Remember the Indoor Football League? A few weeks ago, we told you about the Omaha Beef and how they wouldn't be taking part in the playoffs because their owners didn't feel like paying to send the team to South Dakota to play. Then we told you about how the undefeated Sioux Falls Storm would be without their head coach for the team's first two playoff games because he had been suspended by the league after his team gave players a ride to a charity event in a 27-year-old van. Well, the IFL is at it again with more crazy hijinks.
The United Bowl, the IFL's championship game, was contested on Saturday. For the second straight year, the Sioux Falls Storm beat the Tri-Cities Fever. No one from the IFL front office was there, though. According to Craig Mattick of KWSN, they claimed financial difficulties precluded them from traveling to Sioux Falls.
It's pretty pathetic that the league couldn't muster a couple hundred bucks to send some representatives to their championship game, but then again, everything related to the IFL is pretty pathetic. Case in point: yesterday, just days after winning their second straight championship—their sixth since 2005—the Storm released all but two of the players on their roster. The whole team, gone.
According to KELO, the move—however drastic—makes a kind of stupid sense:
Teams have until July 31 to commit to playing next year in the IFL and Tryon says the Storm roster, as it stood, may have caused teams to consider dropping out of the league.
"I just want them sitting back wondering 'What the heck is Sioux Falls doing?'" (Storm owner Todd) Tryon said. "They do not appreciate how high we have set the bar. There are teams that, if we have our roster in tact, that will not commit to play next year."
That has to be the cockiest thing any team owner has ever said. Our team is so good, the other teams would rather leave the league than compete with us. Thing is, as with anything in the IFL, it could be true.
Storm Releases Roster [KELO]