The World Indoor Soccer League is shrinking.
When the Utah Freezz open their third season in two months, some familiar faces will be gone. Monterrey is taking the year off to shore up arena problems. Arizona shut its doors to regroup after two years of poor attendance, while the Houston Hot Shots have gone out of business as well.
That leaves just five teams participating in the upcoming 2001 WISL season, and it would've been four if the San Diego Sockers hadn't returned to the league. The Sockers franchise has won 10 indoor championships.
Utah will play each of their four foes six times, three at home and three on the road.
"We're looking forward to extra games against Sacramento and Dallas," said Utah Freezz player-coach Jeff Betts. "And it's quite a credit to our league to be able to bring back the San Diego Sockers, who wrote the book on how to win in indoor soccer."
Utah opens the season on Aug. 18 with a home game against Sacramento, the team it eliminated in the first round of last year's playoffs.
The Freezz, who lost to Dallas in last year's semifinals, are hoping for good things this year. Betts recently announced that Nick Vorberg, Wes Sechrist, Myles Stoddard and Matt Johnson have all been re-signed by the franchise.
"It's been my goal to keep the core of this team together, and I think we're well on our way to meeting that with these signings and the previous signing of Beau Brown," said Betts. "I'm looking to resign a few more players before the season begins, and we'll have new players who I think the fans will really like."
One of those players is Marco Lopez, formerly of Monterrey. He led the WISL with 51 points last year, and the Freezz acquired him in the league's dispersal draft. The team is still trying to overcome some citizenship obstacles with the Mexican native before they can sign him.