Worcester arena football team to begin play Saturday

Grant Welker A helmet for the Massachusetts Pirates, an arena football team that will begin play next April at the DCU Center.

Write a Comment

By Grant Welker

The second new Worcester sports team to begin play in a six-month span will debut on Saturday when the arena football Massachusetts Pirates play their inaugural game at the DCU Center.

The Pirates will play another new National Arena League team, the Maine Mammoths, at 7 p.m.

“Everything they’ve done has exceeded our expectations,” said Sandy Dunn, the general manager of the DCU Center, where the Pirates will play eight home games through early August.

The Pirates will mark a return of arena football to Worcester, just months after the Worcester Railers brought the third incarnation of minor league hockey to the city last fall.

A previous arena league team, the New England Surge, played in Worcester in 2007 and 2008 in the now-defunct Continental Indoor Football League. Another short-lived team, the Massachusetts Marauders, played in 1994 in the Arena Football League.

The Yatim family of Shrewsbury, the owners of Yatco Energy, which has 16 gas stations across the area, decided to bring a team to the area after seeing a void in the market. The Pirates are one of just two indoor football teams in New England, along with the Maine Mammoths.

Arena football is meant to be faster and higher-scoring than what fans might be used to with college football or the NFL. The field is the size of a hockey rink, just 50 yards long and half the size of an outdoor field.

Dunn compared arena football to a mix between the NFL and WWE, the wrestling league.

“This is really as much about the entertainment aspect as it is about the football,” she said.

The family-friendly product extends to prices, which start at $10 for tickets.

The game on Saturday will feature appearances from two New England Patriots players, Derek Rivers and Deatrich Wise. Rapper Kid Ink will perform at halftime.

The National Arena League has undergone some change since its inaugural season last year. The six-team league, which stretches from Portland, Maine to Jacksonville, Fla., had five teams fold after last season and brought on three new teams.

The National Arena League is just one of at least five indoor football leagues across the country, and at least as many have gone defunct.

The Pirates would likely be happy to match the success of the Railers, whose first season was a success on-ice and at the box office. The team is in line for a playoff spot and averaged more than 4,300 fans a game, only a few dozen behind the league average