While the Kansas City Spurs came and went quickly, indoor soccer laid an unforgettable stamp on the sports scene in Kansas City as Hot Winter Nights took the city by storm.

Teams played with five field players and a goalkeeper on a field similar in size to hockey. There was a good mix of entertainment through scoring goals and rough plays to keep fans on the edge of their seats.

In Kansas City, it all started in 1981 during the era of the original Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) when the San Francisco Fog franchise was relocated, becoming the Kansas City Comets.

The Comets nearly doubled the average attendance of the Kansas City Kings in the first season before eventually outdrawing almost every franchise in the NBA.

Between all the scoring and the innovative game production, indoor soccer at 16,000-seat Kemper Arena quickly became high-quality entertainment that caught the entire city’s attention.

“The public was ready for another sport,” said Alan Mayer, Indoor Soccer Hall of Famer and Comets goalkeeper from 1985 to 1989. “The thing with indoor soccer is it was so exciting. We had so much of what the American public likes to see: they like to see action and they like to see lots of goals. It was just pure enjoyment.”

On the field, the MISL had some of the best soccer players in the country after the nation’s top outdoor soccer league, the National American Soccer League, began to regress.

“All the good players that were playing outdoors were now transformed and came into the indoor game,” said Mayer, who was one of those players that moved from outdoor to indoor. “The quality of the game went sky-high. People like to see goals, action and skillful people.”

The Comets made the playoffs three straight years after missing out in the first season. The Comets nearly averaged a sellout in the 1983-84 season but were eliminated in the opening round of the playoffs for a second straight season. The Comets’ first long postseason run came in 1985 when they made it to the quarterfinals before San Diego swept them in three games.

As the MISL began to decline, so did the Comets. Attendance fell and the team was drawing near its end until a group comprised of 23 local investors bought the team in 1987.

From 1988 to 1991, the Comets made it to the division finals three times before folding after the 1990-91 season.

With the Comets gone, a new team and league came in. The National Professional Soccer League (NPSL) moved the Atlanta Attack to Kansas City for the 1991-92 season.

With a multi-point scoring system in the NPSL, the Attack finished second in the regular season with a 26-14 record before falling in the semifinals. The following season, the Attack came back with the same regular season finish, but this time won the championship, beating the Cleveland Crunch.

In 1995-96, the Attack had the best record in the league but lost to Cleveland after going up 2-0 in the championship series. Once again, the Attack came back with vengeance, sweeping Cleveland in four games to take the 1997 NPSL championship.

The Attack were eliminated in the conference semifinals for the next four years and the NPSL folded. The Attack were renamed to the Comets in 2001 and joined the second iteration of the MISL.

Led by two-time MVP Dino Delevski, the Comets made it to the semifinals two of their first three years in the MISL. After missing the playoffs in 2005, the Comets folded as professional indoor soccer disappeared from KC.

Comets return in new era of indoor soccer