Chiefs, Ams fight for ice
It begins Saturday in Kennewick, when the Newsboys will put on a live show at the Toyota Center.
Good for fans of the Christian pop band, bad for hockey fans.
And it doesn’t end there. Scheduling conflicts are worse when it comes to the Spokane Arena.
Among the four remaining teams in the Western Hockey League playoffs that are now entering conference finals, the Spokane Chiefs and Tri-City Americans – U.S. Division rivals and now Western Conference finalists – are vying for a spot in the league final. With hockey in late April and early May only being a possibility for venues such as the Arena and Toyota Center, getting penciled into their books becomes difficult this time of year.
The goal of the venue, after all, is to book as many events as they can. It makes sense. So instead of the Chiefs getting to pick ideal dates for their home games, they are working around the Arena’s schedule.
“We’re very limited on our end and by the time (Tri-City) scheduled the first two dates it didn’t leave us much for the next two games,” Chiefs general manager Tim Speltz said.
The Chiefs and Ams best-of-7 series kicks off Friday in Kennewick.
Tri-City’s one-point advantage in the conference standings at the end of the regular season earned it home ice throughout the playoffs for finishing with the best record in the league. Ideally, Game 2 would have been Saturday night at the Toyota Center, but because of the scheduled concert the building was not available for the second game of the series until Sunday night.
The teams will return to Spokane for the third and fourth games, which are set for Monday and Tuesday, respectively. If Speltz and the Chiefs had their way, the third and fourth games would have been next Wednesday (April 23) and Friday (April 25) in Spokane, but a concert and the circus made those dates unavailable.
After the first four games are played in five nights, the teams won’t play Game 5 – if necessary – until the following Saturday (April 26) in Kennewick. The final two games, if the series goes beyond five games, will be Monday, April 28 and Tuesday, April 29.
“We wish it could be different, but we know it can’t,” Speltz said. “It is frustrating, but at the same time we are very fortunate to have the building that we have. Our relationship with the Arena has been good and this time it didn’t work as well as it could have. The things to keep in mind is the Arena is trying to do a good job for Chiefs but also all their patrons, and the timing – the way things lined up – is not perfect.”