Arena Issues Appear To Be Solved

It appears the Saint John Sea Dogs will be playing all of their remaining playoff home games at Harbour Station this season.

According to Peter McGuire in Thursday’s Telegraph-Journal, the team and Harbour Station have come up with a plan IF Saint John makes it to the President’s Cup final this year.

The proposal states that if the Sea Dogs make it to the league final, the scheduling format would be 2-3-2 because of the Cirque du Soleil show. Games 1 and 2 would be in Saint John while the next three would be held on the road. The last two games, if needed, would be back at Harbour Station.

Game 6 would be on Monday, May 14, the Johnny Reid concert would be held the next day, and Game 7 would be played at 2pm on Wednesday, May 16. The winning team would then be flown to the Shawinigan area for the Memorial Cup tournament which would begin in roughly 48 hours.

Obviously, things could still change. This is a proposal after all.

As for the possibility of playing a mid-week afternoon game, Harbour Station General Manager Mike Caddell was quoted in the article saying “whether it’s an afternoon or evening game.” So obviously this isn’t completely carved in stone but it certainly sounds better than some of the ideas offered last month.

A few weeks ago, McGuire revealed that the Sea Dogs may have to play a Game 7 in an alternate city if things could not be sorted out at Harbour Station.

No matter what happens, the Sea Dogs have at least two home games remaining. The first is Friday night at the Station when Saint John hosts Chicoutimi in Game 1 of the semifinal.