The Quad City Steamwheelers are a professional indoor football team based in

Moline, Illinois Moline ( ) is a city in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. With a population of 42,985 in the 2020 census, it is the largest city in Rock Island County and the List of municipalities in Illinois, ninth-most populous in Illinois outside ...

, that competes in the

Indoor Football League The Indoor Football League (IFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional indoor American football league in the United States. The league comprises 14 teams, divided equally between the Eastern Conference (EC) and Western Conference ...

(IFL). They played their first season as part of the

Champions Indoor Football Champions Indoor Football (CIF) was a professional indoor American football minor league created in 2014 out of the merger between the Champions Professional Indoor Football League (CPIFL) and Lone Star Football League (LSFL), plus one team fr ...

, and then joined the IFL prior to their second season. The team plays its home games at the

Vibrant Arena at The MARK The Vibrant Arena at The MARK, formerly known as The MARK of the Quad Cities, the iWireless Center, and the TaxSlayer Center, is a 12,000-seat multi-purpose arena located in Moline, Illinois. The facility opened in May 1993, under the name The MA ...

. The team announced it would be dormant for the 2021 season due to the arena capacity restrictions caused by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, but returned to play in 2022. The Steamwheelers are named after the Quad Cities' previous team of the same name, which played in all ten of the

AF2 The AF2 (often styled as af2, and short for arenafootball2) was the Arena Football League's developmental league; it was founded in 1999 and played its first season in 2000. Like its parent AFL, the AF2 played using the same arena football r ...

's seasons (

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

–

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

) and won the

first First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

two 2 (two) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 1 and preceding 3. It is the smallest and the only even prime number. Because it forms the basis of a duality, it has religious and spiritual significance in many ...

ArenaCup The ArenaCup was the af2's championship game. For the league's first five years, it was held at the arena of the higher seeded team. However, the 2005 ArenaCup was the first to be played at a neutral site in Bossier City, Louisiana. The 2006 Ar ...

History

After the original

Quad City Steamwheelers The Quad City Steamwheelers were a professional arena football team. They were a charter member of the AF2 and played their home games at iWireless Center in Moline, Illinois. The team was founded on September 1, 1999, when the Quad Cities was ...

folded along with the

, TaxSlayer Center director Scott Mullen had been in talks with various investors seeking to bring back the Steamwheelers, but none were financially secure enough to meet his standards. During 2017, a splash page emerged allegedly belonging to a revived Steamwheelers team in the CIF, however, neither Mullen nor the CIF would comment on the page. On August 15, 2017, the Center confirmed that a deal had been reached which would see the Wheelers return as members of the CIF for 2018, with a press conference taking place the following day. At the press conference, the Wheelers introduced their owner/general manager Doug Bland (previously part-owner of fellow CIF team the Dallas Marshals) and head coach Cory Ross (most recently head coach for the

Omaha Beef The Omaha Beef are a professional indoor American football, indoor football team based in Omaha, Nebraska. The Beef plays their home games at Liberty First Credit Union Arena in nearby Ralston, Nebraska, Ralston. The Beef competes in the National ...

). After one season in the CIF, the Steamwheelers announced they were joining the

for the 2019 season. After playing only one game in 2020, the Steamwheelers' season was initially postponed and the league's season was eventually cancelled due to the

. On October 23, 2020, the team announced that due to the restrictions on arena capacity during the pandemic, they would be dormant for at least the 2021 season. In September 2021, they announced they planned to return for the 2022 season.

Roster

Statistics and records

Season-by-season results

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Quad City Steamwheelers 2018- American football teams in Illinois Former Champions Indoor Football teams Indoor Football League teams Steamwheelers American football teams established in 2018 2018 establishments in Illinois