Here's what's going on in the UWFFL this week. We were concerned that people were just looking at uniforms and voting without really taking the time to follow the teams and storylines and find out what's going on behind the scenes. So starting today, and for every week of the season, we'll be bringing you, here at the UWFFL Webpage, a Uni Watch-esque rundown of all the league happenings. All of you who clicked through to here from Uni Watch today, it's your lucky day -- it's like getting a whole second Uni Watch for free - two for the price of one.
Check it all out and then vote further down below. For discussion and debate about all that's going on here in the UWFFL and it's affiliated minor leagues, be sure to check out and participate in the comments at Uni Watch. Voting on this week's games begins at 7 AM, Saturday September 7 and ends promptly at midnight, Monday September 9. All Times Eastern.
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Sponsor Patches Update: Recently the league backtracked on its' stance on sponsor advertising patches on game uniforms. The state of advertising patches in the UWFFL is an ongoing debate. At first the league decreed that all teams were going to have them in all games, but some team owners balked at that, and the league softened its' stance and made the wearing of patches optional. But apparently some voters feel that sponsor patches are some sort of an instrument of corporate douchebaggery at work and perhaps would intentionally vote against a team merely because they were wearing a patch when their opponent wasn't. Therefore a team with a sponsor patch, while at a possible financial advantage, may be at a competitive disadvantage against a team without a patch, so the league decided to give teams with a patch that are scheduled to play an opponent without a patch, the option of not wearing the patch for such matchups. But at least one team has decided to keep wearing the ad patch in all of their games, even if it may hurt them in games against teams without sponsor patches. So now what we have is a mish-mash of standards where some teams will wear patches all of the time, some teams will wear them some of the time, and other teams will wear them none of the time. Sheesh. Be forewarned, however, that it may cost you more to attend a game if your team isn't wearing a sponsor's patch. What started out as an initiative to bring additional revenue to teams that wouldn't involve raising ticket prices, has therefore wound up backfiring and resulting in the exact opposite result than what they intended.
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UWFFL News: Week one of the UWFFL season is getting underway, the Chicago Cyclones are at the New York Sharks, and the game features New York wearing its' standard white at home look, with visting Chicago in red. Chicago may soon be announcing both an alt and a new throwback uni, so stay tuned...New York, meanwhile, has recently come out with an alt of its' own...Detroit and Miami are wearing standard home and aways, but those road unis don't look half as good on the Demons as they do on a member of Detroit's famed Succubi cheer squad...The Tampa Terror are wearing their gold helmet for the first time, while the Minnesota Mustangs are wearing their blue home unis on the road, giving us our first color-vs-color matchup...The Texas Timberwolves are going mono-green, while the San Diego Storm are going mono-teal...Meanwhile, the Storm's opponent, the Seattle Superbeasts, are wearing their fourth different combo in as many games - perhaps they truly are the "Oregon" of the UWFFL...Fearing voter backlash, the Atlanta Flying Fleet removed their Comfort Suites sponsor patches (see also 'Sponsor Patches Update' above) for their game against the ad-free St. Louis Slaughter. Atlanta won it's first two preseason games without any ads, but after adding the Comfort Suites patch two weeks ago, they lost their preseason game against Birmingham...In that Mustangs-Terror matchup, Tampa has recently added grocery chain Publix as their uniform sponsor, however with the Mustangs going sponsor-less, they will wait until next week to debut a Publix patch. Sorry Tampa fans, I guess your tickets to the game might be a few bucks more, too.
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Eastern Association News: The Roanoke Giraffes broke out a unique "Girafflage" uni set for their game against the Washington Huskers. The set is intended to honor the military and support the Wounded Warrior Project...The Raleigh Aeronauts chose to open their league schedule wearing mono-red against the Brooklyn Mariners. This game is the battle of comfort foods as the Mariners are sponsored by Benny's Beef Franks, while the Aeronauts are backed by Mean Street Pizza...The New York Garbologists looked like they just stepped out of Derek Jeter's closet as they opened the season wearing white at home (or should we say "Pinstripe At Home"?), forcing the Florida Geckos to wear their home green unis on the road. It is belived the Garbologists will wear this Yankee-esque combo at home all year long...Meanwhile, the Hartford Whalers debuted their home unis, white with green pants, and they looked like they just stepped out of the NHL, while their cross-state rival opponents, the Connecticut Convicts, are wearing one of their mono-orange alts with the chain-link decoration. With the prison motif, I guess you could say "OFOS" (Orange For Orange's Sake) because after all, Orange Is The New Black...The Brooklyn Uni Watchers, the always nattily attired barometers of good athletic aesthetic taste, open their home league schedule wearing green jerseys and white pants. Look for them to always wear green with white or white with green. "The monochromatic white look that we saw them wear in the preseason just looked horrible. Why would you go monochromatic, when you have uniform choices that look as good (as those two combos) do," said a source who chose to remain anonymous. They appear to be heavily favored against the Carolina Kronik this week, but then you never really know...Speaking of the Kronik, they are apparently considering a name change for next season.
