Indoor Football Weekly Special Edition #3: The Shit Show 2017: Postseason Edition

BEFORE YOU READ: this is a warning to players and fans about how poorly teams and leagues can be run, now that the disclaimer is done we shall continue.Ladies and gentlemen back in January we brought you a two part series on the Underbelly of Indoor Football, titled the Shit Show. Those articles covered 5 "Professional" indoor leagues that were effectively replacing the now defunct AIF. Those articles were presented as a warning to players and fans of what really can happen in this sport, if you though Project FANCHISE was bad these teams and owners are actually worse.

So we start our tread through the dredges with the SIF, Supreme Indoor Football. This is the league that couldn't make up their mind on how many teams they have in it. To make it simple the league had the Cap City Bulls, Cape Fear Heroes, Georgia M.O.B., Greenville Dragons, and Triangle Torch. Also listed on the website are the Anderson Gladiators and in the Teams link we also have the South Carolina Ravens and Louisiana Cottonmouths. Out of all of these teams only 4 actually made the schedule for the season and played games. That means out of the 8 announced teams or ones that appear on their website (not including the EIF teams) only 4 of them played. The one positive with this league is at least they all played 6 league games (plus a handfull of non-league games each), that's actually a surprise for a league like this and the uniformity is better than the NAL. The SIF wrapped up it's 2017 season with the first SIF Championship Game on Saturday June 24th, 2017 between the Cape Fear Heroes and Triangle Torch. The Heroes would take the game and the title with a 30-24 win. Whether or not this league and or teams will be back in 2018 is up in the air but I wouldn't hold your breath.

The next league is Elite Indoor Football, the EIF is another Southern based league founded by Southern (formerly Savannah) Steam owner Bobby Dammarell so you know it's gonna be "good". The EIF announced 5 teams would play in the league the Atlanta Furious, Carolina Cowboys, Florida Tribe, Roanoke Militia, and Savannah Steam. With the Steam being obvious they wouldn't be playing out of the Savannah Civic Center after a mountain of unpaid debt, they moved to Statesboro, GA and it's Indoor Sports Arena (a small warehouse barely able to hold the field) as the Southern Steam. This league was the biggest cluster**** in all of indoor football. The overall number of games that was played in the league is unconfirmed as there is no schedule, results, or standings on the league website. As for what teams played, it's confirmed that the Atlanta Furious and Southern Steam played games it was different as for the rest of the teams. The only game that could be confirmed being "played" by the "Cowboys" was actually a Semi-Pro team called the South Carolina Snipers playing (and getting crushed) by the Richmond Roughriders 92-0. While no games could be confirmed being played by the Roanoke Militia or Florida Tribe. Per the Southern Steam Facebook page the Steam defeated the Atlanta Furious in the EIF Championship Game 58-14. I hope that this league doesn't make it through the offseason.

The third league is Arena Pro Football, this league is by far the least garbage of  all the **** leagues which really doesn't say much as it's not even on the level of the NAL. As discussed in the last post about these teams the league started out with 7 teams including the Alabama (or Birmingham depending on where you look) Outlawz, Florida Tarpons, Myrtle Beach Sharks, Savannah Coastal Outlaws, Richmond Roughriders, and River City Raiders. The Coastal Outlaws are for the most part playing in the USIF, a league based entirely out of the Savannah Civic Center as a "developmental league" for the APF. The Coastal Outlaws went 0-3 and were crushed each time. Out of all the other teams in this league 4 of them had massive problems. The Myrtle Beach Sharks who were announced for the league eventually announced they would move to the Semi-Pro GDFL before then re-announcing they would play in the APF and then just didn't play at all. The Alabama Outlawz after announcing an 8 game schedule with four home games. The team managed to play just three road game 0-3 losing to Florida, River City, and Richmond before having their first two home games cancelled (the April 15th home game going unannounced) and then having the third scheduled home game get cancelled due to issues regarding the setup at the Shelby County Expo Center after which the team went dark. The River City Raiders looked bad from the start, after originally being admitted as members of the CIF the Raiders were kicked out of the league for not being able to meet financial commitments and joined the APF. The Raiders played 4 of their first 5 games only missing the game at Alabama due to the Outlawz cancelling the game and after beating the Savannah Coastal Outlaws 53-12 the team disappeared of the face of the earth. The final two teams in the APF, the Florida Tarpons and Richmond Roughriders, were by far the most prepared and strongest teams. The Tarpons played all 7 of their scheduled games on the scheduled dates. The Roughriders on the other hand originally had 8 games scheduled with 5 at home had that changed to be 7 games with 6 at home. The Roughriders also played all 7 games with the only change from the final schedule being the Atlanta Furious replacing the River City Raiders in the final regular season game due to the Raiders folding. In the APF Championship Game on Saturday June 10th the undefeated and hosting Richmond Roughriders bested the Florida Tarpons 74-61 for the first, last, and only APF title, more on that coming up.

The fourth of the AIF replacements was the most AIF like and the biggest cluster**** of all in the Can-Am Indoor Football League. As stated back in January this was a league with 10 teams including 3 travel teams and 3 teams (as just after we published that article the Rochester Kings announced a home arena) that had no home building. The teams schedules were so wildly inconsistent ranging from 2 announced games for Boston to 11 for the Vermont Bucks. After a very messy regular season the postseason saw the Vermont Bucks host and beat the non league (and Semi-Pro) Central Penn Chargers 46-6 and in the other Semi-Final the Rochester Kings beat down the Buffalo Blitz 64-12. In the Can-AmIFLChampionship Game the undefeated Rochester Kings hosted the Vermont Bucks. In the one and only CAIFL Championship Game the Vermont Bucks defeated the Rochester Kings in Rochester, NY 61-41 to win leagues one and only Championship. The Arena Football Challenge Cup that was to be played between the APF and CAIFL was also never played.
Now the past two leagues we have said that it's their one and only Championship and season, the reason for that is due to earlier in the year the two leagues announcing they would merge into the American Arena League. Now the AAL announced "it's inaugural 10 teams" however the Richmond Roughriders, who were included in the lineup, publicly stated they are looking at other options as well including the National Arena League. The Florida Tarpons are also not listed on the league's splash page (and most teams aren't). The AAL even took in the Central Penn Chargers, a semi-pro team that was crushed by Vermont in the CAIFL Semi-Finals. Another team that was taken in the the Georgia Doom who are to play out of the Macon Centroplex and are a Semi-Pro team that took over playing games under the "Dayton" Wolfpack moniker in the NAL. To the NAL I applaud you for steering away from this crap.

