The fans had spoken last April, after an American Indoor Football game between the Harrisburg Stampede and visiting Virginia at the York City Ice Arena.

"We had the dry run then and there are some things we knew we had to correct," American Indoor Football CEO John Morris said Monday night. "But we got masses of emails after that game to encourage us to push forward and bring a team there."

The indoor league announced Monday it is bringing a football team to York in the spring of 2013, with home games being played at the York City Ice Arena.

"I think it's going to be a perfect fit to have the Harrisburg Stampede have a rival team in York. We're excited about that for fans to go back and forth," Morris said. "I think it's going to be a great situation.

"When I look back at the way the community has supported the baseball team (in York), we're confident fans will support an indoor football team."

A 1 p.m. news conference will be held Wednesday at the ice arena to announce further details, including the team's head coach and a part-owner.

Morris is the co-founder and co-owner of American Indoor Football. He said he is the majority owner of the York team, which will be part of a six-team East Coast division.

The team nickname will be decided through a name-the-team contest, with the winning fan getting a pair of season tickets.

Games: The league, which will enter its eighth season next spring, held one of Harrisburg's games at the York ice arena last April to gauge interest in bringing a team to York.

The contest drew a large turnout of fans, but issues with the playing surface made it seem unlikely games could be held in the arena.

The field ended up being too short for the ice surface, and a part of the south end zone was covered with medical tape as a result.

But the tape didn't hold on the ice, and the teams ended up playing the game only going toward the north end zone. To get around those issues, Morris said the ice will be pulled up for the entire season so the team can practice and play its home games there.

"We'll have a full-size field," Morris said. "Last year, playing on the ice was pretty tough."

It's unclear how that will affect business at the ice arena, which has two separate ice surfaces.

York City Ice Arena general manager Mike Cleveland and representatives with Rink Management Services, which manages the arena, could not be reached for comment.

Morris anticipates the first home game at the arena will take place in March. The team will play four home games and four away games.

Ticket prices: Individual ticket prices will be $10, while field box seats will cost a little more. Morris estimates the maximum capacity at the ice arena to be about 1,500 fans.

"We'd like to include food along with tickets in some sort of package. The whole goal is to make this affordable for the fans," Morris said. "We want it to be fan-friendly and kid-friendly. We allow fans to come down on the field after every game and get autographs and those kinds of things."

Team: Morris said he's unsure of how many new jobs the team might generate.

The team will have five coaches and 20 active players. Each arena team has a salary cap of $3,150 for its 20 players each week, an average payout of $157.50 a week for each player.

The league mainly consists of former college football players and some ex-NFL players. Tryouts will be held in the coming months for the York team.

"I don't know the exact number, but there have been a lot of guys picked up out of our league," Morris said. "I know in the AFL (Arena Football League) there were three or four guys playing for the Philadelphia Soul who played in our league.

"There are some guys who have gone on to play in the NFL, CFL (Canadian Football League) and AFL. That was my goal when I started this league."

- Reach John Walk at jwalk@yorkdispatch.com.