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

[Cosmo]

Two high school football teams in Roanoke, Va. had to play all of their games on the road this season because Victory Stadium was demolished and neither had on-campus facilities. I believe the schools were Patrick Henry and William Fleming, but you might want to check their Web site (www.roanoke.com) to look into it further. One of the schools elected to play every game on the road, the other chose to play their "home games" about 40 miles away in Rocky Mount at Franklin County High School.

 

[PaperDoll]

Major League Soccer has had to send teams on the road almost every time it's opened a new stadium. The Chicago Fire played 11 of their first 12 away while waiting for Toyota Park in Bridgeview, Ill., to be completed. The Los Angeles Galaxy played eight on the road in '03 because of the Home Depot Center. I'm pretty sure FC Dallas (aka the Dallas Burn) had similar troubles.

Colorado will likely face the same problem next season, when they're expected to get a suburban stadium. Toronto FC, however, is right on schedule!

 

[micropolitan guy]

Didn't Syracuse football have to play an entire season of road games because the Carrier Dome was being built on the site of the old stadium?

Didn't Princeton do this also several years ago while Palmer Stadium was being rebuilt?

 

[Bob Cook]

The Ruppert Mundys had to play the whole 1943 Patriot League season on the road after their owners sold their park to the War Department.

 

[micropolitan guy]

The Ruppert Mundys had to play the whole 1943 Patriot League season on the road after their owners sold their park to the War Department.

Call me Gil Gamesh.

 

[slappy4428]

Pistons played several games one season in the 80s at Joe Louis Arena when the Silverdome roof ripped apart.

 

[Cousin Jeffrey]

Titans played at Vandy Stadium for two years when they moved (one friend told me security was so lax they were passing tickets back through a chain link fence, which didn't even work at my high school). Chicago State hoops is playing like 20 of 25 games on the road this season. I think Morris Brown played almost an entire season on the road a few years back.

 

[Dan Hickling]

Philly Flyers had to play a couple games (playoff games I think) in Quebec City in the late 60's or early 70's when wind blew away part of the Spectrum roof....

The Hartford Whalers had to play a season (or was it two) in Springfield Mass when the HCC roof caved in....

there are many other examples...

 

[DyePack]

The Astros' trip was cool because ESPN interviewed a younger Craig Biggio about movies he would watch during the monthlong road trip.

 

[longjumper42]

Best example I can think of is Alaska Anchorage hockey... they play in the WCHA and basically live on a bus for the entire season, minus the 10 or so homegames they get each year...
North Dakota will probably never get home ice/field/court advantage again, unless they win the court battle (which has begun).

 

[Double J]

Philly Flyers had to play a couple games (playoff games I think) in Quebec City in the late 60's or early 70's when wind blew away part of the Spectrum roof....

The Hartford Whalers had to play a season (or was it two) in Springfield Mass when the HCC roof caved in....

there are many other examples...

Philly also played a bit in Toronto at that same time. Maple Leaf Gardens was the site of a brutal stick fight between Larry Zeidel of the Flyers and Eddie Shack of the Bruins.

There was a time when the New York Rangers had to abandon Madison Square Garden pretty much every year during the playoffs because their thoughtful owners would always book the circus in at that time.

Was about to mention the Braves during the '96 Olympics. They played 17 games in five cities in an 18-day stretch.

And this has been mentioned, but the Expos played the final 26 games of the 1991 season away from Montreal after a beam fell from the side of Olympic Stadium.

***

And the Astros' 1992 road trip because of the GOP convention can't be understated: 26 games in 28 days (they went 12-14). That's the granddaddy of 'em all.

The Expos also had a few extended road trips in the last two years in Montreal after MLB scheduled many of their "home" games in Puerto Rico.

In 2003 they were away from Montreal for a stretch of 22 games in 25 days, lasting from May 26 to June 19. The really ridiculous thing, though, was their travel - they went from Montreal (played there on May 25) to Miami to Philadelphia to San Juan to Seattle to Oakland to Pittsburgh to Montreal (played there on June 20). Ouch.

No offence to Astros fans, but their road trip seems to have been a tad easier - Houston, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Houston.

 

[ballscribe]

In 2003 they were away from Montreal for a stretch of 22 games in 25 days, lasting from May 26 to June 19. The really ridiculous thing, though, was their travel - they went from Montreal (played there on May 25) to Miami to Philadelphia to San Juan to Seattle to Oakland to Pittsburgh to Montreal (played there on June 20). Ouch.

No offence to Astros fans, but their road trip seems to have been a tad easier - Houston, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Houston.

I made that Expos' trip: Montreal to Miami to Philly to San Juan to Seattle (that leg was fun) to Oakland to Pittsburgh and back to Montreal, leaving two days after spending 10 days in a hospital in San Francisco (from the previous trip to San Francisco and Colorado before the three-day homestand in between) with some kind of virus that created a week-long 107 degree fever and damn near killed me.

Two years later, I still wasn't 100 percent recovered. I can't think of much worse than that one.