Last and very least we come to the EIFC, the Elite Indoor Football Conference. The EIFC was a southeastern based league founded by the Central Florida Jags as an AIF replacement. After announcing each team playing a 9-10 game schedule the leagues last activity was on March 8th announcing the Jags would in fact NOT being playing at the Lakeland Center. Only one game was to have ever been confirmed to have taken place and the EIFC is about as real as the Palm Beach Phantoms.

Closing out today I want to say I cover these things as a warning to players, coaches, fans, sponsors, etc to be diligent in looking at these teams and leagues and that while the CIF, IFL, and NAL have their issues they're nowhere near as bad as this. Next week will be the final weekly post (it will be 1-2 per month after this until next season) of Indoor Football Weekly for the year as we have the first ever IFW All-Indoor Football Awards and coverage of some offseason news so far. Don't forget to vote this week to crown the Winner of Best of Arenas as it is the final round. You can of course vote on Facebook or on the main page of the site.

Indoor Football Weekly #10 Preseason 2017, Part 2: Champions Indoor Football

Credit: Our Sports Central

One preseason has started and one is about to begin this week. The Indoor Football League preseason started last week and even had a game (we'll recap that later) and the CIF preseason starts this week with another game!

As we did last week, we're covering the history of indoor football as a special for the 20th Season for the sport. After the 1998 season the PIFL would fold and break up in to two leagues. One league (the IPFL) would take the remnants of the Honolulu Hurricanes (now the Hawaii Hammerheads), the Colorado Wildcats (now the Rocky Mountain Thunder) and the '98 PIFL Champion Louisiana Bayou Beast along with 3 expansion clubs. The (original) IFL was founded by the Green Bay Bombers and Madison Mad Dogs owner Keary Ecklund with those clubs and 6 expansion teams. The IPFL would play 16 games and see all 6 clubs survive the regular season. In the championship game Hawaii would beat the Texas Terminators by a score of 28-16 to win the IPFL title. However at the end of the season only 2 clubs (Idaho and Mississippi) would ring in the new millennium with the IPFL. On the other hand the IFL would play a 12 game schedule in 1999 and it would go much better than the IPFL. In the '99 IFL Gold Cup, Green Bay would travel to Peoria and bomb the Pirates with a 63-60 win. All 8 clubs (plus a few expansion clubs) would come back for the 2000 season. As with '98 there are no clubs left from the 1999 season and only 2 markets still have the indoor game. Green Bay (as we covered last time) and the only addition to them is Dayton. Dayton will have an expansion team (the Dayton Wolfpack) in the new NAL, while they have not announced their arena the Nutter Center at Wright State University is expected to be their home since the Hara Arena has closed.

Now back to the current day and age. As we covered last week the IFL preseason has begun and it opened this past weekend on Saturday night when the Iowa Barnstormers traveled to the US Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids to take on the Titans. The Barnstormers would take down the Titans 38-26 on the road. An overall sloppy game with both teams needing to clean a lot up before the regular season, but that can only be expected after just four days of practice. This weekend will see the second (and only other) preseason game is this Saturday when the Wichita Falls Nighthawks host the SIF's travel only Cap City Bulls at the Kay Yeager Coliseum.

Champions Indoor Football, the second of three stops on the 2017 preseason preview. The CIF has preseason game starting this weekend (Feb 12th) and going through the first week of the regular season (Feb 26th). After all the exhibitions are played half of the league (7/14) clubs will have played an exhibition game, and unlike the IFL all the games are against Non-League opponents.

Northern Division

The CIF's Northern Division sees 4 of 6 clubs return to it from 2016 (Wichita was moved to the Southern and Chicago folded) along with three expansion clubs. These clubs include two completely new expansion teams the Bismarck Bucks and Kansas City Phantoms along with 2016 AIF runner up the West Michigan Ironmen. With Wichita's move to the South the Northern Division will have unmatched parity that normally isn't seen in this sport. Bloomington, Sioux City, and Omaha all finished last season at 7-5. Look for Sioux City (who won the CIF in 2015 to continue to compete along with Omaha and Kansas City to challenge for first throughout the season. As of right now I think the other four clubs, including the expansion clubs will be fighting for third place. 

Southern Division

The South of the CIF is the total opposite of the North, and it starts with the defending league champion Wichita Force along with the two best from last year's Southern Division the Amarillo Venom and Texas Revolution. Those clubs have a good chance at finishing 1-2-3. Dodge City and Duke City will have a fight on their hands to get into one of the playoff spots. Dallas (formerly Mesquite) and the expansion CenTex Cavalry will have some work to not finish in the cellar in 2017.

Games to Watch

Unfortunately with just a few days until the preseason games starting no streaming for the 2017 CIF Season has been announced. Last season the streaming was free with Eversport but hopefully the CIF moves elsewhere and keeps it free. As for what to watch the season opener between Sioux City and Omaha is definitely the first one to watch in 2017. The next is the Week 9 matchup between the Texas Revs and the Amarillo Venom. I also wouldn't count out any of the in the final 3 weeks of the season as they will be the key to the playoffs.

As with the IFL preseason starting last week, Champions Indoor Football's preseason games start this week. The Omaha Beef will host the Omaha Outlaws this Sunday February 12th. We'll have one more preseason preview with the National Arena League in a few weeks!

Indoor Football Weekly Special Edition #2: The Shit Show 2017: Part Two

In our last article we covered the SIF and EIF. This time we are going to cover Arena Pro Football (APF), Can-Am Indoor Football (CAIF), and Elite Indoor Football Conference (EIFC). Again BEFORE YOU READ: this is a warning about these leagues and teams, while some of these teams are decent most of them are not and should be looked at carefully. To players, coaches, and fans who may get involved please be aware. No we will continue our journey through the underbelly of Indoor Football

To continue we will start with Arena Pro Football, this out of all FIVE of the leagues replacing the AIF is the most legitimate, but don’t let that fool you the APF is nowhere near the level of the CIF, IFL, or NAL in anyway. Arena Pro Football was originally scheduled to be called the National Arena Football League, but did change it before launching. In November the APF announced their first three clubs. The Savannah Coastal Outlaws, Myrtle Beach Sharks, and Birmingham Outlawz.

