The Lightning were formed in 2006 by Randy Rogers with the assistance of Northwest Avalanche owner Craig Jackson, former Bellingham Eagle Brian Young came aboard as coach.  Rogers had been assisting with the Avalanche while stationed locally with the Navy.  Starting the season 1-2, the team experienced turmoil following Rogers' deployment with his naval ship and a split amongst the coaches.  A forfeit over a Bothell team that never made it to the field, he team was over an hour late arriving for a scheduled kickoff with the South Sound Shockers. The coaching split resulted in the team not having uniforms, which the Shockers loaned out what they had available for practice gear and the teams kicked off two hours later than planned in a glorified scrimmage.  Guy Gabriel, President of the PNFC declared the game a forfeit due to rules violations and suspended the team from conference play for the remainder of the season to reorganize.  Some of the players and coaches would join Northwest League teams getting ready for the summer season.  Rogers returned from deployment and regrouped the team for the 2007 season.

Rogers set out to in 2007 with an aggressive schedule taking on all comers with a 12-game schedule that include the top teams in Eastern Washington as well as two Northwest League opponents.  Brad Collins took over the coaching reigns as a player-coach at quarterback.  The Lightning started out 0-3, however, after winning the next two games the Lightning had sights set on hitting .500 against the rival Avalanche.  The Chuckanut Trophy, a friendly rivalry game with the Avalanche, would go back to Northwest and following a 27-13 loss to the West Sound Saints, Skagit Valley's offense went MIA.  Not offensive points were scored in the final four games including a 43-0 playoff loss to the Mustangs.  The 7-points recorded in an 84-7 blowout to the Shockers came on a kickoff return that broke to the house.  Skagit was outscored 129-7 during that stretch.  Adjustments were needed.

Not a total loss in 2007, Tyler Nibarger earned First-Team All-Conference honors as a tight end.  While eight other Lightning players earned individual all-conference honors.  The 2008 season was another rough one as the PNFC joined forced with the eastern Washington teams of the Evergreen Football League.  Rival Northwest Avalanche was reorganized as the Bellingham Bulldogs and opened the season with a commanding 28-6 victory over the Lightning.  Another 0-3 start was broken up by a road win in Moses Lake against the Riverhawks, however a 5-game slide ensued. A strong showing in Yakima, followed by a near miss against the Bulldogs looked like things were on the right track, but on May 17 the Lightning could only muster 8 players for a game at Okanogan.  The Commandos assigned some of their own players to the Lightning for the day and romped over the combined team 55-14 in what turned into a Commandos intrasquad scrimmage.  The Shockers put the final salvo on the season with a 39-2 victory sending Skagit Valley to 1-7.

Name changes were coming following the 2008 season as not only the Evergreen League turned into the Washington Football League, Rogers renamed the team the North Sound Sting and relocated from Mount Vernon to Oak Harbor, WA.  Local rival Bellingham began an ascent and the two staffs worked together on behalf of both teams, however it was the Bulldog franchise that was attracting the better players in 2009.  The Bulldogs had shifted to the North American Football League summer entry.

Hopes were high after a scrimmage resulted in a 28-0 shutout over Olympic Peninsula to start the 2009 season. A nearly identical outcome to the last time the two teams battled back in 2006, however the Eagles, now a Cascade League opponent, was not a good gauge for the Washington League competition to come.  Brad Collins had left as coach to play QB for the Bulldogs, and Craig Jackson, having sold off the Avalanche the year prior, took over coaching.  With only the Thunder game being close, the Sting went winless on the season.  The season also marked a bad look for the WFL when the Stars arrived to see the Bellingham Bulldogs bus parked outside the stadium. Stars' staff opted to turn around and make the 5-hour trek back home upset that the Sting's low numbers would be supplemented by a few players from the summer Bulldog squad.  Bellingham was only rumored at that point, having not played a game yet, to be better than the team the Stars faced the year prior in a 29-15 victory in Walla Walla.  The game went down as a forfeit win for the Sting because the Stars never actually took the field nor had the kickoff to start the game to make any protest about players official.  The final two games did not solve the depth issue in big losses to the Shockers and Rams to finish the year.  On a side note, the Bulldogs went on to a 12-1 season, undefeated in the Northwest, only losing in the NAFL playoffs to a team from Minnesota.  That success would draw even more players to the Bulldog camp as did the formation of a second Bellingham franchise started by former 2006 coach Brian Young called the Blitz.

With all of that pressure in the region, 2010 would be another winless season with a forfeit win mixed in when an April 3 game was postponed due to snow in the mountain passes.  The Riverhawks opted not to cross the pass even though Yakima was traveling to South Sound on the same day.  The game was rescheduled for Memorial Day weekend but by then the Riverhawks numbers were too low and the Columbia Basin forfeited their second game of the season.  As had been the case in prior seasons, the Sting offense disappeared down the stretch and depth became a problem.  The final game would end up being a 51-6 loss to the Wenatchee Rams as the final two games were canceled or forfeited by opponents.

The Sting would finally close the doors after the 2010 season, unable to weather the storm created by the success of the two Bellingham franchises and encroaching Seattle and Kisap County teams of the Western Washington Association and the Pacific Football Leagues.  The Sting officially lost the final 20-games they played on the field and as a franchise ended with a 4-35 on-field record over five seasons.  Rogers, being active duty military as a owner, did not have the personnel in place around him to effectively run the team during his absences which seemed to doom the team from the beginning, never being able to regain solid footing in the region.

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