Northern Colorado Hailstorm Kickoff Season in the League For Clubs

Windsor – The Northern Colorado Hailstorm are not dead yet. Back in April, the club announced that they were joining “The League For Clubs” (or simply “The League”). This came after the United Soccer League terminated their franchise contract with USL League Two. They almost merged with Colorado Rapids 2 to play in MLS NEXT Pro, but that fell through. One of the entities associated with the Future Legends Complex declared bankruptcy. Their proper stadium has been delayed several years at this point. Read about that whole saga here.

Now the club is alive, but functionally amateur. The League describes themselves as a “home for the innovators, entrepreneurs, and builders in American Soccer.” Very startup culture. We’ve seen this before. The League appears to be only biting off as much as they can chew. No grand boastful visions like NISA or the last iteration of the NASL. They don’t appear to be trying to start a soccer war like other leagues have.

NoCo will be in the Mountain Premier Conference. The conference has a number of familiar names from the Mountain Premier League. Hailstorm will play a six game season, home-and-away with Peak XI, Real Colorado Foxes, and CFA Aurora FC. They kick off their season this afternoon at Peak XI. Their final regular season game is June 29.

According to The League for Clubs website, there will be a semifinal and championship and some regions will have a fall schedule. It’s unclear who qualifies for all that and how. As much as this is a watered down version of USL League Two or a college players-only NPSL team, this is better than them folding.

Hailstorm has released a roster. They had open tryouts for local players recently. Éamon Zayed is still the head coach even though his profile is no longer on the club website. I was surprised by that.

I was able to find online profiles of a few players: Owen Henderson, Tate Bledsoe, Brady Smallwood, Adam Zayed (Éamon’s little brother), Dylan Markiewicz, and Janum Sailor for example. It’s a mix of recent high school graduates, most of whom have committed to smaller regional schools. Lots of players from Northern Colorado. There’s a few college graduates in there. Nobody was a starter at a D1 program.

The roster reflects the size and finances of the club and league. No member of the 2024 USL roster is listed, unsurprisingly.

Hailstorm have taken a battering in the public discourse. A year ago, they won the USL’s cup competition. They developed players who moved on I’m glad the club still exists. I’m glad Zayed still has a job. I still think he could get a USL Championship job.

I hope this is gap year and the club is able to return to being professional next year. For now, they’re a discount version of Flatiron Rush. There’s a lot of red tape and debt that needs to be dealt with first. It might require new ownership for a bigger league to let them in.

Plenty of USL owners in the past have said “we’re taking a break, we’ll be back,” and never return. At least Hailstorm have done better than that.

I still think TLfC is a weird name. Does that imply that there’s a League not for Clubs? I digress.

Photo Credit: Northern Colorado Hailstorm FC

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