The Nighthawks and the Ravens may have long since flown from New Haven, but now the Elm City Express is returning pro sports to town.
The Elm City Express is a new team joining the Atlantic Conference of the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL).
The owner of the team — an offshoot of a team called Clube Atlético Tubarão that plays in Brazil — publicly announced the new New Haven squad Monday afternoon.
The team will play at Yale’s Reese Field at 75 Central Ave., just off Route 34 in Westville. It will probably play six or so regular-season home games between May and August, according to team President Zack Henry. (The team is opening an office at the Grove downtown; it planned an inaugural happy hour at BAR Monday evening.)
Professional sports teams haven’t fared well in this century in New Haven. The once-popular New Haven Nighthawks hockey team, then its more minor-league successors, went out of business before the home-ice New Haven Coliseum finally came down. The New Haven Ravens baseball team and its more minor-league successors also failed to draw enough of an audience to stay in business.
“Here in New Haven we have the right ingredients” to make a soccer team succeed, Henry said in an interview on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
New Haven already has a rich soccer culture, with international teams drawing players from Africa and Latin America playing regularly on city-owned fields. Henry said he hopes to tap into area schools like University of New Haven for players or other forms of participation. (Some of the players will be members of the Brazilian club, as its season doesn’t include our summer months.)
Henry has also linked up with Elm City Internationals, a soccer-themed educational program for young refugees. He serves on the board.
Paul Bass Photo
Henry at WNHH.
It cost in the “low six figures” to create the new team, Henry said. He said city government arts czar Andrew Wolf enthusiastically helped convince the team to locate here.
The club came up with the “Elm City Express” name based on a shared rail history between New Haven and the club’s Brazilian home city of Tubarão.
Henry recently moved back to the U.S. East Coast, where he grew up (specifically in Long Island), from Brazil. He always loved soccer growing up; he was a nationally ranked player at Amherst College. He pursued an international business career after that, but never lost his love for the game, and ended up forming the Brazil team with some business associates who share his passion. He quoted a popular joke in Brazil: “Volleyball is the most popular sport in Brazil — because soccer is not a sport. It’s a religion.” Now he’s ready to spread the faith on these shores.
Click on or download the above audio file to hear the full interview with Henry on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven.”