubs are as we've covered Green Bay and Dayton along with Wichita, KS. Wichita, who was the Warlords in the IFL, now has the three year old Force who replaced the Wichita Wild.

Credit Indoor Football League

As I said it's time! To cap off the IFL preseason the Wichita Falls Nighthawks put a beat down on the Cap City Bulls (SIF) by a score of 89-12. Before we get started with the games let's go over Banana Cat's IFL Power Rankings prior to week one. At the top we have (of course) the 6 Time Defending United Bowl Champion Sioux Falls Storm, behind them at number two is last years Intense Conference Champion Spokane Shock. The league newcomers, the Arizona Rattlers, are ranked a respectable third place. And to round out the top four is the Wichita Falls Nighthawks. The rest are in said order 5) Green Bay Blizzard, 6) Nebraska Danger, 7)  Iowa Barnstormers, 8) Salt Lake Screaming Eagles, 9) Colorado Crush, and 10) Cedar Rapids Titans. Now about those games, Week 1 opens up at 8PM (CT) when the newest IFL club the Salt Lake Screaming Eagles host the Nebraska Danger on Thursday from the Maverik Center. The action continues Friday night with a pair of 7PM (CT) kickoffs as the Green Bay Blizzard visit the Cedar Rapids Titans in the U.S. Cellular Center and when the biggest game of the season happens as the Arizona Rattlers face off with the Sioux Falls Storm at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center. The weekend closes when the Iowa Barnstormers travel to the Kay Yeager Coliseum to play the Wichita Falls Nighthawks on Saturday at 7PM (CT). All games will be FREE to watch on YouTube, and if you wanna try your hand at pick-em you can do that here as well. Both the Colorado Crush and Spokane Empire have a bye in Week 1.

And on to the CIF, the preseason officially began this past Sunday when the Omaha Beef hosted the Omaha Outlaws at the Ralston Arena. The Beef would slaughter the Outlaws by a final score of 97-18. You can expect more of that this weekend as there are two games on hand. Both games are Saturday February 18th at 7PM (CT), when the Dallas Marshals host the Arlington Longhorns at the Mesquite Arena in Mesquite, TX and the other when the Sioux City Bandits host the First City Cavalry at the Gateway Arena at Tyson Event Center. As of now the CIF still has not yet announced a streaming deal but we'll cover that when it is announced and give you the CIF Power Ranking before Week 1.

And we introduce a new part to the weekly posts, the IFW Game of the Week. Each week (in the regular season) at Indoor Football Weekly, we'll be selecting one game from each league as our IFW Game of the Week. This week's pick in the IFL is a game we've all been waiting for the Arizona Rattlers taking on the Sioux Falls Storm at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center in Sioux Falls, SD at 7PM on Friday Night. This game is the biggest game in the history of the Indoor Football League as two teams with a combined 15 championships (10 Indoor Titles for Sioux Falls and 5 ArenaBowl Titles for Arizona) who have never played each other before. Kevin Guy who has coached the Rattlers since 2008 will have the biggest coaching battle of his career in for him against Kurtiss Riggs whose in his 15th season as head coach of the Storm. The game has all the making of an instant classic and a possible preview of United Bowl 2017. If you can get to the game I couldn't suggest that option enough, if not you can watch the game live on YouTube.