Wednesday, March 26, 2008

The 2008 Italian Football League Season Kicks Off



The 2008 Italian Football League season starts this Saturday, March 29th at 3:00 p.m. when your Catania Elephants travel to Milan to play the home standing Rhinos.

To review, there are over 50 teams playing American football in Italy and the IFL is made up of the nine best teams in the country. The following nine teams are members of the IFL:

Ancona Dolphins
Bergamo Lions
Bologna Doves

Bolzano Giants
Catania Elephants
Milan Rhinos

Palermo Corsari
Palermo Sharks
Parma Panthers

During the season each team will play every other team in the league once (8 games) and then a team will play a second game with each of it's two closest league rivals for a grand total of 10 games in the regular season spread over 13 weeks due to BYE games each week.  The Elephants will play the two Palermo teams (the Corsari and the Sharks) twice each, home and home.

The dates and times of a few of our games are still up in the air due to a combination of travel and/or stadium rental issues.

The opening weekend of games stacks up thusly:

Saturday, March 29   Catania at Milan, 3:00 p.m.

Sunday, March 30   Ancona at Palermo Corsari, 3:00 p.m.
Sunday, March 30   Parma at Bergamo, 3:00 p.m.

First Week BYES:   Bologna, Bolzano and Palermo Sharks

 

The goal of all nine teams is to win the Italian Super Bowl at the end of the season. The playoffs will see the top four teams in the league, based on best overall records, open the playoffs on the last weekend in June.  On Saturday, June 28th, the 1st and 4th seeds play each other and on Sunday, June 29th the 2nd and 3rd seeds do battle.

After two weeks off to prepare, the Italian Super Bowl will take place on Saturday, July 19th.

According to the experts, the pre-season favorites to secure the four playoff spots are Bergamo, Bolzano, Milan and Parma.  Let's play some games and see how things pan out.

4 comments:

Johnnytime said...

Your blogs are fantastic. We feel like we are tagging along on a great trip. Is the time set in concrete yet for the June 7 game in Bologna? Holly and I will arrive there on the 7th, so the the actual kickoff time is important? Go Elephants!!...and to think Jason's older brother Chad was a Unicorn in Germany. Chow, Jim Johnson

Linda Bever said...

Just thought I'd let you know that I've been following your blog and have recommended it to others. This is a great blog and a lot more fun that the book Playing for Pizza because I know the characters. Your blog makes me feel like I'm along for the ride enjoying Sicily which I've always wanted to visit.
Linda Bever, Laurie's "old" high school friend.
PS I'll be rooting for the Elephants to win in Milan

George said...

Jim,

Keep checking he IFL website regularly for any changes in dates and times. As of right now I believe the June 7th game at Bologna starts at 8:30.

I'm looking forward to meeting the both of you!

Ciao,
Giorgio

George said...

Linda,

WOW! Blast from the past, great to hear from you! I'm glad you are enjoying the blog.

Give Laurie a call, she would love to both hear from you and relate her Sicilian experiences.

Ciao,
George