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^ - I have added a disclaimer to the top of the form after several issues have come up in a conversation behind the scenes about submissions of real people or directly fictional characters. Please just give it a read before you submit any new prospects. Thanks!
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Hi everyone, welcome to the NAAF. I am Wallflower and I began writing this series in February 2020. For a quick summary, this series covers a professional football league that plays a hybrid rule set for North American Football, that combines the rules of American and Canadian rules and is competing with both other versions of football for the fans of North America.

If you are new here welcome to AHS! I totally understand that there is a lot to catch up on. If you want to read through the whole thread, awesome, but if not, you can check out the Blogspot which is currently being updated with information to make it easy for people to catch up or to refresh memories. 

This series runs on a week-to-week basis, where I cover each game from week to week during the season and playoffs, and then each stage of the offseason. 

Also, above you will see the link to the Blogspot or "Wiki" as mentioned before, as well as the link to the player submission form. You can submit players that will eventually be drafted into the NAAF and play out their careers. Note that I don't accept every submission, typically if I deem a player as inappropriate or too outside the realm of reality I will not use them, but I always appreciate the submissions from everyone it helps make the world feel alive. If you ever have any questions you can ask in the DMs or in the thread itself. 

Origins of Hybrid Football and the North American Association of Football

For the many early years of gridiron football, two different rule sets were being developed. The American rules in the USA and Canadian rules in Canada. In the early 1900s, a game would be played between Cambridge University of Boston and Montreal Provincial University. The game would be played with a mix of both American and Canadian rules marking the game as the first technical hybrid football game. These changed rules would be commonplace in games over the early years of the 1900s. Eventually, the American colleges would stop playing in the games, but the rules were still kept by some Canadian schools like Rideau University in Ottawa where a man named Ryan Jameson attended school. At this point, hybrid rules were only ever used in exhibition or scrimmage situations. Jameson who was a Wide Receiver/Defensive Back at Rideau absolutely adored playing the hybrid rules when the team played, here certainly wondered why it wasn’t actually used more. After graduating Jameson would go on to have a career in professional hockey, as he was much better at hockey than football, playing for the local Ottawa Hockey Club. 

After his career was cut short due to an injury and then Canada’s involvement in World War II, Jameson would take time to make some money, and many friends, in order to attempt to bring back hybrid football. Following the conclusion of World War II, Jameson had endless talks with several Canadian football club owners. Eventually, he was able to get a couple of owners to agree to form a new league to play under a new rule set. The first was the Ottawa Royals of the Ontario Football Union. His connection to the owner Rudolph Wilson was formed since Wilson also owns the Hockey Club and he had a lot of trust in Jameson’s vision. The Royals had also already been a pretty loose member of the OFU since they had moved between that and the Ligue de Football du Québec as well. Speaking of the Quebec League, Jameson’s next pull was the most dominant team in the Ligue de Football du Québec, the Montreal Rouge. Montreal had long-awaited opportunities to face tough competition as they had hardly lost any games in the last few years, and they jumped at the opportunity to be in a higher-level league. There was an attempt to pull the Toronto Lakers out of the OFU along with Ottawa. The Lakers were the biggest and best team in the OFU and dominated themselves. However, they were not for a new league and elected to remain in the OFU, but Toronto’s secondary team, the Tigers, would show interest in moving to the NAAF. The Tigers were under new ownership and wished to get out of the shadow of the dominant Lakers, so they made the move to the new league. Finally, the NAAF would bring in a single American team in the New York Football League’s Buffalo Blue Wings. Buffalo had been treated poorly by the rest of the NYFL, as games were rarely scheduled in Buffalo as the NYC teams didn’t like travelling up to Buffalo and Rochester. The Blue Wings had enough and decided to move over to the NAAF. 

The newly formed league was getting ready to go forward with the 4 initial teams for the 1949 season, but before the season got off to a start a bigger change would occur. The New England Football Championship, which was down to only 3 clubs was on the verge of folding outright. When Jameson got word of the historic league’s situation, he would step in and work out an agreement to allow the NEFC teams to merge into the NAAF. The Boston Football Club (later changed to the Independents prior to the 1949 season), the Hartford Hawks, and the Providence Gold Stars would join the NAAF to form the initial 7 teams of the league. 

Once the league was brought together, the official rules of what would become modern Hybrid Football were put in place.

From Canadian Football:
3 Downs to gain 10 yards
Singles are scored when the ball travels through the endzone
No Yards - 5-yard halo around the returner
No strict formation rules - any number of players can be in motion prior to snap except the O-line.

From American Football:
100-yard US-sized field
11 Men per side
The ball is in the neutral zone (ie no one-yard distance between the offence and defence. 

