Hearing that a team was coming to Portland is the best news going lately. If you are a fan of the league you might know that this isn't the first team to play in Portland.
The first franchise was the Portland Forest Dragons who played from 1997 through 1999. The team had a very poor showing with their best record being 7-7 in 1999. The 1998 season was my only chance to see an arena football game. I always thought watching games on television was cool, but seeing a game in person was amazing.
If it wasn't such an ordeal to make a game I know we would have done more. I say we as at the time I was living in a town that was a three hour drive to Portland. One of my co-workers, and myself were talking about arena football. Somehow the conversation went to how cool it would be to see a game in person. From there it went to we need to make it happen. At that time the process of turning we need into we are started. Things started moving quickly as there was only one home game left at that point, and it was just a couple weeks away. Hearing that we were going to a game another two co-workers wanted in. Things started turning into a guys night out watching football in Portland.
Little did we know that guys night out was about to change. The original guy let us know his wife wanted in. Not caring who went, but looking for a good time watching football she was in. Letting her go was for the best anyways as she was the true football fan due to her growing up in Green Bay. I think we all spent more time talking football with her than with her husband. The thing I remember most though is it was an amazing time that was like a huge party going on as well. If you ever get the chance to watch a game I say get a group, and go. I know once all the information is given out I will be finding a few co-workers from my job now to catch a game. The best part is this time the trip up to Portland will only take half the time it did before.
While it has been fun thinking about the future of this new team in Portland, and reminiscing about the past. There are a ton of things still to be decided before March comes around. The biggest one right now is that the team hasn't gotten a name yet. As with some teams from other sports they are doing a name the team thing. All I can say is hopefully they carve their own identity and don't run with some recycled name that has been used for some other team in the area. Whatever the name I am looking so forward to hearing what is decided upon.
If you get a chance to hit Arena football, by all means do so. We had tickets to the Iowa Barnstormers for three years, but finally gave them up this season for hockey tickets -- the Iowa Wild, Minnesota's AHL affiliate, which relocated from Houston. By the way, did you know Arena football originated here in Des Moines, Iowa? JIm Foster and some of his buddies came up with the rules and dimensions in a Des Moines bar one evening, drawing everything up on a bar napkin. Now that would make one great piece of memorabilia!
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