Let’s break all three of these teams down starting with the Savannah Coastal Outlaws. If Savannah reminds you of something it’s because in our last article we covered the Steam who are also supposed to make their home in that city. To start the Outlaws are scheduled to play just 5 games in APF, all on the road, while also playing two games against EIFC clubs. The rest of their schedule is actually being played in United States Indoor Football. The USIF is a 4 team league entirely based out of the Savannah Civic Center and is the developmental league of the APF. Yes you read that right a quarter decent ultra minor league has a “developmental league”. Up next is the Myrtle Beach Sharks, and if Myrtle Beach sounds familiar it’s because they had the Freedom of the AIF play in town last season. However the difference is that the Sharks have not yet announced their home arena for 2017. And third we have the Birmingham Outlaws, after posting some time last year on their Facebook page that they would be playing out of a decent sized arena in Birmingham they have backtracked on that. They’ll instead be playing out of the Shelby County Exhibition Center in Columbiana, AL, which is some 37 miles away from Birmingham. The fourth team announced was for a club in Virginia, eventually it was announced that the Virginia club would be the new Richmond Roughriders playing out of the Richmond Coliseum, former home of the Speed, Bandits, and Raiders. However the APF made the announcement seem more depressing by saying “Professional indoor football likely will return next spring” as well “The APF is expected to compete in 2017 as an eight-team circuit” and “Teams are expected to play eight-game schedules”. Not very optimistic in an announcement of a new team. Next up as the fifth team to join the APF was the Florida Tarpons, the Tarpons are one of the few stable teams in the Eastern United States being founded in 2012, they’ll now enter their fourth league in 6 years. They concern me, why? You ask. Well it’s because the Tarpons originally announced they would play in the Arena Development League, now the National Arena League. The Tarpons had stated they felt like the ADL/NAL model was unsustainable and the APF model was better, the only difference is the APF is much cheaper and has shadier teams, yes “better”. The sixth and final team for 2017 is the River City Raiders, the Raiders are also a somewhat stable club being based in St. Charles, MO since 2013. They concern me as well because the Raiders were originally admitted to Champions Indoor Football for 2017, they stated the reason they left was due to Chicago folding and their schedule being damaged. However the real reason I have been told was the Raiders didn’t have the finances necessary to play in the CIF. Leaving for another league with massively higher travel costs is never a good thing to do.

Arena Pro Football also announced an expansion team for 2018, the Carolina Wildcats, again not a smart move to announce another expansion team when you haven’t completed the first season. Arena Pro Football also was to have had a partnership with the Elite Indoor Football Conference, and the Savannah Coastal Outlaws are on the EIFC website to play two games but it has been pulled from the APF site. The league will have 2 games against the SIF with Myrtle Beach hosting Cape Fear on April 29th in the Gridiron Classic and Richmond hosting the Triangle Torch in the Capital City Showdown. On top of those the APF will also play the CAIF in the Arena Football Challenge Cup between each leagues champions. The good thing about the APF unlike the EIF they have a schedule released and unlike the SIF the scheduled (outside of Savannah) each team plays between 7 and 9 league games and a total between 7 and 10.

Speaking of the CAIF we move on to them, officially known as Can-Am Indoor Football, this league resembles the mind, body, and soul of everything we came to know about the old AIF. It is an eastern based league (check), it has way to many teams including travel only (check), the games on each schedule vary (check), and not all teams playing home games have arenas (check). It’s a perfect amount of garbage for a dumpster fire to start. I’ll make this short on the CAIF. It was started as a replacement for the AIF so that the Vermont Bucks had a league to play in. There are 10 teams in it’s first season which include 3 travel only teams (Boston, Connecticut, and Glens Falls), 4 teams (per the league’s website) have no home arenas (Lockport, Niagara Falls, NY, Niagara, ON, and Rochester), and only 3 teams (Buffalo who announces theirs on 1/26, New Hampshire, and Vermont)  that have a home arena! Out of these 10 teams Boston is scheduled to play only 2 games, while 3 teams (Connecticut, Glens Falls, and Lockport who is set for 2 home games) are scheduled to play 4 games. While the 4 teams (Buffalo, Niagara, Niagara Falls, and New Hampshire who is scheduled to play an SIF club) are set to play 8 games. And Vermont well their set for 11 games! Yes 11 games, 8 games in the CAIF and 3 non-league games!! Then of course as mentioned earlier the Arena Football Challenge Cup which is set to have the CAIF Champion play the APF Champion.

And now last and certainly least is the EIFC or Elite Indoor Football Conference (which yes is different from the EIF), this league was founded by the Central Florida Jags as a league for them to play in. What teams are in the EIFC? Glad you asked we have the league founders the Central Florida Jags, the Florida Generals, the Lake Park Tigers, the Miracle City Great White, the Polk County Venom, the South Florida Barracudas, and yes the damn Palm Beach Phantoms. What does this league have going for it? Well every team is playing 9 or 10 regular season games and that’s it because only (according to the website) literally only the Central Florida Jags have a home arena (the Lakeland Center in Lakeland, FL)

For all of you who have stuck with I do appreciate it, I know it has been a painful and bumpy train ride so far but we’re almost to the last station. As I mentioned before there are a few teams in these leagues and that’s what we’ll talk about now. The only team that I give a Seal of Approval (for players and fans) to is Florida Tarpons. The Tarpons will be entering their Sixth season in 2017 and in their fourth league, besides the Lehigh Valley Steelhawks and Columbus Lions (both of whom play in the NAL)  the Tarpons are the third strongest team on the east coast. As for a fan investment I can also say the River City Raiders are ok, the only reason is due to all Raiders tickets being free. Other than those a wait and see attitude should be used for players for the Raiders since they just bailed from the CIF as well a wait and see on the Vermont Bucks and Central Florida Jags. I would stay away from every other club as there are bound to be more than a few dumpster fires of both teams and leagues. And now folks we have arrived at the station and you may exit the train now that this painful tour through the underbelly of indoor football is done.

Indoor Football Weekly Special Edition #1: The Shit Show 2017: Part One

BEFORE YOU READ: this is a warning to players and fans about how poorly teams and leagues can be run, now that the disclaimer is done we shall continue. By good it's awful out there, that's right even though the dreaded American Indoor Football finally folded it's not over. Why? Do you ask, well because we have not one, not two, not even just three, but five yes FIVE garbage leagues polluting indoor football this year. Yes it hurts and we all know it but there are some, well, decent teams in these leagues.

To start our journey of pain through the underbelly of indoor football off we'll start with the league that was originally launched in 2016, Supreme Indoor Football. Yes, yes the SIF, the league was started by the Cape Fear Heroes owner in 2016 and was to have partnered with a reborn CIFL. There was many problems, starting with the CIFL could never get off the ground and was dead. But like a phoenix Supreme Indoor Football rose again! Well sorta, the SIF didn’t have enough teams to make a decent league so they have um “partnered” with the EIF (Elite Indoor Football) for the 2017 season. This should tell you how garbage this league is right off the bat, plus they can’t decide how many teams are in the SIF. How you ask? Well depending on where you look on the website (and whether or not you count the EIF teams listed, but we’ll get to that later) they have five, six, or eight teams in the SIF!

