Stuffed AHL schedule switches Rangers' menu

Press & Sun Buletin

August 22, 1991

Thanksgiving night at the Boome County Veterans Memerorial Arena just won't be the same this year.

That's because there won't be any hockey being played by a Binghamton team.

"Yeah, I do (feel bad about it), because it broke tradition," Binghamton Rangers managing general partner Tom Mitchell said of the team's 1991-92 American Hockey League schedule. "There was no way around it."

Mitchell said a scheduling conflict of four games in four nights, prohibited by the professional hockey players assication, could not be avoided if Binghamton played at home on Thanksgiving.

Instead, the Rangers will plat at home on Thanksgiving Eve, Nov. 27, against Sprongfield. Binghamton was 4-9-1 on Thanksgiving since joining the AHL in 1977.

Another new twist to Binghamton's schedule, released on Wednesday, is a home game on Super Sunday; when Binghamton team hasn't played at home since 1976, in the old North American Hockey League.

The Rangers will play Springfield next Jan. 26. That game is at 2 p.m., starting about four hours earlier than the Super Bowl, which will be held at the Metrodome at Minneapolis. A Rangers' Super Bowl party will follow the AHL game, Mitchell said.

There is at least one traditional game intact, and that's New Year's Eve; this time the Maine Mariners will be the opposition.

One traditional game is coming back the day after Christmas, the Rangers will play the Utica Devils.

The other major change involves Sunday game times; which have been moved up an hour, to 5 p.m. Mitchell said it was done for group sales, and to get families home earlier on the night before a school day.

The Rangers open their 80-game AHL season on Oct. 4, a Friday against Utica.

Fridays and Saturdays are again the most popular days; 13 dates each, Sunday in next with six.