Med City Freeze ready for home opener

The Med City Freeze are ready to break the ice on the 2017 season.

The team returns to the gridiron on Saturday, April 22 at home against the Albert Lea Grizzlies. This will be the second season for the Freeze, a full-contact amateur football team that competes in the Southern Plains Football League. 

With a roster made up of mostly local talent, the Freeze finished the 2016 season 7-1, with its only loss coming in the first round of the playoffs. This year, with 80 percent of players returning, the Freeze are looking to build off the momentum from the inaugural season. 

"I don’t think anyone expected a new team to come in and do as well as we did," said Head Coach Tyler Grapp, who served as an adviser to the team in 2016. "Going into this season, we are already better than we finished the season last year."

The Freeze play their home games at Rochester Regional Sports Stadium on the campus of RCTC, which allows for an experience that rivals a college game, said Grapp. Freeze games regularly feature opportunities for fan engagement, pregame and halftime performances, and appearances by Minnesota Vikings return extraordinaire — and John Marshall graduate — Marcus Sherels.

"We try to emulate the real game-day experience," said Freeze co-founder Tim Nela, who's preparing to lace up the cleats for the final time this season. "Sports really do bring everybody together."

The Freeze take the field on select Saturday nights April through June (schedule here). General admission tickets are $6 each; children 13 and under get in for free.

“This is great for the community," added Grapp. "It’s a fun event that anyone can go to on a Saturday night and have fun with their family."

Cover photo courtesy Nina Healy