When the Dakota Wizards left Erie after beating the Erie BayHawks on Thursday night, they were scheduled to play at home Saturday against the Los Angeles D-Fenders.
Then mother nature took over.
The Wizards had trouble getting out of Cleveland and ended up not playing Saturday and had to have the game rescheduled.
Crazy huh? Here's the release.
Due to the weather conditions and travel issues, the Dakota Wizards game originally scheduled for Saturday (December 20th 2008) against the LA D-Fenders has been postponed. The game has been rescheduled for Monday @ 7:00 PM CT.
All tickets from Saturday's match up can be exchanged at the Bismarck Civic Center Box Office for Sunday night's game vs. Reno that will be played as scheduled at 6:00 PM CT or for the rescheduled games vs. Los Angeles on Monday.
Now I'm going to pass a little word of advice to the D-League. When you make the schedule next year, better consider what a team may have to go through to get out of this area, meaning from Erie to Cleveland.
When the BayHawks took the bus from Erie to Fort Wayne for Fridays' game at Fort Wayne, it took them like a little over four hours just to get to Cleveland, which is about 90 minutes away.
Head coach John Treloar said the bus driver couldn't drive more than 10 miles a hour because they left at 7:45 in the morning and the plow trucks hadn't cleared the roads on Interstate 90.
I remember overhearing Treloar telling people after the Dakota loss they weren't leaving until the following morning. In my head, I was thinking they should leave now, but I later found out from Treloar that they made the travel arrangements in early December.
So you can't blame anyone for what happened, but teams must consider the weather here when they make trips in this area.
I was talking with BayHawks forward Geary Claxton and he said he's not used to it snowing every day or every other day. And remember, he played college ball at Penn State and we know how the weather can get in State College.
Hey, Geary, it's only December.
I told him it would be snowing in April and he just smiled. Hope he's still smiling in April when he walking to practice in gloves and a heavy coat.