Pittsburgh becomes the latest city to unify its top club teams.
March 18, 2015 by Charlie Eisenhood in News with 41 comments
After years of splitting talent, Pittsburgh Men’s club teams Temper and Dire Wolf will be merging in 2015.
Historically, Pittsburgh has been a city divided. The Steel City has not been represented by a single men’s team since 2008, when Burgh and Sir Duke came together to form Forge. After an unsuccessful season in 2009 (in which only nine players from the previous season’s roster rejoined the team), Forge disbanded.
Since the split, the city has had Dire Wolf — a Regionals-quality team that never made it to Nationals — and some University of Pittsburgh heavy teams like Swagger U, Oakland, and, finally, Temper.
Early in the offseason, leadership from both teams met and decided to combine squads. The goal of this new team is not to collect the city’s top players for a one year stab at Nationals, but to create a program and build a pipeline that will sustain a nationally competitive club moving forward.
Mergers like this are becoming increasingly common, though it is also historically a cyclical process with mergers and schisms coming every few years. Recently, mergers — like Ring of Fire/Cash Crop’s last year — have yielded big seasons.
Pittsburgh’s men’s team will retain the name Temper and compete in the Elite flight in 2015. Open tryouts are scheduled for May 16th and 17th. You can email [email protected] for more information and you can indicate interest for tryouts on this form.
