As I passed the venerable Denver Coliseum while whizzing down I-70 the other day, I saw what looked like a soccer ball on the electronic marquee, alongside the words ‘Colorado Blizzard’. I had no idea what it was. Considering it was being advertised on the coliseum, I considered the possibility that an indoor soccer team had come to Colorado.

My last memories of indoor soccer are also my first: when I was in sixth grade, my friend and his mother took me to see the Los Angeles Lazers of the long-defunct Major Indoor Soccer League. I remember little Eastern European dudes running around, and that we went to El Pollo Loco before the game. There may also have been nachos involved.

When I returned home, with a few keystrokes, I had my answer. The Colorado Blizzard is here.

Well, technically, they’ve been here for a while. The Colorado Blizzard have been members of the Colorado Premier Arena Soccer League for almost a decade. “We’ve won the PASL seven out of the last eight years,” owner and General Manager Gary Faircloth told me. “We’re ready for a new challenge.”

So the Blizz are movin’ on up. The PASL is an amateur developmental league to the Major Arena Soccer League, and the Blizzard are joining the MASL’s lower tier, MASL2, for the 2017. The team will play a six-game season, with the first two games on December 16th and 23rd at the Denver Coliseum.

Faircloth is a local businessman with a passion for the game of soccer. He also has a passion for giving back to the community, so the Blizzard are running a toy drive for their opening game to benefit Children’s Hospital Colorado (more details here). They have also visited the Children’s Hospital to meet the kids, and plan to live stream every game direct to Children’s, too. They want to share soccer with everyone, even to their fans that might not be well enough to see them in person. Faircloth explained: “We’d like to think of these kids at Children’s as part of the Blizzard.”

With the Rapids on vacation until February, those of us who desperately need soccer in their lives don’t just have to rely on the EPL 6,000 miles and eight time zones away. Now, at a major local venue, we can catch the real thing, without being exposed to the sometimes-brutal Colorado elements in December. Hopefully, there’ll be nachos too.

For information on tickets to the Colorado Blizzard, click here.

To follow them on twitter, check out @COblizzard.