Schedules

Some tentative Western conference schedules are trickling out now after the scheduling meeting earlier this week. Of particular interest to me was the Vancouver Giants schedule, which they have posted on their website.

As everyone knows, Vancouver is hosting the Winter Olympics next February and since the Giants' home, Pacific Coliseum, is needed to host the figure skating competition (insert witty remark here, like "It'll look just like Giants training camp!", or "Will Giants scouts be there?"), the Giants need to vacate their rink from early January through early March.

Anyway, looking at the Giants tentative schedule, they've solved the problem by scheduling in two brutal ten-game road trips sandwiched around six "home" games being played in Langley in early February. They last play in Pacific Coliseum on January 3rd, and do not play there again until March 12th. The first road trip takes them through the Central division, with a stop in Prince George on the way home, and then a jaunt through half the U.S. division. The second trip takes them through the East division and then a tour of B.C. on the way home.

Being on the road that long is going to be a tough grind for the Giants, so it's going to be pretty important to them that they take advantage of their very favourable early schedule. Prior to vacating Pacific Coliseum in January, the Giants will have played 28 games there versus only 13 on the road. Only four of those road games take them outside of the province of B.C., and those four are all visits to the U.S. division. So, not much travel required in the first three and a half months of the season.

One other note, Chilliwack plays two home games during the Olympics, on February 13th and 16th, plus one of Vancouver's Langley games is on February 14th. So if you're in town for the Games and on those days you've only managed to score tickets to the mens luge preliminaries (blink and you'll miss them!) and the ladies biathlon (and your seats are right behind the targets), you could always trek out to Chilliwack or Langley to see some WHL action.