Louisiana Swashbucklers To Open Season Against North Texas Crunch

By Robert H. Kelly

Copyright 2010 TexSport Publications

HOUSTON, TEXAS (March 17, 2010) The Louisiana Swashbucklers were scheduled to take on the Houston Lightning in the season opener for both teams this coming Saturday evening at the Lake Charles Civic Center at 7:00pm.

In a press release posted on their website, the Houston Lightening has announced they will not play during the 2010 season and are shutting down operations.

Our season is set to open March 20, 2010, against the Louisiana Swashbucklers After meeting with Tom Hager, President of the SIFL, on March 10, 2010 we have made the decision to not field the Houston Lightning this year. This decision is directly related to an agreement to play in a specific local arena which is now not being honored, by them. We have spent an enormous amount of time, effort, and money to replace our original arena. Understand that we have not sold a single ticket, nor taken any advertising dollars. This issue for our organization is not a financial decision, but one of fairness and integrity.

We do not make this decision lightly as it affects so many lives in and around our organization; fans, players, coaches, staff, sponsors, other team owners, and those employees of all the vendors in support of us. With such a short time to our first game we cannot in good consciousness attempt to field a team and meet the level of quality and experience we demand of ourselves, let alone our fans and sponsors. It would also be financially irresponsible to our organization at this point to attempt this.

The Houston Lightning would like to thank our staff and coaches for their support and hard work since our inception. We also want to take a moment to thank the SIFL for the opportunity to bring arena league football to Houston. We also want to acknowledge all the players who came to our tryouts and worked so hard to live their dream.

We wish the SIFL all the best, and still believe that Houston is a city that can support an arena league team successfully.

Calls to the Lightning’s offices were unanswered and no other information was given.

As a result, the Swashbucklers will face off against the North Texas Crunch on Saturday, March 20.

The Crunch are a member of the Independent Indoor Football Alliance (IIFA) and are the 2008 and 2009 Alliance Bowl champions.

The Swashbucklers are a member of the Southern Indoor Football League (SIFL) and are the 2009 SIFL champions.