No Carolina Challenge Cup For The Fire In 2014

On the Friday before the Chicago Fire prepare to defend the Brimstone Cup, it was announced the the Fire will not be given a chance to defend another piece of silverware - The Carolina Challenge Cup. Sure, it is only a preseason tournament, but a trophy is a trophy, right?

Here is snippet of the press release from MLSsoccer:

The participants for next year's edition of the preseason Carolina Challenge Cup were announced on Friday, and they include a new face: the Seattle Sounders.

The Sounders will join D.C. United, the Houston Dynamo and hosts Charleston Battery of USL PRO in the 11th edition of the week-long, round-robin tournament, which is set to run from Feb. 22-March 1, 2014.

To be fair, D.C. United did win the tournament in 2012 and were not invited to return in 2013, so it's not like Chicago is the lone Challenge Cup Champion to not be invited back.

Another interesting tidbit - Jeremiah Oshan over at Sounder at Heart pointed out that the tournaments dates are going to be a week later The invitee's of the 2014 edition of the Carolina Challenge Cup were announced today. Guess who was not on the list?in 2014, so it sounds like the 2014 MLS season might not start as early as it did this past year.