For sake of sanity we’ll talk about the EIF clubs later, but currently listed in their Standings area on the Website are the Cap City Bulls, the team is based out of Austin, TX however per their schedule (on the Bulls Website) they’ll play an all road game schedule of 8 games. These games will span four different indoor leagues, including exhibition games against the IFL’s Wichita Falls Nighthawks, and the NAL’s Monterrey Steel. Next up we have the league owners team, the Cape Fear Heroes. The Heroes are based out of the Crown Coliseum in Fayetteville, NC and per the SIF website they have a Seven game schedule, and that’s all the info we have, yep off to a great start so far. Third in line we have the Georgia M.O.B. (or MOB depending on where you look) they are scheduled to play out of Conyers, GA (where I have no idea) and have a whopping four games scheduled in 2017! The M.O.B. don’t even have a website just a Facebook page wow. In fourth place is another expansion club the Greenville Dragons, the Dragons we’re admitted with no home! Yes the SIF let them in this “league” as a travel team and having them secure a venue for 2018. The SIF website lists them as playing four games while the team site has them playing six! Another reason the SIF can’t make up their mind. But I digress last but not least of the teams (at least listed in the standings) is a team who actually played in 2016! It’s the Triangle Torch (yes it’s a stupid name, we know). The Torch played in the now dead AIF in 2016 and finished with a 3-4 record with one game cancelled besides the seven played. They made their home turf out of the J.S. Dorton Arena at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, NC. Per the SIF website they have a whopping five games scheduled and oh gee no website!

And to finish off the SIF they also have listed on their website the Anderson Gladiators who are nowhere to be found in the schedule or standings! As a background the Gladiators we’re originally announced as part of the ADL (now NAL) but bolted to the SIF and have been said to have not found a home arena. We also have listed in the teams section the Louisiana Cottonmouths, a failed AIF expansion team in 2016, and the South Carolina Ravens, a team who was scheduled to play 2017 in the AIF.

Now on to something even more painful, Elite Indoor Football. Yes ELITE Indoor Football, the EIF was founded by Bobby Dammarell the owner of the Savannah Steam. I won’t get into it to deep here but his wife Jenny, was booked into a county jail for “deposit account fraud”. The team was also told by the City of Savannah that due to it’s debts they wouldn’t be allowed a lease at the Savannah Civic Center again, in fact they can’t even play there as a road team! Next we have the Carolina Cowboys, based out of ?, South Carolina. Yes they don’t have a home arena or even city leased and their using the Dallas Desperados logo jeez. Next up is the Florida Tribe to be based out of Tallahassee, FL, where is their home arena, nobody knows. The Roanoke Militia were announced as the fourth team in the EIF, all we know is their base is Roanoke, VA. And finally the fifth and newest team the Atlanta Furious. Where do they play? You guessed it nobody knows. This is a league shrouded in mystery and unprofessionalism, per the website they will play a March through June schedule but yet don’t have an actual schedule released, and all but Savannah don’t have a website!

Stay tuned for Part Two of this nightmarish mess, we’ll show you the disaster of the Can-Am Indoor Football, Arena Pro Football, and the Elite Indoor Football Conference (yes it’s a different league).

Indoor Football Weekly #8 Offseason Edition: December

Credit: Our Sports Central

Well everyone in the two months since our last post there has been another shit storm thats happened in the world of Indoor Football. So sit back relax, strap in, and enjoy the ride because here we go!

Credit: Indoor Football League

As normal we'll start off with the league that's had the least happen since our last visit and that ironically is the Indoor Football League. Last time we covered the folding Billings and the addition of Arizona. Since then the IFL has released there schedule and in the opening week is a game we've all been hoping for. The Sioux Falls Storm will take on the Arizona Rattlers at the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls, SD at 7:05PM on Friday, February 17th. We will be doing a game of the week for each league this season and this will be the first IFL Game of the Week! The IFL will still play a 16 game schedule starting Thursday February 16th and ending Saturday June 17th. The playoff format will revert to what is has been most of the past few seasons. The #1 seed will host the #2 seed in the Conference Championship with no 1st round game. I found the United Conference Semi-Final to be a good one last season as both teams were deserving, all this does is set the stage for a guaranteed Sioux Falls hosting. My prediction is Sioux Falls vs ? in the United Conference Championship in Sioux Falls, SD and Arizona vs Spokane. I do believe that there is truly a 3 way race for that second spot in the United Conference but not in the Intense. The Conference Championship will be held June 23rd-25th and the United Bowl July 7-9th.

As we stay in the same area we move on to Champions Indoor Football a somewhat bigger change has happened with the Chicago Eagles suspending operations for the 2017 season. That however is not a huge shock to this girl at all, per the CIF website they didn't report any attendance figures and from the video footage of last season there attendance was almost non existent. The River City Raiders are also having been reported to have left the CIF, the reasoning said was that Chicago folding was to detrimental to keep them in the CIF. Since those changes have happened a new schedule or alignment to the league has not been announced. Once we do receive the information we will update it. As of this afternoon the CIF announced their new schedule and alignment. Rather than the 4 division alignment that was originally announced the league will be split into two 7 team Conferences. The Northern Conference (Bloomington, Bismarck, Kansas City, Omaha, Salina, Sioux City, and West Michigan) and the Southern Conference (Amarillo, CenTex, Dallas, Dodge City, Duke City, Texas, and Wichita) is how the league will align for 2017. The schedule will start out on Saturday February 25th when the Omaha Beef take on the Sioux City Bandits. The season finishes on Saturday June 3rd with 4 games that day. With the new schedule and alignment a playoff announcement was not part of it but when the playoff schedule is announced we will be sure to update it.

A quick update on the Arena Football League is after dropping down to just Four clubs an expansion team (which is still unnamed) for Baltimore, MD was handed to Monumental Sports and Entertainment (owners of the Washington Valor) to add a 5th club to the AFL for 2017.

Credit: National Arena League

To wrap everything up let's finish it with the newest league of them all. That is what was known as the Arena Development League (get to that later) the newest addition at the time of the last post was the Anderson Gladiators, due to apparent lease issues (aka them not having a lease) they left the ADL and joined the SIF. As for new clubs announced since then, the Corpus Christi Rage were announced to play out of the American Bank Center. Also the Florida Tarpons had joined the league on October 20th, and given a nice boost of an older stable team to the league, and bailed then on November 10th for an AIF replacement league Arena Pro Football. The reason why!? Well they didn't want to spend the money the ADL was requiring and had no faith that the league would last multiple seasons, do I blame them? Yes, there just stupid, if they don't have money to play in a real league don't play at all. Finally was the big news on a November Press Conference, the Arena Development League changed it's name (and structure) to the National Arena League while at the same time adding the former AFL club the Jacksonville Sharks. Since coming into the league the Sharks have signed players from last seasons AFL squad and numerous IFL All Stars, I fully expect this to be the team to beat in the (now) NAL. In late November one other club was added, the Mexican team, the Monterrey Steel, where did Northern Kentucky go? Nobody knows but there not here anymore. A few short weeks later the NAL schedule was released, the first game in league history and first NAL Game of the Week is the Columbus Lions vs Jacksonville Sharks. The Sharks will visit "The Jungle" at the Columbus Civic Center to take on last years (yes this doesn't mean much as the league was a joke) AIF Champion Lions. I fully expect this game to set the tone for the league which is playing Arena Style minus the rebound nets. A background on the schedule, Jacksonville will host 8 games, Dayton and Corpus Christi will host 5, the other 5 teams will each host 6 games in a 12 game schedule. After the 12 game, 14 week regular season the NAL will have the top 4 teams qualify for it's playoffs. June 23-25 is Semi-Final Weekend while the NAL Championship Game will be played on the weekend of July 7-9.

