November 29, 2000

W-League Alignments Set For 2001 Season with W-1 expanding to 20 teams with new clubs out West

Long-awaited expansion in the West has resulted in W-1's growth to 20 teams. The W-League will also go to a three-conference format in both W-1 and W-2 in 2001, following the same format as USL's men's leagues.

The majority of the changes in W-1 are in the seven-team Western Conference, where the fifth-year Fort Collins Force will be the only non expansion franchise. Joining them will be three Northwest clubs, the Portland Rain, Seattle and Vancouver Breakers, that played provisionally in 2000. The Breakers are a merger of the Vancouver Lady 86ers who played provisionally and new owner David Stadnyk's Vancouver Angels WPSL franchise. Joining 1998 W-2 champion Fort Collins in Colorado will be Denver-based Mile High. In the Southern half of the conference, a Phoenix-based Arizona franchise and a Dallas-based Texas club.

The W-1 Northern Conference will incorporate the two-time W-League champion Long Island Lady Riders and the Boston Renegades of the former Northeast Conference and W-2's champion Springfield Sirens and New York Magic. The Northeast's 1996 W-League champion Maryland Pride and New Jersey Lady Stallions moved into the Eastern Conference with the former Southern Conference clubs.

Four expansion clubs will play in W-2 in 2001. Teams in Kansas City and Memphis will make their debuts in the Western Conference and a new South Jersey club will play in the Eastern Conference, which will be a mix of the former Northern and Atlantic Conference teams.

Windy City, based in Rockford, Ill., is the final expansion club for 2001, making the greater Chicago area home to four USL franchises and the Fire of Major League Soccer. In addition to two new clubs from the Premier Development League in Chicago, the W-1 champion Cobras will move to W-2 with the expectation of losing many of their top players with the debut of the Women's United Soccer Association in 2001.

With no defending champion in each respective league due to Springfield and Chicago's league switches, new champions will be crowned in 2001. The playoffs for both leagues will conclude with a four-team National Championship to be held at a pre-determined site. The host of the championship will receive an automatic berth and will be joined by the three conference winners, which will be determined by a single-game playoff match between the conference's top two seeds. The W-1 Northern Conference, however, will conduct a four-team conference playoff to determine its championship representative.

USL will announce nicknames and logos for expansion teams in the next few weeks.

2001 W-LEAGUE ALIGNMENTS

W-1

Eastern Conference

Northern Conference

Western Conference

Hampton Roads Piranhas

Boston Renegades

Arizona

Jacksonville Jade

Laval Dynamites

Fort Collins Force

Maryland Pride

Long Island Lady Riders

Mile High

New Jersey Lady Stallions

New York Magic

Portland Rain

Tampa Bay Extreme

Ottawa Fury

Seattle

Rochester Ravens

Texas

Springfield Sirens

Vancouver Breakers

Toronto Inferno

W-2

Central Conference

Eastern Conference

Western Conference

Chicago Cobras

Charlotte Lady Eagles

Austin Lady Lone Stars

Cincinnati Ladyhawks

New Hampshire Lady Phantoms

Colorado Gold

Cleveland Eclipse

New Jersey Wildcats

Houston Tornados

Indiana Blaze

Northern Virginia Majestics

Kansas City

Kentucky Fillies

Piedmont Spark

Memphis

Windy City

Rhode Island Rays

Oklahoma Outrage

South Jersey