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Thunder season opens with a rumble
RUMBLE
The roster from the 2008 3-13 debacle underwent a major overhaul.
Not much has changed in the arena football 2’s American Conference East divisional alignment for 2009: it’s still Albany, N.Y.; Wilkes-Barre, Pa.; Mahoning Valley and Manchester, N.H.
Nothing has changed with the Thunder’s coach: it’s still Mike Hold.
But, 17 changes did take place on the roster since the end of 2008.
Of the Mahoning Valley Thunder’s current roster of 23, all but six are newcomers.
“We’re just looking for the best talent possible,” Hold said of his method of recruitment. “That’s the mindset we had, nothing other than trying to find the best players. We don’t factor in anything from last year or the previous year.”
Hold acknowledges the pain of last season’s 3-13 record, but he can’t let it linger.
“This is a new season. When we start preparing for this year, you can’t look back. How many guys do we have from last year’s team? Six? So that’s 17 who have no clue what went on. So we don’t focus on last year. We’re just trying to take care of business at hand this year.”
If the coach landed the best available players, the proof of the upgrade starts tonight with a test against the Firebirds.
“We feel like we’ve got better players this year, that we lucked out in recruiting because we got some quality players across the board,” Hold said.
Although a rash of injuries and changes at the quarterback position played havoc with last year’s team, Hold did admit that the 2008 roster was deficient in areas.
“We had good ballplayers, but we felt we were deficient in a few spots. This year we feel, going in, like we’re pretty strong across the board. So now we’ve got to put the pieces together. We’ve got to come together as a unit and execute on the field.”
Hold was upbeat about the team’s stage of development as the first week of regular-season practice unwound.
“If you would have asked me in training camp, I’d have said the defense was ahead of the offense. But that’s normal. Every year I’ve been in organized football, that’s the case — outdoor, indoor, it doesn’t matter. But as you get going, the offense starts to pull even. I think that’s where we’re at now. We’re not where we want to be on both sides of the ball, but I think, offensively, we’ve made good strides in the last week.”
On its 2009 schedule, Mahoning Valley will, again, face Albany, Manchester and Wilkes-Barre three times.
Three current Thunder players — defensive backs Clarence Curry and Brandon Taylor and fullback/linebacker Brenton Brady — were on the Albany roster last season.
Albany was previously known as the Conquest, but the team is now the Firebirds, a nickname used when Albany had an AFL franchise.
Milwaukee, Tulsa and Peoria are new opponents.
The Thunder will play Milwaukee and Tulsa twice, but only meet the Peoria Pirates once — on the road.
Milwaukee and Peoria are both in the Midwest division of the Eastern Conference. The Tulsa Talons are in the National Conference’s Central division.
Tulsa has been in the af2 since 2000. Peoria was in the af2 from 2001-2004, then dropped out, but returned in 2008.
Other wrinkles in the schedule include one game against the Kentucky Horsemen (instead of two in 2008 when the team was called the Lexington Horsemen) and one fewer game against the Green Bay Blizzard.
Missing as opponents are the Quad City Steamwheelers and Louisville Fire. Louisville made the decision to go dormant for a year as they prepare to try and enter the AFL in 2010.
One game that might go down in Thunder-Steamwheeler lore was on June 16, 2007, when Quad City coach Sean Ponder got steamed and tripped defensive back Reggie Perkins. Ponder was ejected. Ponder felt he was being taunted by Perkins, who had returned an intercepted pass for a touchdown in Mahoning Valley’s 64-34 victory.
As Ponder walked off the field, he casually waved to a jeering Chevy Centre crowd of 3,512.
If defensive end Tim Cheatwood’s words could be used as an indicator of what to expect from the Thunder then it’s a good sign, especially if his play speaks lounder than his words.
“You going to get the best of everything I’ve got. Anytime I hit the field, I compete and I don’t like to lose, I don’t care if it’s to see who can spit the farthest. I don’t like to lose and I’m going to bring that attitude to compete every day at practice, every play in every game. Expect to get what I’ve been doing my whole football career: a lot of competitiveness and a lot of attitude. It doesn’t matter if it’s one play or one series, I don’t like to lose.”