The NAL really made some standout moves this month, with changing there name and adding Jacksonville, I can't wait to see how the league gets played out. On the other hand the CIF should already have an updated schedule released or at least say what's happening to the teams. The IFL made a very stupid move, after expanding the Playoffs last season, which made it enjoyable for us at IFW for once contracted it back to 4 teams with 3 seeds practically locked in. Until next time that's the news and all we have time for, we'll be back with one, maybe two more offseason posts before the season starts. So long folks!

Indoor Football Weekly #7 Offseason Edition: October

Well everyone this is A LOT later than I had hoped to be posting this however there has been some MASSIVE fallout in this sport in just the past week and I wanted to wait until everything was finished as to not leave any speculation.  We'll start off with the small shit first and then move on. I'll do my best to keep this as usual league by league but that may not happen.

Starting off with the newest league that I've been the most critical of, the Arena Development League, as of last post the league only had 4 clubs and only 3 a home arena (YIKES!). That has changed as they announced the Georgia Firebirds would join from the folded AIF, the Firebirds will play out of the 8,000 seat Albany Civic Center as they did last season, in the AIF (which I know doesn't mean much) they finished with a record of 3-5 (including one forfeit but not including 2 non league wins). The other 2 teams that have been announced are the Anderson (SC) Gladiators who will be playing their first season out of the 5,100 seat Anderson Civic Center and a yet unnamed franchise in Northern Kentucky to play out of the 9,400 seat BB&T Arena in Highland Heights, KY on the campus of Northern Kentucky University. If anyone remembers that arena it's because it was formerly the home of the Northern Kentucky River Monsters in 2011 and 2014. The Dayton Wolfpack still haven't announced a home arena which isn't looking good heading into the fall, but changes may be on the way with an 8th expansion club that we'll get to shortly.

Onto somewhat bigger news out of Champions Indoor Football, the last time we spoke about the league they had the same 12 clubs with CenTex replacing San Angelo and Mesquite changed their name to Dallas, since them that has changed BIG TIME. We have had 4 teams announced as expansion since then. The first 2 are existing clubs, who yes unfortunately moved from the AIF, the River City Raiders (playing out of the Family Arena in St. Charles, MO) and the West Michigan Ironmen (playing out of the L.C. Walker Arena in Muskegon, MI). I was throughly impressed by the Ironmen (except in their last game) by being able to make it to the AIF title game by way of beating Lehigh Valley, lets see how they do in the CIF. The other expansion clubs have been the Kansas City Phantoms, who just recently announced they'll actually play out of the Silverstein Eye Care Centers Arena in Independence, MO, and Bismarck (the northern most team in the league) who will play out of thank god the Bismarck Event Center and not the V.F.W. Sports Center (home of the NAHL Bismarck Bobcats). The league also announced they'll have 4 divisions of 4 teams with an 8 team playoffs and continue to play a 12 game season. The Divisions look as such Northeast (Bloomington, Chicago, River City, and West Michigan), Northwest (Bismarck, Kansas City, Omaha, Sioux City), Central (Dodge City, Duke City, Salina, Wichita), and South (Amarillo, CenTex, Dallas, Texas Revs). I really do like this setup though personally I find the league playing 12 games to be way to short and I'd like to see them expand the schedule to 14 but I'll take it.

Now onto the biggest news, we usually don't cover things involving the Arena Football League but here we go. I will start out with this, unless the league gets it's act together and starts cost cutting it's fucked, there I said it. As of the time we are writing this the Arena Football League has 4 thats right just 4 clubs, the existing Cleveland Gladiators, Philadelphia Soul, Tampa Bay Storm, and expansion Washington (D.C.) Valor. Thats right folks since the league came back with 17 clubs in 2010 and had a high of 18 in 2011 the league has lost teams each and every season. Now your asking what happened to the other 4 teams, well hold on I'm getting there! The Portland Steel (whose market was stolen away from the bills paying Portland Thunder owner) and the LA Kiss have effectively folded. Neither team made an official statement but were dispersed in an expansion draft, so now we're down from the original 9 for next year to 7. The last week Orlando announced "due to the reduced number of teams operating" they would suspend operations, ya more like fold. The same day not even 2 hours later Jacksonville announced it would leave the AFL for a "rival league", and now we're down to 5. Then as of yesterday the most successful AFL club of all time, the Arizona Rattlers, announced they would move to the IFL. Now rumors have floated that LA, Jacksonville, and Orlando will join the IFL, and I'm not gonna be nice about this. THAT"S JUST FUCKING STUPID. In LA you now have the Rams who have come back so a whopping ZERO people will care to go to an IFL game in Anaheim, plus the workers comp is outrageous so this makes no sense at all, As for Jacksonville and Orlando, well Orlando is dead so count them out, but the closest IFL team to Jacksonville is a 17 hour bus trip to Wichita Falls, TX. Yes Jacksonville would leave the AFL, which is now entirely based on the east coast for a Mid-West based league to jack there travel costs back up coupled with the expected 50% attendance drop would make it totally worth the move. No Jacksonville should look at the ADL which would play in it's own area, and from their last release it looks as if they will be the 8th ADL club.

So now onto the Indoor Football League just real quickly, the Colorado Crush have been bought by the Salt Lake owners and Billings has folded. This coupled with Arizona joining will keep the league at 10 clubs for 2017. The conferences should be realigned now, it makes no sense to have Wichita Falls in a conference with the northern teams and Nebraska in with the Western clubs. In reality the league should look like this: Intense (Arizona, Colorado, Salt Lake, Spokane, Wichita Falls), United (Cedar Rapids, Green Bay, Iowa Barnstormers, Nebraska, Sioux Falls). With everything that's gone on it does look like the IFL is now set up for success and as long as someone not named Sioux Falls wins the title I think that will continue.

Roast me if you want but this is the reality of our sport. I think it's a great move for Jacksonville and Arizona to ditch the dying AFL as this sport needs to be based on a regional and not national level. There's also a bunch of garbage league going on (I'm looking at you EIF) that I won't cover right now. We'll be back in November or even late October with another edition of Indoor Football Weekly. Until then I thank everyone and Indoor Football Forum and the crazyness that is this sport, so long folks!

