News & notes

According to the Troy Fighting Irish's Facebook page, the Northeastern Football Alliance's 2020 season has been postponed until at least Saturday, July 11, when the Irish were scheduled to face the Carthage Revolution. The original schedule is up at the team's website, and will need to be updated as soon as the league gets the go-ahead to play.

A quick reminder that the Irish play their home games at Lansingburgh High.

But, let's look at it this way. At least there's hope they can play.

And that's more than we can say for the venerable Empire Football League, which is still around, and, like the NFA, isn't getting any love from the press.

No, the Metro Mallers aren't around anymore, but the Schenectady based Tri-City Spartans are the defending champions, and will have to wait until 2021 to defend their title. The EFL announced earlier this week that they would not play in 2020 due to COVID-19.

The Spartans play their home games at Union College's Frank Bailey Field.
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With news this week that racing will return to New York June 1, there are questions surrounding the following:

1. Will Off Track Betting reopen its various parlors in the state, including Menands, Lansingburgh, and Colonie?

Like everyone else, OTB is waiting for the green light from the governor's office, that's all we can figure at this point.

By the way, since OTB-TV was reduced to being a digital subchannel for WXXA a few years back, they're likely using the news feed from WXXA/WTEN for the nightly broadcasts of Albany County Executive Dan McCoy and Governor Cuomo's COVID-19 briefings.

2. Will harness racing return to Saratoga and other New York tracks?

Most definitely, but without spectators for now. However, as long as OTB-TV is committed to airing the COVID-19 briefings every night race broadcasts have been severely cut back.

All we can say for now is, stay tuned.