New Rules:
Endzones are 15 yards the average between the two styles. 
Goal Posts in Front of Endzones (at the time they were for both sports).

Another aspect that was a selling point for players more than anything, was a focus on safety and equipment in the sport. The NAAF is going to be a major force in the advancement of technology, most notably already bringing in plastic helmets as mandatory for all players, and lighter jersey fabrics for the games during the summer.

The first season would kick off in July of 1949 and finish with the Championship game in October 1949. Each team will play 8 games over 10 weeks with 2 bye weeks per team. At the end of the season, the top 4 teams will play in a playoff to determine a champion with the 1st place team playing 4th and 2nd place playing 3rd. With the NEFC merging into the NAAF, the trophy that the NEFC competed for over many years would be passed onto the NAAF to be the championship trophy.

History of the NAAF Champions

1949 - 31: Boston Independents - 23-13 - Providence Gold Stars - Boston, MA

1950 - 32: Boston Independents - 16-10 - Montreal Rouge - Montreal, QC
1951 - 33: Montreal Rouge - 24-14 - Boston Independents - Montreal, QC
1952 - 34: Buffalo Blue Wings - 21-16 - Boston Independents - Buffalo, NY
1953 - 35: Montreal Rouge - 22-14 - Providence Gold Stars - Providence, RI
1954 - 36: Ottawa Royals - 27-23 - Boston Independents - Ottawa, ON
1955 - 37: Ottawa Royals - 32-20 - Long Island Raiders - Hempstead, NY
1956 - 38: Ottawa Royals - 33-27 OT - Worcester Athletics - Worcester, MA
1957 - 39: Buffalo Blue Wings - 27-17 - Ottawa Royals - Boston, MA
1958 - 40: Long Island Raiders - 27-24 - Ottawa Royals - Indianapolis, IN
1959 - 41: Ottawa Royals - 27-21 - London Tigers - Montreal, QC

1960 - 42: London Tigers - 38-33 - Ottawa Royals - London, ON
1961 - 43: Boston Independents - 25-24 - London Tigers - Ottawa, ON
1962 - 44: Louisville Thunder - 23-16 - Montreal Rouge - Louisville, KY
1963 - 45: London Tigers - 34-31 - Providence Gold Stars - Hempstead, NY
1964 - 46: Buffalo Blue Wings - 20-17 - Long Island Raiders - Providence, RI
1965 - 47: Long Island Raiders - 17-10 - Louisville Thunder - Buffalo, NY
1966 - 48: Buffalo Blue Wings - 30-12 - Montreal Rouge - Toronto, ON
1967 - 49: Buffalo Blue Wings - 23-15 - Long Island Raiders - Ottawa, ON
1968 - 50: Halifax Mariners - 24-20 - Indiana Victors - Boston, MA
1969 - 51: Buffalo Blue Wings - 16-15 - Ottawa Royals - Indianapolis, IN

1970 - 52: Long Island Raiders - 16-13 - Vancouver Wolves - Montreal, QC
1971 - 53: Louisville Thunder - 30-26 - Montreal Rouge - Providence, RI
1972 - 54: Providence Gold Stars - 32-18 - Vancouver Wolves - Buffalo, NY

1949 - 7 Original Teams
Boston Independents
Buffalo Blue Wings
Hartford Hawks
Montreal Rouge
Ottawa Royals
Providence Gold Stars
Toronto Tigers

1951: Expansion to Worcester, MA  -> Worcester Athletics
1953: Relocation: Toronto Tigers -> Kitchener, ON -> Ontario Tigers
1954: Relocation: Hartford Hawks -> Hempstead, NY -> Long Island Hawks
1955: Rebrand: Long Island Hawks -> Long Island Raiders
1957: Expansion to Louisville, KY (Louisville Thunder) and Indianapolis, IN (Indiana Victors)
1958: Relocation: Ontario Tigers -> London, ON -> London Tigers
1962: Rebrand: Worcester Athletics -> The Athletics
1963: Relocation: The Athletics -> Halifax, NS -> Halifax Mariners
1964: Merger with Ontario Football Union: Toronto Steelheads
1965: Expansion to Pittsburgh, PA -> Pittsburgh Blacksmiths
1969: Expansion to Minneapolis, MN -> Minnesota Serpents
1970: Temporary Merger Agreement with WFU - Calgary Tigers, Edmonton Rangers, Regina Wheat Kings, Vancouver Wolves, and Winnipeg Falcons
1971: Rebrand: Calgary Tigers -> Calgary Predators

Last edited by Wallflower (9/15/2024 5:57 pm)