Indoor Football Weekly #6 Offseason Edition: September

Well everyone I know it’s been a while but we’re finally back with IFW. Since the United Bowl in July a lot of things have happened in the world of Indoor Football. First as usual the Sioux Falls Storm won the IFL Championship (again and I’m getting f*****g sick of it) but even more happened, and we’re gonna cover that now!

First on the IFL front a few things have happened. The league will be expanding to West Valley City, UT next year when the Salt Lake Screaming Eagles take the field at the Maverik Center. The last time an indoor or arena football team played there was the Utah Blaze of the AFL in 2010. The Blaze finished 2-14 and averaged 5,018 fans per game. So far Project FANchise is coming along nicely (I mean if your into a fan run club and I am not but whatever), but another bigger thing happened in the IFL. The other big news was that the Tri-Cities Fever, a club that was around since 2005, has (at least for now) folded. Officially the team has declared dormancy until either a new owner is found or the franchise rights are bought and moved to another city, which we all know how likely that is. So (as of now) all in all 10/11 clubs will be back in 2017 with 1 expansion to keep the league at a sable 11.

Heading south to Champions Indoor Football is a similar story. While all the clubs in the North will be returning one team in the South will not. The San Angelo Bandits had a fire sale of all things, office supplies, memorabilia, etc was as sold of at a steep discount. Shortly after the folded a club was awarded to Belton, TX to play in the Bell County Expo Center. Originally known as the CenTex Fightin’ Calvary it was quickly and shortly changed to the CenTex Cavalry. The Bell County Expo Center was previously home to the Texas Bullets of the original PIFL in 1998 and the CenTex Barracudas who played 3 season in the Intense Football League from 2006-2008.

In other news something that we all have been praying for finally happened the burning heap of garbage known as American Indoor Football has finally folded. The official release said it had to do with the creation of the Arena Development League “continuing the AIF’s mission” however the ADL only has 4 clubs as of now. With the AIF folding a plethora of new leagues have been created. One of those is the ADL which currently has only 4 teams, the Columbus Lions (2014 PIFL and 2015 AIF Champions) Lehigh Valley Steelhawks, Dayton Wolfpack, and the High Country Grizzlies (the last 2 are expansion teams). The Wolfpack have not announced a home venue but since the Hara Arena closed the only viable venue is the Nutter Center, while High Country announced they’ll play at the George M. Holmes Convocation Center in Boone, NC on the campus of Appalachian State University. Trusted sources have told us that the ADL will play a 10 game season their first year with playoffs and an All Star Game in Biloxi, MS. We’ll keep you up to date on the happenings of the new Arena Development League as we’re sure more clubs will be added.

And then we have 3 leagues looking to replace the AIF, first is Supreme Indoor Football. A little background on that league is the SIF was attempted to be started last year Barbara Spigner, owner of the Cape Fear Heroes. Now here’s a shocker for ya folks other than Cape Fear it has 3 expansion teams, One of which (the Coastal Outlaws in Savannah, GA) claim to not even be part of the league! The other leagues that have started up are the Can-Am Indoor Football League which is based in the Northeast. The CAIFL has a whopping 11 clubs and yet again they’re all expansion teams so we’ll get to see how long this nightmare will last. And last and certainly least is Elite Indoor Football. The EIF has at last count 4 clubs which include some real winners. Those teams include the Palm Beach Phantoms who have tried so many times to start and been a road team so much it makes me wanna puke. And on top of that if it’s not bad enough already we’ve got the Savannah Steam coming back! The Steam’s burning ship may still be afloat but the city has already said they will NOT be playing in the Savannah Civic Center until they're completely paid up on back rent. So we’ve got some real winners of leagues starting up next year.

We’ll keep updated on these leagues and developments over the next month to see exactly what ends up happening. For everyone who's read this we really do appreciate it and we’ll be back in October for another edition of Indoor Football Weekly. I’ve got to thank everyone over at Indoor Football Forum for a lot of this info and especially the stupid owners who make these articles possible. We’ll see you next week!

Champion of Champions (Indoor Football): Indoor Football Weekly #5

Well everyone we have yet another championship game down and just one to go. The playoff race in the Indoor Football League has been determined for sure (finally!). We also have some big news coming out of the AIF that for once is not a team folding (shocker right!). So now let's get started with your newest indoor football weekly!

The biggest news coming out of the AIF is that the defending champion Columbus Lions have announced that they will NOT be returning to American Indoor Football. Widely speculated from early on in the season they made the announcement official (http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/sports/other-sports/article86343167.html) saying they will not return to the AIF, at the same time saying they are contractually bound to the league until Mid-July. I would expect not just the Columbus Lions but also the Lehigh Valley Steelhawks and Florida Tarpons to leave the league. We will keep you updated as the situation progresses.

In Champions Indoor Football news the league successfully capped off their second season with CIF Champions Bowl II. The contest was played at Wichita, KS Intrust Bank Arena. The crowd on hand of 4,772 would witness a battle and a classic contest. The only score in the first quarter was a 16 yard pass from Olson to Kelley to make it 7-0 Force. Amarillo would get on the board in the second but Wichita wasn't going to give and went into half time with a lead of 20-10. The low scoring would continue in the 3rd quarter as each team would only manage one touchdown. With the score 27-17 after 3 the scoring finally ramped up as Amarillo knew they needed to push as much as possible to win the title. Amarillo did put 28 points on the board compared to Wichita's 21, the 5 yard touchdown pass from Davis to Brandley wouldn't be enough and the Force walked out with a tight 48-45 victory to win CIF Champions Bowl II. The title is the first for the Force and 3rd in 4 seasons for the city (the Wichita Wild won the CPIFL in 2013 and 2014). As of right now all 12 clubs will be returning to the CIF next season with no expansion announced yet, we will keep you updated throughout the offseason.

The premier league of the sport, the Indoor Football League, is one week away from their playoffs. Last week in the final week of the regular season everything was determined as to the playoff races still going on. Both Cedar Rapids and Wichita Falls won their final games last weekend, which the Nighthawks needed the Titans to lose it. Cedar Rapids will host Wichita Falls at the US Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids on Saturday July 9th at 7:05PM in the United Conference semi-final. The winner of that game will travel to the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center to take on the Storm on Saturday July 16th for the United Conference Championship. In the Intense Conference it's a different story as the second year Billings Wolves are hosting the Nebraska Danger in the semi-final. Nebraska has lost the United Bowl championship every year since 2013 to the Sioux Falls Storm but this season barely scraped themselves in to the playoffs at 6-10. The winner of the the semi-final will travel to the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena to take on the expansion Spokane Empire to play for the Intense Conference Championship.

