Teams on an extended road trip...looking for help

Any of the N'awlins schools afflicted because of Katrina could provide an example.

 

When Louisville had teams in the ECHL and AHL, those teams would essentially have to play all of its November games on the road because of the North American Livestock Show and Rodeo.

No one on those teams loved the fact they'd have to play as many as 12 straight games on the road. That's one reason why hockey has never had long-term success here.

 

The same thing happens to the Thrashers right after the All-Star break, which is usually when they begin their power slide out of the fringe of the playoffs. There was one season (I think the last pre-lockout year) where they had one home game in all of February.

 

That's right, Tulane played all over the map last season -- they practiced at Louisiana Tech up in Ruston, as I recall -- as did the Saints.

 

He specifically asked for no Katrina stuff, since there's no tragedy involved with his team's forced march.

If you want a hurricane story where emotions aren't as raw, The Citadel had to play at South Carolina's stadium following Hugo.

 

Every season, I believe in February, the Spurs have their much-publicized streak of road games when the rodeo takes over their domain... The Rodeo Road Trip...

 

A dozen or so years ago, the NHL had this silly notion that neutral site games would be a good idea....thus you had games in such places as Saskatoon and Hamilton....also....decades ago, the NBA used to play regular season games in outlying spots (Wilt's 100 point game came in Hershey).....and they even had regular season, four team double-headers.....

 

As a native of Memphis, Tenn., I feel like I need to stick up for my hometown here. There were a couple reasons why Memphians didn't come out to watch the Oilers.

1. Memphis tried for nearly a decade to get an NFL expansion team. The town sold out the Liberty Bowl numerous times for preseason games, but Jacksonville and Carolina ended up with expansion teams. There was still much bitterness over that in the area.

2. The Oilers may have had Tennessee in the name, but they were Nashville's team. Memphis and Nashville have a rivalry. It would be like St. Louis supporting an expansion team in Kansas City. There was a feeling that Memphians were just babysitting the Oilers. That wasn't our team. Yeah that was probably a little shitty, but that was the feeling.

 

Totally understandable, IMO. Why support a team that you already know won't be sticking around and, even worse, is moving to a rival city?

 

The Austin Ice Bats of the Central Hockey League play something like 10-15 road games every February for the rodeo. Can't even practice at home.