Wisconsin Woodchucks
WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — The 2022 Wisconsin Woodchucks season will begin Monday, May 30th on the road against Fond du Lac.
The Northwoods League released the slate for the upcoming season on Wednesday, which will once again feature 72 games for each club- split between 36 home and 36 away contests. The Woodchucks open the home portion of their schedule on May 31st, once again against Fond du Lac.
The 2022 schedule features a season-long five-game homestand between July 7th and 11th against Wisconsin Rapids, Madison, and Kalamazoo. Before that, the Chucks will play six road games in seven days, with one built-in off day.
The 2022 All-Star game will be played in Wisconsin Rapids on July 19th. The Major League Dreams showcase scouting event is August 2nd. NWL playoffs will begin August 14th and conclude with the one-game league championship on the 18th.
The Northwoods League has also announced that the Thunder Bay Border Cats have opted out of the 2022 season due to the uncertainty around COVID-19 protocols for travel between Canada and the United States. This will mark the third consecutive year that Thunder Bay has sat out.
“This was a difficult decision to make, playing the 2022 season without the Thunder Bay Border Cats,” said Northwoods League President/Commissioner Ryan Voz in a press release on Tuesday. “They have a rich tradition in the League.”
Players that were under contract for Thunder Bay have been released to other teams, and the league will bring back the Minnesota Mud Puppies as a travel-only team to fill what would have been the Border Cats road schedule.
There remains no indication when the St. Croix River Hounds will take the field in NWL action. The franchise was awarded to Hudson in 2017 with a planned start date of 2018, but construction delays pushed that project out two years. Those delays were then magnified when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, and the team did not participate in any of the Northwoods League pods that season.
The River Hounds were not included in the 2022 schedule, and according to a report from Twin Cities TV station WCCO fans have begun asking for refunds on their season ticket deposits as the proposed site for their ballpark remains vacant.
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