By Harlan Nemerofsky
The Mattamy Athletic Centre (MAC) has been double-booked, with the possibilty of two major sporting events overlapping.
After a Jan. 15 announcment that Ryerson will host the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Wilson Cup for a second straight year, a scheduling conflict with the men’s hockey team during this year’s playoffs is now a possibility.
Both events will require the use of the Rams’ home arena, the MAC. But since the Wilson Cup and the second round of OUA men’s playoffs will take place Feb. 28 and March 1, a potential scenario could mean the men’s hockey team rescheduling their home games.
“The Wilson Cup games are done and organized and because TV is involved, those games will occur no matter what,” Stephanie White, associate director of athletics, said. “Our hockey schedule will move around the Wilson Cup – Friday, Saturday – to accommodate accordingly.”
She said that it would be “impossible” to have men’s hockey games scheduled at the MAC on the same day as the OUA Wilson Cup, because it’s a full-day event.
But if the Rams face a higher ranked team in the second round or play a team that requires longdistance travel (whereby the team higher in the standings gets games two and three at home, as opposed to games one and three to avoid excessive traveling in between), then the Rams hockey games would conflict with the OUA Wilson Cup.
Since the second game of a playoff hockey series is typically played on a Friday or Saturday with the lower-ranked team hosting it, if the first-placed Rams finish top two in their division and win the first playoff series, this scenario will be avoided altogether.
“Basically, we just give the league what our availabilities are and everybody works it out accordingly. So if we said, ‘We can host Thursday night at 7 o’clock, and we can host Sunday at 7 o’clock,’ then the league would say, ‘[Wilfrid] Laurier [University], this is what Ryerson can do; here’s their timing,'” White said.
Men’s hockey captian Andrew Buck said that it’s not something they want to deal with, but they don’t want to use it as an excuse.
“It is what it is, when we play we have to be ready to go, we’ll be ready the week after,” Buck said.
Leave a Reply