Cape Coral Hurricanes

The Cape Coral Hurricanes are an amateur soccer team based in Cape Coral, Florida, United States. Founded in 2010, the team plays in Champions Soccer League USA.

Cape Coral Hurricanes
Full nameCape Coral Hurricanes
Founded2010
GroundCape Coral High School
Cape Coral, Florida
Capacity2,500
Owner JP Terrasi
Head Coach Roy Hill
LeagueNational Premier Soccer League
20145th, Sunshine Division
Playoffs: DNQ
WebsiteClub website

The team plays its home games at Cape Coral High School in Cape Coral, Florida. The team's primary colors are blue and white with black used as a highlight.

History

In June 2010, the Cape Coral Hurricanes started with a grass-roots effort to bring a professionally run, top-amateur soccer team to the city of Cape Coral, Florida. Following the success of their petition "Bring the Team", it was announced later that year that a professional soccer team was being brought to Southwest Florida.

The club announced their team on January 9, 2012 at Cape Coral City Hall in front of the Mayor, City Council, fans and media. They also announced their team logo and summer schedule at the press conference.

Inaugural Season

During the spring and summer of 2012, the Cape Coral Hurricanes successfully fielded a team of top local talent that played a full season of exhibition games. Cape Coral played seven home games and four vital away games, all against teams that played in the USL PDL. One of the most important games was when PDL side FC JAX Destroyers came play the Hurricanes in Cape Coral. These games gave us a tremendous amount of experience and truly indicated the strength of the team as a whole.

The team ended their inaugural exhibition season with a 4-3-2 record[1] and averaged 239 people per game at their home games.

2013

On November 2, 2012 the Cape Coral Hurricanes announced that they had joined the National Premier Soccer League.[2] For the 2013 season, Cape Coral joined the NPSL as part of the Sunshine Conference with fellow expansion teams Miami United SC and Tampa Marauders FC as well as the veteran NPSL squads Georgia Revolution and Jacksonville United. The Hurricanes became the fourth team in the conference from the state of Florida. The conference was just one year removed from a 2011 NPSL championship with Jacksonville United.

The squad performed poorly during the 2013 NPSL season, struggling to score goals and earned a single point in their eight competitive matches with the draw coming against the 2013 Sunshine Conference Champions Jacksonville United. The Hurricanes did have a good overall season outside of league play as they recorded a final record of 8-2-12 including wins against cross bridge rivals Fort Myers Genesis, Gulf Coast Cup rivals Tampa Marauders, and PDL squad Ocala Stampede.

The Hurricanes played a four-game "non-league" series of games against Tampa for the inaugural Gulf Coast Cup, which was won by Tampa 3 wins to 1. The Hurricanes also played a similar two-game series against Miami United called The Everglades Cup, which was won by Miami with 1 win and 1 draw.

The Cape Coral Hurricanes also fielded a U23 reserve team in the Gulf Coast Soccer League which gave players on the squad opportunities to move up to the NPSL team. A pre-season match between the Hurricanes and Hurricanes Reserves resulted in a 6-1 win for the parent club.

2014

The NPSL added 32 teams for the 2014 season bringing the total to 78. The Cape Coral Hurricanes started a new not-for profit organization called the Southwest Florida Community Sports Initiative as their community outreach partner for 2014 and beyond.

Year-by-year
Year League Wins Draws Loses Playoffs Open Cup
2013 NPSL 0 1 7 DNQ DNQ
2014 NPSL 0 3 7 DNQ DNQ

Head coaches
  • J.P. Terrasi (2011)
  • J.P. Terrasi & John Damasco (2012)
  • Dante Lerra (2013)
  • Roy Hill (2014)[3]
  • Matt Ricci (2015-Present)

Rivalries
  • Everglades Cup vs Miami United
  • Gulf Coast Cup vs Tampa Marauders

Stadium

References
  1. "Cape Coral Hurricanes to join USASA and make U.S. Open Cup run". CapeCoral.com. 7 August 2012.
  2. "Growth Continues For NPSL". NPSL. 2 November 2012. Archived from the original on 20 February 2015.
  3. "Cape Coral Hurricanes, city leaders usher in new era for team". CapeCoral.com. 10 March 2014.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.