MUSKEGON – If West Michigan Ironmen fans are aching for some tough competition from a visiting team, the time may have arrived.
On Saturday night, the Ironmen will host the Detroit Ravens, a superpower of the outdoor semipro football world with a lot of great athletes who are eager to try their hand at eight-man arena football.
A week later, the Ironmen will host the Michigan Avengerz, the team that beat them last year in the Great Lakes Arena Football league championship game.
Both games are expected to provide West Michigan with the kind of challenge any good team needs as it pushes to improve.
The Ironmen have played two games so far, against their American Indoor Football league opponents, but there wasn’t much challenge there. They opened up the season with a 75-7 victory over the Coralville Chaos, then followed a week later with a 55-0 win over the Cedar Rapids River Kings.
Fans enjoyed the victories, but there wasn’t much drama. The excitement level at Trinity Healthy Arena is likely to get much higher, starting on Saturday night.
The Detroit Ravens are seven-time champions in traditional 11-man semipro outdoor football. While only a handful of their players have experience in arena football, they are all great athletes with a record of success, and should be able to give the Ironmen a real run for their money.
“We are really excited,” said Ironmen head coach Terry Mitchell. “Our guys love the game of football and they are competitors. It’s not our fault the teams we have played so far are not as good as we are. We went out and recruited some really good players.
“This is something we have prepared for. We know what the Ravens will bring to the table. Even though it’s their first arena football game, they have some great players.”
The following game, on March 15, will be payback time for the Ironmen, and not just because they lost last year’s championship game to the Michigan Avengerz.
Before that game, they created a new league championship trophy named in honor of the late Scott Niswonger, a huge Ironmen booster who served as the team mascot “FE the Foundry Bull” and performed many other roles over the years. He was killed in a tragic motorcycle accident on May 10, 2024.
When the Ironmen lost the championship game, they also lost the trophy that carries his name. The March 15 rematch will be an opportunity to get the trophy back, Mitchell said.
“It was very tough,” Mitchells said. “It was a very emotional game. We were hurting because Scott was a big part of our organization. It would be great to get the trophy back. But first we have to worry about this Saturday and the Ravens.”
If anyone is wondering if two easy victories will prepare the Ironmen for some tough competition, there’s no reason for concern, according to Mitchell.
The intensity of the team’s practice sessions should have the Ironmen ready to take on anybody, the coach said.
“Our practices are very competitive – we compete against each other at high level – which prepares us to play against other teams that are very competitive,” he said.
After the two tough games on the next two weekends, the Ironmen will go on the road to complete their AIF league season
They will play at Coralville on Feb. 29 and at Cedar Rapids on April 5.
If the Ironmen win both of those games – which is a pretty fair bet – a yet-to-be-scheduled league championship game will be in Muskegon, probably in late April.
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