Tacoma Stars replace Seattle Impact indoor soccer league team at Kent’s ShoWare Center
Published 4:01 pm Thursday, January 15, 2015
The Major Arena Soccer League posted the following story Thursday on its website:
The Tacoma Stars are headed back to the professional indoor soccer ranks. Effective immediately, the Stars will replace the Seattle Impact FC in the Major Arena Soccer League (MASL).
Lane Smith, owner for the Tacoma Stars, purchased the rights to the team this week.
The Stars will make their debut at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 16 at the SMG-managed ShoWare Center in Kent against the indoor powerhouse San Diego Sockers.
Tickets to Friday’s Stars-Sockers match are available online at ShoWareCenter.com. All tickets are half price and the Stars invite fans to celebrate the sport of indoor soccer by allowing kids 12 and under in free on Friday with a purchase of an equal number of adult tickets. All prior tickets purchased for the Seattle Impact will be honored for the remaining schedule.
“We are proud to welcome Lane Smith and the Tacoma Stars back to the MASL and support his efforts to grow our sport in the Northwest,” said MASL Commissioner Kevin Milliken.
The Stars have been competing in the Western Indoor Soccer League, a highly competitive regional amateur league, where they are 5-0-0 in league play and 8-0-0 in all competitions. The Stars will maintain their WISL schedule while the team simultaneously competes in the MASL.
The staff and team for the Stars will stay intact and the players will be moving with the organization to the next level. With a short lead time before the Friday match the Stars will be looking to revive an old mainstay rivalry with the Sockers that dates back to the 1980s.
“We want to do the right thing for the soccer community and our Tacoma Stars team has been growing with each week so this decision made sense,” said Smith. “We are very excited to partner with the ShoWare Center and work to build the Stars brand in the years to come. I remember watching the Stars in the past and we are seeing that level of excitement return to our loyal fan base.”
The Stars are led by former Seattle Sounder Darren Sawatzky, who is coach of the team, and by general manager John Crouch,
“I look forward to the challenge of continuing to develop all of these players. We look forward to the challenge of stepping up and competing in the MASL, and still meet our original goal of winning the WISL championship,” said Sawatzky.
“We are excited to be working with the Tacoma Stars ownership during this transition,” said ShoWare Center’s general manager, Tim Higgins. “We look forward to seeing the continued growth of professional indoor soccer in Kent for many years to come.”
The original Tacoma Stars were founded by the late John Best and made their debut in the Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) in 1983 at the Tacoma Dome. The MISL era for the Stars lasted nine seasons until 1992. In 2004 a group of local players took the name “Tacoma Stars” and formed a team in the Premier Arena Soccer League (PASL), eventually moving up and playing three seasons in the Professional Arena Soccer League.
In the summer of 2014 Smith bought the rights to the name “Tacoma Stars,” and the revived Stars helped found the Western Indoor Soccer League (WISL). The Stars still have three matches and playoffs to complete their WISL season. The WISL Stars play at the traditional training home of the professional Tacoma Stars, the Tacoma Soccer Center.
About Major Arena Soccer League and Premier Arena Soccer League
The Major Arena Soccer League (MASL) is the top level of arena soccer in North America. The league, originally known as the Professional Arena Soccer League began play on October 25, 2008. On May 19, 2014 the league partnered with six teams from the former Major Indoor Soccer League and was reintroduced as the MASL with 22 teams in the US and Mexico. The 2014/15 season runs from October 25 to March 1 followed by the Ron Newman Cup playoffs.
