The Chicago Fire will make their SeatGeek Stadium season debut on May 7.
The Fire will be in Bridgeview at 7 p.m. that night to face Detroit City from the United States League Championship circuit in the Round of 32 of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.
Chicago is one of 16 MLS teams participating in the tournament, in which the MLS takes on teams from other soccer associations.
The Fire won the cup in 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2006. They didn’t participate last year, but the Fire II entered and made it to the third round.
Perhaps a change of venue will help the Fire. Soldier Field is their home for most games and after a 3-2 loss to Cincinnati on April 19, they fell to 0-1-3 there.
“The bottom line is that we want to win in front of our fans,” first-year Fire coach Gregg Berhalter said. “We want to entertain our fans. We want to give them something they can be proud of.
“The city of Chicago is about grit. It’s about guys fighting. It’s about guys being physical. I didn’t see that at times (against Cincinnati) and I was disappointed.”
A crowd of 17,732 saw Hugo Cuypers score his sixth goal of the season for the Fire (3-3-3), while Brian Gutierrez scored on a penalty kick. But it was not enough.
The Fire visit Nashville at 7:30 p.m. April 26 before their cup game at SeatGeek Stadium.
Stars fall in 100th minute
NWSL games rarely go 100 minutes but on April 18, the Stars and Utah faced 10 minutes of stoppage time.
Utah’s Ally Sentor scored on a penalty kick in the 100th minute for a 1-0 win at American First Field in Sandy, Utah.
The Stars’ Ava Cook came into the game in the 79th minute for her first appearance since April 13, 2024 after suffering an injury.
The Stars (1-4-0) host San Diego at 6:30 pm. on April 26 at SeatGeek Stadium.
Hounds’ streak ends
The Chicago Hounds’ seven game Major League Rugby winning streak ended on April 18 with a 28-22 loss at Seattle.
Seattle (3-5-0) led 28-15 in the 63rd minute and held off the Hounds (7-2-0).
Chicago visits Utah at 8 p.m. April 26.
Pinch-hitting into history
Former Mount Carmel standout Alek Thomas, an outfielder for the Arizona Diamondbacks, did not start the wild 13-11 loss against the Cubs on April 18 at Wrigley Field, but he got in on the fun.
Thomas pinch-hit for Garrett Hampson in the eighth inning and singled in what turned out to be a 10-run inning for Arizona.
That inning was sandwiched in between the Cubs seventh, in which they scored five runs, and the eighth, in which they scored six.
All told, those three half innings featured all four types of hits (single, double, triple and home run) and all four types of homers (solo, two-run, three-run and grand slam) and five-plus runs per half inning.
OptaSTATS said that the combination of all of those factors never happened in an entire major league game, never mind three straight half innings.
Fire II blanked
The Fire II suffered a 5-0 road loss to Huntsville April 20 in an MLS NEXT Pro game.
The Fire visit Toronto at 6 p.m. April 25.