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Central League News: All five Central League games look pretty standard this week...The Eagle Harbor Portals are in their only uniform of course, the gradient, however it was recently discovered they had been wearing the 'Eastern Association' patch by mistake. It has been fixed...It is the battle of monochrome in Nashville where the Swisshelm Express went all white against the Nashville Rockets who are wearing all blue. I hope the Rockets are ready to play -- all week I've been watching their head coach running his mouth on ESPN...Sure, the Youngstown Bobcats wore white-over-beige on the road, but which white-over-beige? Did you know they have three different road white jerseys? What's up with that?...The Cleveland Bearcats are the only team in any of the UWFFL leagues to wear a large letter, the letter "C" for "Cleveland" (or maybe it's for "greatness"?), on the front of their jersey where a player number usually would be. Instead they wear it on the upper right, where most teams wear their league patch. And they wear the league patch on the upper left, where some teams have sponsor patches...The league has been asked about Cleveland's non-standard template, and an unnamed source said that the commisionner's office accepted the Bearcat submission because it was "close enough" to the league mandated template.
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Pacific Coast Conference News: Not only are the Portland Gamblers going white at home, but they are wearing their 1952 throwbacks with the dollar sign on the side of the helmet. Is it just us, or does Portland have a lot of alts and throwbacks? We've lost count of how many they have, and it's is hard to keep them straight...The Dallas Outlaws, a recent entry into the league, joined too late to play a preseason game, however, they make their league debut today against the Las Vegas Lightning...The East Bay Executioners would like to remind everybody that the red on their shoes comes from the pools of blood of their victims that they would be standing in as they perform executions...The Oakland Ad Dragons made a last-second change from silver pants to black pants and we think it makes all the difference. (Still gotta do something about that luchidor mask on the side of the helmet, however. Although, I'm not sure what the Los Angeles YouTubers are thinking in that mono-red set with the white helmet, either)...Speaking of the YouTubers, they announced they have agreed to a sponsorhip arrangment with Google. No conflict of interest there? Anyone?...Rumors are that the Vancouver Seawolves have decided that their charcoal uni set will be their main home uniform, while the green uniform will be their alt, but that's always subject to change, y'know? They open their season against the Anchorage Orcas, the early favorites to win the PCC...Speaking of rumors, the Sacramento Scorpions have been rumored to be on the move to the East all summer long, but apparently they are staying put in the PCC for now...The only two teams not playing this week are in the PCC, the Promontory Golden Spikes and the San Antonio Black Knights both have byes.
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On The Airwaves: 970 KDSF's Dick Schaefer Show previewed the first week of UWFFL action on Friday. You can check out the podcast here...Be sure to follow 970 KDSF all season long for the best UWFFL coverage, not only of their hometown San Francisco Reign Fire of the UWFFL, but league-wide news as well...Monday will be the debut of This Week In The UWFFL, a short fifteen minute weekly podcast hosted by Jackson Tate and Drew Abernathy that will wrap up each week's action...It and all of 970 KDSF's programming is part of the SportPuck Network.
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Want To Join? It's never to late to sign up for the UWFFL. We're always accepting new expansion teams into our minor leagues. Depending on when your team starts playing, you may or may not be eligible for the post-season, but you can at least get a few games under your belt and some practice for next year. E-mail us or check out our Google+ pages and start working on your uniforms today!
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In The Kitchen*: Here at UWFFL Headquarters we like meat too -- there's no vegetarians here -- but I don't have a big green egg to fire up, any prime cuts of beef, veal or pork in the freezer, nor a trendy little butchery down the road. So I did the next best thing, I cooked up some frankfurters (fancy term for hot dogs) that I had sitting in the fridge. These weren't just any hot dogs, discriminatorily made from only either 100% chicken, 100% beef or 100% pork. No these were true egalitarian hot dogs, made up of mechanically separated pieces of chicken, pork and beef. A true hot dog for the people! And rather than spend over three bucks on some fancy-schmancy all-beef bun length franks that don't leave much room in the bun for even a simple bead of ketchup, these babys were "Gwaltney" traditionals (sorry, Benny's Beef Franks!) that I got for 94 cents at the Bi-Lo. What a deal! I was kind of in a hurry, so instead of bringing a pot of water to a boil and doing it the slow way, I slapped a couple of them down on a paper towel and threw them in the microwave and Voila! - Thirty seconds later I had a meal! I also had some hot dog chili sitting in the pantry, but I decided to leave it there - the chili gave me heartburn last time I had it, and I had a webpage to get back to anyway. The only dissapointment was I forgot to shake the ketchup, so for the first squirt I got a nasty splooge of that ketchupy-watery stuff that comes out if you don't shake it properly. But all in all it was a good meal.
I didn't invite any friends over for a backyard get together for this feast. I dined alone.
(*-The name Culinary Corner was taken.)
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Coming next week - the debut of the UWFFL Power Rankings. Find out how your team stacks up against the competition! Enjoy the games, get out there and vote -- and we'll see you next week! Then head back to the Uni Watch comments, dish out a heapin' helpin' of trash talk and troll away! |
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