Thanks for the corrections. I was going by what I could find on specific team sites and the USL site as well, bolstered by news articles where I could find them. I will make some changes in the article based on your comments.

As to your comment, “If you’ve ever seen USL-2…,” actually, I have I’ve seen about 75% of the Pioneers home games over the last four years and pretty much every USL-2 team that the New England Revolution have faced at home (or near “home”) in US Open Cup play over the same period. Because the Pioneers were an anomaly in USL-2 (lots of long term, older players, a club with a LONG history and still surrounded by a very supportive Portguese-American population) I do believe that their on-field product will suffer markedly.

I was perhaps a bit too hyperbolic in saying that two dozen players at the WMP will lose their jobs (it’s probably more like 15), but I know from talking with Greg Kolodziey last summer (for an article that ultimately did not come to fruition) that the entire squad were employed as full-time professionals. I pressed Greg on this point and while he would not talk numbers with me, he made it clear that, while some had other sources of income (running clinics and camps for the club as well as outside employment), they could live on what the Pioneers paid them. Now, that may be the crux of the Pioneers problems- overpaying for players in a third tier league- but that is my understanding of the situation at the club.

The PDL is the Premier Development League, not the Professional Development League.

No, Austin does NOT have a PDL side to fall back on any longer. The Aztex U23 are not included in the lineup of PDL teams for 2010.

There IS a Rochester, Minnesota PDL team called the Thunder, but I am not sure the Minnesota Thunder has the resources to fund it. The Minnesota Thunder appears to exist only on paper, as they’ve lost their coach, their GM and their president (not to mention a boatload of money) since the season ended and all of their players are free agents. It would be a pretty big upset if the Minnesota Thunder played in 2010, and that may not bode well for the Rochester Thunder.

How did “several dozen” players lose jobs by Western Mass self-relegating? Western Mass didn’t HAVE several dozen players, and surely some of them are U-23. And there isn’t a restriction on players who were (or are) professionals in status playing in the PDL. It’s an open league.

There is no “official” Division II league – USSF could sanction more than one and they’d BOTH be “official.” They opted (prudently, as you say) not to sanction either. Yet.

If you’ve ever seen USL-2, it’s kinda hard to say the quality of play is going to “obviously” drop. The quality of play in USL-2 is not all that great. You actually get a slightly better crop of players with college kids than with the semi-pros who aren’t good enough for the DII or MLS levels.

Finally, what damage has been done, really? It’s tangled up right now. There are some bruised egos. Some hurt feelings. Some uncertainty. But people who think this has damaged the game in this country also probably thought us not qualifying for the Athens Olympics in soccer set the sport back 20 years. They were wrong. The game is too strong to be irreparably harmed in this country.

This is a bump in the road and a pain in the neck right now. But ’tis but a scratch. “The game” in this country is not going to be built on temporary drama in the second division.

Sincerely, Open-Wheel Auto Racing.