St. Louis and New England join the USCL

The USCL is pleased to announce that two additional expansion teams, St. Louis and New England, will be joining the League in 2010, St. Louis in the Western Division and New England in the Eastern.

St. Louis will be managed by the St. Louis Chess Club's Executive Director, Tony Rich, and two other club employees, Jon Strand and Mike Kummer will be the Assistant Managers. St. Louis's formidable roster will include 2009 US Champion and USCL MVP, GM Hikaru Nakamura, as well as the club's GM in-residence, Ben Finegold. GM Yury Shulman is also expected to join the roster, as announced by Ben Finegold on the live Chess.FM broadcast during the U.S. Championship.

Also joining the League will be a second team located in the Boston area, New England. With there being so many strong players and so much chess activity in that region, a second team had been a thought for a good amount of time. The new expansion team should give many players in the Boston area who never had a chance to be on the Boston Blitz team a good opportunity to play for at least one of the two squads. New England will be managed by former Boston Blitz player, IM David Vigorito.

The League is very enthusiastic about both teams and hopes that their addition will make the 2010 season the most exciting one yet. The team names for St. Louis and New England will be announced shortly, and the logos for all three new teams, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and New England, will be unveiled in the next few weeks along with the 2010 USCL Schedule.