Page 9 - Fl Stats News Today

The Albany Empire will play a familiar opponent this Friday night as they face the Washington Valor for the second consecutive week, this time at the Capital One Center (7pm, Facebook AFL Watch, NBC Sports Washington, Monumental Sports Network, AFLNow). This is the game that was rescheduled from April 21 to accommodate the NHL and NBA Playoffs.

Going into the last week of play in the 2012 Arena Football League season, the common complaint is that the Spokane Shock and the Chicago Rush should both be in the playoffs. After all, they are both likely to finish with better records than all but one team in the American Conference playoffs. In the end this year though, those aren't the ones that really have the rights to complain. The ones that should be complaining are the fans of the Cleveland Gladiators and the Pittsburgh Power.

This Friday during the NFL Network broadcast of the War on I-4, ten individuals will be selected as finalists for the first AFL Hall of Fame class in nearly a decade. As the self-anointed AFL historian, I've taken the liberty of going through the list of eligible individuals and present to you my ten finalists.

After a strike in Cleveland caused the Gladiators to forfeit to the Power, neither the AFL nor the AFLPU truly lost. The fans were the biggest losers.

Chicago managed to effectively clinch the Central Division last weekend; by doing so in such an impressive fashion, the Rush also opened up the No. 1 ranking for Spokane to step in and take to the house.

They didn't quite get this last year, but they are going to have a chance to do it this season. The Philadelphia Soul are on their way to ArenaBowl XXVI after knocking off the Jacksonville Sharks 75-59 in the American Conference Championship Game on Saturday night.

How would it feel if you went to work every day with not much expectations? You show up and put well over 100% to prepare for a big meeting or presentation, and yet every time there is always something that goes wrong? Your laptop suddenly dies, or you end up with food poisoning, or your car breaks down and you end up hours late.

TAMPA BAY -- There may as well have been a complete power outage at the Tampa Bay Times Forum on Saturday night. The Tampa Bay Storm were beaten 48-37 by the Pittsburgh Power on a night in which they backdoored their way into the playoffs. Tampa Bay is in the postseason courtesy of losses by both the Orlando Predators and the New Orleans VooDoo on Saturday.

Jacksonville Sharks' owner Jeff Bouchy once told me that he hoped he could play the Orlando Predators 18 times over the course of the season so it gave him 18 chances to beat up on the team he used to be a part-owner of.

The 2016 Arena Football League schedule was released in December and there are a few things about it that fans will find to be quite different from years past. The AFL will field just eight teams this year, down from 12 teams in 2015, after losing the Las Vegas Outlaws, New Orleans VooDoo, San Jose SaberCats and Spokane Shock during this off-season.