Inside the Rise of Portland’s Hearts of Pine Soccer Club

In early spring, Gabe Hoffman-Johnson opened an email from a stranger that made him catch his breath. It wasn’t very long or polished—just a few simple lines—but the sentiment it expressed struck a chord with the native Mainer, who a year before had brought professional soccer to Portland. “I just moved here and your club makes me feel like I belong here,” the note read. “It makes me feel like I’m home.”

In the world of professional sports, fans don’t ordinarily heap such praise on a team owner. But then, the Portland Hearts of Pine are no ordinary team. Now in their second season, the Hearts play in USL League One, two divisions below Major League Soccer, and they’ve already earned the kind of devotion usually reserved for more storied franchises. The wait list for season tickets is nearly 7,000 fans deep (about 1,000 more than the official capacity of Portland’s Fitzpatrick Stadium); the tailgating scene rivals what you might find in Foxborough; and the roar of the sold-out crowd at each of the team’s 20 homes games doesn’t relent until the final whistle.

“There’s an affinity for this club because it really embodies the spirit of Maine,” says Hoffman-Johnson. “We’re getting mail all the time from fans saying how much joy the club has brought them. I just got a text last week from a friend who said he was in London and saw a guy wearing one of our jerseys. You sort of have to pinch yourself.”

The team’s success is anchored in no small part by Hoffman-Johnson’s own love for the sport and for his home turf. A two-time Maine state player of the year at Falmouth High School and later captain at Dartmouth College, he had recently started an unhappy career in private equity in New York City when the USL launched League One in 2019. Hoffman-Johnson immediately advocated for a Maine club, and four years later, Portland was granted its team.

Today the Hearts are arguably the hottest ticket in the city. There’s the on-the-field action, of course, but also all the other ways the club connects with the community, from running an after-school development program to redistributing secondhand soccer gear throughout Greater Portland. In June, the Hearts hosted a World Cup watch party in which more than a thousand fans squeezed into Monument Square to watch the U.S. team beat Australia. The success of the franchise has been so complete that in June the Hearts announced they had secured the rights to a women’s team for Portland that will begin play next year.

“There’s a fierce love of place here in Portland that you don’t always find in other parts of the country,” says Hoffman-Johnson. “That’s why we always saw this as more of a community project than anything else. That’s why after the game you’ll see the players walking around the stadium, thanking people for coming, giving high fives—that connection is important.”

This feature was originally published as “State of Play” in the September/October 2026 issue of Yankee.

Ian Aldrich

Ian Aldrich is the executive editor at Yankee, where he has worked for more for two decades. As the magazine’s staff feature writer, he writes stories that delve deep into issues facing communities throughout New England. In 2019 he received gold in the reporting category at the annual City-Regional Magazine conference for his story on New England’s opioid crisis. Ian’s work has been recognized by both the Best American Sports and Best American Travel Writing anthologies. He lives with his family in Dublin, New Hampshire.

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