The last stop in my sports journalism career was way up in the northern outpost of Duluth, Minnesota. The sports scene in the tiny port town on the western tip of Lake Superior was focused almost entirely on the local college hockey team, Minnesota-Duluth… with additional fervor for the local high school hockey teams.
The town also dabbled in Independent baseball for a while with a hapless and poorly-attended Northern League team (would you go watch baseball when it’s 40 degrees and foggy?).
So it was huge news when the newly formed Indoor Football League decided to place one of its charter franchises in Duluth.
At the time, the Arena Football League was just starting to gain steam with higher attendance and a national TV contract. There were no other established “minor league” indoor football leagues.
The IFL was going to be the top minor league indoor football league in the nation. NFL Hall-of-Famer Kellen Winslow was the commissioner, and it seemed like it was a pretty good idea.
It all added up to create quite a buzz as the team formed, assembled, began practice and was ready to hit the field. The whole town was giddy with anticipation for the debut of the Duluth Lumberjacks… just as other Midwestern towns were when the IFL hit their arenas in the summer of 1999.
The excitement lasted about a quarter into opening night.
The creators of the IFL had created their rulebook to be very similar to that of real outdoor football. The only real difference was a shorter field and those pesky walls on the sidelines.
These rules created games that took four or more hours to complete. The combination of less-than-pro-level skilled athletes along with a stopped clock on every incompletion meant the clock was hardly ever running. The AFL had suffered from similar problems when it was formed in the early 90’s.
There was hardly any excitement, drives took forever, and the skill level of the players wasn’t enough to carry fan interest alone. Duluth’s team, and the IFL itself, only lasted two years. Most of the league was purchased by the Orlando Predators who folded many of the players and teams into a farm system… this was the birth of af2. A couple of the IFL team identities were spared (Green Bay and Peoria), and still exist in some form today.
That brings me to the connection to Southwest Florida’s own Firecats. Peoria and Florida had a pretty good rivalry going in the early stages of af2’s history. In 2002, Peoria beat Florida in Arena Cup III, the af2 Championship Game. Florida won a rematch in ’04, claiming Arena Cup V.
Despite being statistically the best professional team in the region, many people are still reluctant to buy into the notion of football indoors… refusing to support or attend anything related to the Firecats.
I understand why it happens… but I’m here to tell you that most critics of Arena/Indoor football probably have it all wrong. I’m not here to serve as a shill for the Firecats, but rather to praise the indoor game as a whole.
I saw the sport when it wasn’t fun. Those two seasons covering the Duluth Lumberjacks meant long nights watching a bad product with fans doing little aside from taking advantage of drink specials and wonder if they should try to get refunds for their season tickets.
The other truth: Arena ball, like auto racing and hockey, simply doesn’t translate on TV. You just don’t get the feel for the speed, contact and motion in any of those sports from home. No matter how Hi-Def or Plasmafied your home set may be, it’s not the same. This is where most of the indoor-ball haters form their opinions. They see the game on TV, aren’t captivated by the elements of the game you can really only absorb in person, and they dismiss the sport as boring, silly or dumb.
But just as happens in those other “better-in-person” sports I mentioned… fans who attend quickly become fans. Despite dismal TV ratings that support the poor translation of the product from turf-to-TV… Arena Football (and I include both the AFL and af2) has assumed a place in the landscape of American sport. Indoor football obviously will never approach the popularity or draw of it’s outdoor brother… nor will it ever become a major feature of that sports landscape… but it is a legitimate sport worthy of fans time, attention and ticket money.
I’m not saying attending a game will convert everyone but it will at least pique the interest of true sports fans. Arena football has fantastic contact, amazing speed, and they’ve tailored the rules over the last few years to create a game that’s centered enough around “real” football to appeal to purists… but also maintains a competitive and time-balanced flow through the games.
On top of that, anyone who may have suffered through those early-year games in either the AFL or IFL may want to check back in for another look. The streamlining of the rules really has made for a better product. One that prevents games from becoming those four-hour snorefests I saw in 1999 keeps the clock running on incompletions except for when the time is short. And one of the best quirky rules in the af2 says teams have to gain yardage when they have the ball in the final minute in order for the clock to run. This means there’s no taking a knee. The defense can keep hope alive if they can prevent the offense from advancing the ball… thus freezing the clock. I love this rule.
To be honest, I wouldn’t have believed all of this unless I’d seen it with my own eyes. I’m still learning all the new rules and nuances of the game, as I officially make my journey back from detesting it, to enjoying it. In fact, you may even want to take a radio and headphones with you to a game so you can listen to the call on the radio… it will help you be aware of the different rules.
Get to an arena game, sports fans. You’ll have fun. I honestly believe that.
Time is running short if you want to hop on the bandwagon for this season. The Firecats host the Conference Semifinal this Saturday, the 12th, at Germain Arena. If they win, they’ll host the Conference Final on the 19th. That’s it for home games this season. The Arena Cup is in San Juan, Puerto Rico .. then it’s on to the offseason. If you don’t mind driving a bit, the AFL has teams in both Tampa and Orlando. The AFL season runs spring to summer.
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CHRIS LONG is a Sports Anchor and Reporter for NBC2. Click here to send him an e-mail. He reads every e-mail, and makes every effort to respond to any comments, suggestions or criticisms you wish to convey.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
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