It's Almost Professional

Apparently, sports are a big part of life to a whole lot of folks.

Most folks out there are aware that Cincinnati is the home to a couple of professional sports teams: the Reds and Bengals.

Not nearly as many are familiar with the fact that the Cincy area is home to a half-dozen more professional (or at least semi-pro) sports teams.

There's the Cincinnati Kings - members of the second division of the USL as well as the Ladyhawks who are also part of the W-League of the same organization.

And there are the Cincinnati Marshals - of the National Indoor Football League and residents of, it appears, Mason, OH - about ten minutes from my homestead.

On the north side of town, we can find the Cincinnati Excite of the American Indoor Soccer League.

The two biggest non-major-league pro sports teams around Cincy, however, are - weirdly - the two hockey teams: the Cyclones and the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks - the latter of which look to be moving to Windsor, Canada.

It's odd to me that so many professional sports teams would be flitting with profitibility and continued existance in a market that just doesn't seem to be able to consistently support such teams. Oh, sure, we'll publicly finance a couple fo multi-million dollar stadia, but we won't go see rinky-dink semi-pro teams eek out a living.

I remember when I was a child going to games over in Lousville for the Louisville Thunder and feeling like I was getting in on the ground level of something special, that not too many other people around understood just how cool this soccer thing was and how exciting it was to see something that was new and that few people knew about.

It was cool. It was different.

And yet, I still haven't seen any of these non-major-league teams in the Cincy area.