Icemen Get Plenty Of Road Games Close To Home

June 29, 1999

Sean Mayer, Staff Writer

Press & Sun Bulletin

It won’t take long for the BC Icemen to become well acquainted with their newest regional rival, the Adirondack Ice Hawks.

The Icemen’s 74-game United Hockey league regular-season schedule, released Monday, features 17 meetings with the Ice Hawks, who relocated earlier this month from Winston-Salem, N.C. Ten of those games—including one on Christmas Day—will be played at the Glens Falls Civic Center, less than a three-hour drive from Binghamton. It is the first Christmas Day game in Binghamton’s pro hockey history, dating to 1973.

The Icemen also will square off 12 times against Mohawk Valley, with six games in Utica, a two-hour drive up route 12.

“It’s good for our fans and it’s good for traveling—there’s less wear and tear on our players,” Icemen general manager Patrick Snyder said. “It doesn’t involve leaving the day before and traveling throughout the night.”

The Icemen open their season Oct. 15 against Port Huron at the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena—the first of four straight home games. Of the Icemen’s 37 home games, 29 are on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays.

“It’s our best schedule in three years, and it’s very fan friendly,” Snyder said. “We have extra weekend games this year, and a couple of the weekday games we do have are not on school nights.”

Other features of the schedule:

--The Icemen will host Adirondack on Nov. 25, marking the 26th time in 27 seasons that a Binghamton franchise has hosted a Thanksgiving Night game.

--For the second straight season, the Icemen will play New Year’s Eve against Mohawk Valley in Utica. The Arena had hosted New Year’s Eve games 23 times in the first 24 seasons of hockey in Binghamton. Snyder did not push for a game this year because organizers of “First Night” want to use the Arena as part of the festivities.

--The Icemen’s longest road trips are seven games, Nov. 5-14 and Feb. 24-March 4. Their longest homestand is eight games, March 15-29. Thirteen of their final 16 games are at the Arena.

--Asheville and Quad City will not come to the Arena until March.

--The Icemen will play fewer games against Eastern Division mate Knoxville (three) than against Western Division foe Missouri (five).

--The Icemen will face defending Colonial Cup champ Muskegon twice, both games on home ice. Muskegon’s L.C. Walker Arena, site for the 2000 UHL All-Star Game, is the one venue the Icemen will not visit.

--The Icemen play four games against the Flint Generals, the team that has knocked them out of the playoffs in the opening round each of the last two seasons. The Generals’ first game at the Arena is Feb. 5.