Tacoma Stars at Accesso ShoWare Center
The Stars play in Kent, Washington, about 20 miles north of Tacoma. Their stadium is the Accesso ShoWare Center, which opened in 2009 and is also the home of the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League and the Seattle Mist of the Legends Football League (née the Lingerie Football League). Games are intimate affairs, particularly in sections near the team benches where there's no glass barrier to separate fans from the action.
Tacoma Stars History
Founded in 2003, the Tacoma Stars of the Major Arena Soccer League have a complicated family tree. They're named for the Major Indoor Soccer League's Tacoma Stars, which played in 1983–1992 and set a record for largest indoor-soccer crowd when 21,728 fans filled the Tacoma Dome for the 1986–1987 MISL championship game. This new edition of the Stars was originally a member of the amateur and semi-pro Premier Arena Soccer League, later turning pro and joining the Professional Arena Soccer League. After a brief hiatus and with some poetry, the Stars became the Galaxy for the 2013–14 season, but then they joined the Western Indoor Soccer League and became the Stars again. In 2015, they swallowed up the assets of the Major Arena Soccer League's Seattle Impact and completed the Impact's MASL season while still also playing out their WISL slate. Got all that?
The Stars finished the 2018–19 season with a 12-12 record, getting bounced out of the playoffs after a thrilling overtime loss to the San Diego Sockers. They were led on the season by league MVP Nick Perera, the team's player-coach, who was the MASL's top scorer with 80 points.
In their first five years in the league, the Stars made the playoffs three times. They play in the Pacific Division of the MASL's Western Conference, with the Sockers, the Turlock Express and the Ontario Fury rounding out the competition.