Well everyone that's it for Indoor Football Weekly again I thank everyone from the Indoor Football Forum for some of this information. We will be off next week due to the holiday and lack of games this weekend, so we will see you in 2 weeks!

One Down, Two to Go: Indoor Football Weekly #4

Well one championship has gone by and there is just two more to go in this crazy sport we all love. The AIF Championship game was played in Columbus as well as the CIF Division Championships, the Indoor Football League is down to just one week left as well. So everyone let's get started!

As usual we'll start out with the train wreck known as American Indoor Football, the good news is that it was the AIF Championship Game between the 2 most deserving teams. The Columbus Lions (2015 PIFL Champions) would play host to the expansion (but yet good) West Michigan Ironmen. It should have been a mostly uneventful football game, but that's just not how the AIF rolls. The Lions started out with a huge 23-6 lead after the first quarter, it wouldn't get any better as they took at 45-26 lead into half time. The 3rd quarter would again see Columbus dominate putting the lead up to 61-32. The 4th quarter is where it would get interesting, with Columbus now up 74-32 a scuffle in the late 4th would see West Michigan walk off the field with about 4 minutes to play. Accounts vary from source to source so I'll let you determine it, the game is available for viewing at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS8xWbirsWk. Columbus would win their first (and for god sakes hopefully only) AIF Championship, and an unbeaten season. We'll have more (hopefully very little) coverage as the AIF (sadly) expands (even though it needs to fold).



In the CIF (a much better more legit league) the North and South Division Championships were held this past weekend. As 4 clubs came in 2 would continue on their ways to CIF Champions Bowl II. The North Division final would be held at the Intrust Bank Arena in Wichita, KS with the hosting Wichita Force taking on the Bloomington Edge. The Force had gained the bye after a 10-2 season while the Edge had finished 7-5 on the season and beat Sioux City at home the previous week. A crowd of 3,144 would see the Force take out the Edge with a razor thin win of 52-51. It would be all up to the Southern teams now with the Texas Revolution (10-2) hosting the Amarillo Venom. The Venom finished the season at 8-4 and beat Dodge City at home the previous week to move on to Allen. In yet another nail biter of a football game the Venom brought down the Revolution 57-53. CIF Champions Bowl II will take place on Monday (yes Monday for some reason) June 27th at 7PM inside the Intrust Bank Arena in Wichita, KS. The game will also be viewable live on eversport.tv/indoor-football/cif and on archive (if they ever get one up).

And last but certainly not least is the IFL. With one week left in the regular season (the longest in Indoor Football) have all been decided and this week will finish the season for 4 (Green Bay, Iowa, Colorado, and Tri-Cities) of the leagues 10 clubs. The playoff setup is set up as so. In the Intense Conference the Billings Wolves (7-8) will host the Nebraska Danger (5-10) in the first round with the winner going on to play at the Spokane Empire (12-3) the following week in Spokane, WA. In the United Conference the Sioux Falls Storm (yet again) have secured the hosting rights to the United Conference Championship and if they win it the 2016 IFL United Bowl. In the United Conference Semi-Finals it will be the Cedar Rapids Titans against the Wichita Falls Nighthawks at a TBD location, which brings us to our only games that matter this weekend. Cedar Rapids (11-4) play on the road in Des Moines against the Iowa Barnstormers (4-11), the Titans have already beat them twice and won the Iowa Bowl while the Barnstormers are looking to avoid their worst finish in franchise history, Wichita Falls (10-5) will be playing on the road against the Green Bay Blizzard (5-10). Wichita Falls does hold the tiebreaker over Cedar Rapids, for the Titans to host the first round game they will either have to beat Iowa OR have the Nighthawks lose to Green Bay, while in order for the Nighthawks to win they have to beat Green Bay AND have Iowa beat the Titans.

Well everyone that's it for now, we'll be back next week recapping the CIF Champions Bowl II, as well as the IFL's final week and a preview of the IFL United Bowl playoffs. Again thanks to everyone over at Indoor Football Forum, and we'll see you next week.

It's Time for the Hunt: Indoor Football Weekly #3

Well everyone it's time for the hunt in indoor football and it's playoffs. The AIF is in its Championship Game weekend, the CIF is playing the division finals and the IFL has 2 weeks left in the season.

First let's start off in American Indoor Football (AIF), where they are in Championship weekend this week and will end the season. Last week in the division championships we had the best 4 (legitimately unlike the previous week) play. The South Division Championship consisted of the Columbus Lions (2015 PIFL Champions, 9-0 in 2015) hosting the Florida Tarpons (2015 X-League Champion/8-1). This game would not end pretty in another meeting between these teams. The Lions who had to fight the Stars hard the previous week would tear apart the Tarpons with a final score of 79-66 to send the Lions to host the championship game. The North Division Championship would be a battle of steel and iron as the West Michigan Ironmen (8-1) hosted the Lehigh Valley Steelhawks (7-2) in Muskegon. Coming into the game the Steelhawks were the clear favorite to win the game and play Columbus but in a stunning upset fashion the Ironmen took the Steelhawks out of flight and won 42-35. West Michigan will travel to Columbus to take on the Lions in the AIF Championship on Saturday June 18th. This will be the final game in yet another nightmare of an AIF season

Out west in Champions Indoor Football the road to CIF Champions Bowl II will continue this week. The two game in the Division Semi-Finals were not pretty by any means. In the North Division Semi-Final the Bloomington Edge hosted the defending champion Sioux City Bandits, the Bandits however did not look like the championship caliber team they were the year before. The Edge cut the Bandits by a final score of 65-45. Down in the South Division Semi-Final Amarillo would play Dodge City for the second consecutive week on the season. The Venom had some sharp play as they aimed for 100 points which they fell just short of. The Law fell dead in their tracks as the Venom took a massive 98-56 route over Dodge City. The division finals are now set as it will be the Wichita Force hosting the Bloomington Edge to play for the North Division title and a berth to CIF Champions Bowl II. In the South the Allen Event Center in Allen, TX will host an all Lone Star State affair for the division title. The Texas Revolution (10-2) will host the Amarillo Venom (9-4) in what is sure to be an all out Texas Style Slobberknocker. Both games will take place on Saturday June 18th at 7PM CT.

