Fever schedule changes

November is usually a month where there is a lull of activity for Tri-Cities Fever owner Teri Carr.

But that didn’t happen this time for her, as she spent the past two weeks re-doing the entire Indoor Football League schedule for the 2016 season.

And it’s all because the IFL kicked the Minnesota Axemen out of the league this past week.

IFL commissioner Mike Allshouse sent out a release earlier this week, stating: “The league has taken this proactive measure as a result of the Axemen organization failing to achieve operational standards and league commitments that are required of IFL member teams. This is an unfortunate, but necessary action that needed to be made to ensure the health and well-being of the IFL moving forward into the 2016 season and beyond.”

The Bemidji Pioneer newspaper reported on Monday that the Axemen organization had paid off the field turf that it used, but hadn’t paid the Sanford Center — the arena the team used the previous two seasons when it was known as the Bemidji Axemen — a license payment that was due Nov. 13.

The organization also was not returning calls from Sanford Center officials.

So the IFL made the call for the team by kicking it out of the league.

“We saw the writing on the wall that we needed to take action,” said Carr, who noted that in the past, league owners have let teams slide in such situations in the hopes that things will get better, but they don’t. “We’ve been down that road before.”

Schedule revise

Carr took the chore of re-doing the league schedule upon herself.

“We kept our same dates for the most part because we had put our (airline) deposits down already,” Carr said. “Green Bay had put its deposit to come out here, so I kept that the same.”

In the end, the league dropped the three-team divisions and instead put six teams — the Fever, the Billings Wolves, Colorado Crush (formerly the Ice), Nebraska Danger, the Spokane franchise and Wichita Falls Nighthawks — together in the Intense Conference.

The United Conference will consist of five teams: the Cedar Rapids Titans, Green Bay Blizzard, Iowa Barnstormers, Minnesota Havok and the Sioux Falls Storm.

Carr said the season will start one week earlier than originally scheduled, with the openers on Saturday, Feb. 20. The season still concludes June 25. Playoffs begin the weekend of July 8, with the championship set for the weekend of July 22.

Fever schedule changed

Tri-Cities will open the season at home on Feb. 20 against neighbor Spokane and former Fever coach Adam Shackleford.

The Fever will be home for three games to open the season, hosting Billings on March 5 and Cedar Rapids on March 11. The team has a bye the week after its opener.

The remaining schedule: at Billings on March 26; hosting Colorado on April 1; at Wichita Falls on April 9; at Colorado on April 15; hosting Spokane on April 23; at Spokane on April 29; at Cedar Rapids on May 7; hosting Billings on May 14; at Spokane on May 20; hosting Green Bay on May 28; at Green Bay on June 10; at Billings on June 18; and hosting Nebraska on June 25.

Notes

Spokane will have a new nickname soon. The franchise lost its Shock name when the team and the Arena Football League couldn’t come to terms on letting Spokane ownership keep it as the team moves into the IFL. When Spokane joined the AFL years ago, the league acquired rights to the nickname. ... Former Tri-Cities Fever running back Andrew Pierce has signed with Spokane, which Shackleford now runs. Spokane has picked up a number of big-name players. Carr said Spokane ownership is forking out dollars to get these guys. Now, on the face of it, that sounds bad, since players only make $250 a week during the season. But in order to sign a free agent, which Pierce was, Spokane’s ownership had to pay the Fever a few thousand dollars to sign him. Spokane has sent Cedar Rapids at least $5,000 to sign three players.

This story was originally published November 27, 2015 at 11:18 PM with the headline "Fever schedule changes."