In the Indoor Football League we have just 2 weeks to go in the regular season now. The playoffs have been for the most part decided, in the United Conference Sioux Falls has guaranteed home field advantage throughout the playoffs and it will be Cedar Rapids playing Wichita Falls in the United Semi-Final. The Intense conference is not quite as clear cut, Spokane does have the bye and will host the Intense Conference Championship and Billings has gained the 2nd of 3 playoff berths, Nebraska (5-9) and Tri Cities (3-11) are both still alive for that final spot. Important games in the IFL Playoff race this week are Wichita Falls at Iowa, if Iowa wins Cedar Rapids will host the Nighthawks if Wichita Falls wins then the home team in the first round will be determined next week in the final game of the season. The other playoff implicating games are Nebraska at Colorado and Tri-Cities at Billings, if Nebraska wins or Tri-Cities loses there in the playoffs, Tri-Cities has to win twice and have Nebraska lose twice to make. Billings on the other hand can clinch the home semi-final game with a win (which will knock out Tri-Cities) and a Nebraska loss.

That's all we have for you here at Indoor Football Weekly, next week we will have a more detailed recap of the AIF Championship. Again thanks to everyone over at Indoor Football Forum and we will see you next week.

Road to Champions Bowl II (IV Maybe): Indoor Football Weekly #2

Well everyone we've had another eventful week in the world of Indoor Football. The train wreck of the AIF is um "chugging" along with yet another season (God willing the pain will end someday) while the CIF played it's final week of the regular season and will start it's playoffs this week while the IFL has only a few weeks left before there playoffs start.

Again let's start off with the AIF as they opening weekend of the playoffs provided us with two tight matchups and two blowouts (where as I was expecting all four to be blowouts. It started on Thursday when the burning ship of the Savannah Steam traveled to Estero, FL to take on the Tarpons, the game would end with a blowout 71-20 victory for the Tarpons and hopefully that burning ship in Savannah has sunk. The round would continue on Saturday when the New Mexico Stars traveled to Georgia to take on the Columbus Lions. New Mexico who only played 1 real game all season did put up a very good fight against the Lions but the final would be 49-37 in favor of the 8-0 Lions. Also on Saturday we say the Myrtle Beach Freedom travel all the way from South Carolina to Muskegon, MI to take on the expansion West Michigan Ironmen, it would be a long 2 way trip and game as the Ironmen struck hot metal against the Freedom winning 78-37. The final game would be played at the Family Arena in St. Charles, MO between the host River City Raiders and visiting Lehigh Valley Steelhawks, in another tight ballgame the Steelhawks would come out and win it late 54-52. The South Division final is set for this Saturday with the Columbus Lions hosting the Florida Tarpons, in the North Division the Lehigh Valley Steelhawks will travel to Muskegon to take on the West Michigan Ironmen, hopefully none of these teams fold before the games have been played.

Now in the CIF the playoffs have been set with the Texas Revolution getting the bye in the South Division and the Wichita Force getting the bye in the North. First round games will see the Amarillo Venom host the Dodge City Law on Saturday June 11th with the winner heading to Allen to play the Revs while the Bloomington Edge will host the defending champion Sioux City Bandits with the winner heading to Wichita to play the Force. With the CIF games this week I still have to pick Dodge City and Sioux City over the host clubs.

In the IFL with a few weeks left to go the playoff scenario in the United Conference has been determined with Sioux Falls securing the bye a few weeks ago and Cedar Rapids playing Wichita Falls with only the location of that game TBD. In the Intense Conference it looks a lot different as the Spokane Empire securing the bye but no oth places being determined yet it's still an Intense fight going on out West for those other spots. Games with playoff implications this week are all of them except for the Iowa @ Sioux Falls game because Iowa has been eliminated and Sioux Falls already has the bye guaranteed.

We'll be back next week with another recap of the week in this crazy sport we all love. Again I thank everyone over at Indoor Football Forum for a lot of this information!

It's Your Nighmare: Indoor Football Weekly #1

It's a nightmare alright and that isn't a joke, what's also not a joke is that it's playoff season. Yes it's that time a year again when the best teams that indoor football has to offer (or in the case of the AIF stumble through the year or the thousand other ways a team can make the playoffs while still being terrible). First lets get the AIF out of the way.

In the "league" (a term I use very loosely here) known as American Indoor Football the um "playoffs" are starting. So many teams folded, played travel only, or were non league I'm not even going to get into it. So we start out with an 8 team playoff system that was originally announced as 6. First up in the Quarter-Finals is the South #1 Columbus Lions (8-0) taking on the South/West#4 New Mexico Stars (6-1 according to the AIF site 4-1 really). Columbus was one of very few teams to actually play all there scheduled games and all against league opponents New Mexico on the other hand hobbled it's way through the season playing anyone they could because the entire AIF West would end up folding, expect Columbus to destroy New Mexico. Next up is South #2 Florida (7-1 w/ forfeit wins) against South #3 Myrtle Beach oh wait nope the AIF changed the game last minute now Florida will play the Savannah Steam (why!!???) whose owners are in bankruptcy court and being sued, expect the Tarpons to attack this burning ship and make it ugly. In the North we have #2 River City (7-1 AIF/ 5-2 Reality) playing #3 Lehigh Valley (6-2) this game could be a tough one but expect Lehigh Valley to win. In our final game it's #1 West Michigan (6-1 AIF/7-1 Reality) playing #4 Central Penn, wait nope back up the train I'm being told that CP has folded and that Myrtle Beach FROM THE SOUTH is replacing them, this game could be a challenge but I'm taking West Michigan.

Now that we're done with the joke of the sport lets move west to the CIF (Champions Indoor Football), where we have just a week left in the season. Texas, Dodge City, and Amarillo have all secured spots in the South Division playoffs with Texas already clinching the division title and the other 2 fighting for the home seed in the CIF South. With one week left the North is still a free for all with Wichita securing the division title and a playoff spot at 9-2 so far. Bloomington (6-5) is currently on the outside looking in but can still get in depending on how Sioux City and Omaha (both 7-4) do. Games this week with playoff implications are, Omaha @ Wichita, Dodge City @ Amarillo, and Sioux City @ Bloomington.

Next up is the IFL (Indoor Football League) where Sioux Falls (12-1) has clinched the United Conference (yet again, it's starting to get old now) and Cedar Rapids the 2nd of 3 playoff spots. The somewhat surging Green Bay Blizzard are out with a record of 4-9 and THE Iowa Barnstormers are sitting at 4-8 about to be eliminated (sadly) from playoff contention as Wichita Falls (who was moved from the Intense conference after the 2 MN teams folded before the season) is at 8-4 about to get in. The Intense Conference is a wholenother BEAST as the Spokane Empire (10-2) have clinched it and no one is out! How is that possible well because the rest of the division is a bit crap Billings is 6-6 in 2nd, Nebraska 5-8 in 3rd, Tri-Cities at 3-10 in 4th and in 5th is Colorado at 2-11. Games with playoff implications in the IFL is well all of them at least this week.

I know this one was short but it'll be longer, bigger, better, and badder next week. I thank Jim Roberts and everyone over at Indoor Football Forum for a lot of this info. See ya next week folks!