You might think they all had a Farmers Almanac when creating their 2019-20 schedules, but you can probably put it down as fortunate coincidence that many of the most prominent teams in the metro St. John’s area had no games scheduled over the weekend when the area was shut down by a record winter snowstorm.
The ECHL’s Newfoundland Growlers are in the midst of a nine-day break in their schedule, a break that includes days off built around Tuesday’s ECHL all-star game in Wichita, Kansas.
The Growlers who own the ECHL’s third-best record (29-10-0) after fashioning a league-high 11-game winning streak, don’t see action again until Friday, when they play the first of back-to-back games in Reading, Pa., against the Royals.
The National Basketball League of Canada’s St. John’s Edge (4-4) have also been on a lengthy hiatus. They’re scheduled to play their first game in 13 days when they host the Sudbury Five at Mile One Centre on Tuesday. However, the Five, who were scheduled to travel out of Toronto's Pearson International Airport late Monday night, have already learned that flight has been cancelled.
Edge head coach Steve Marcus said the Sudbury team is working at making alternate arrangements to travel Tuesday, but there is far from any guarantee the Five will arrive in time for the game that night.
St. John's and Sudbury are also supposed to play Wednesday at Mile One.
Still with basketball, it was a scheduled weekend off for Memorial University’s varsity hoopsters. The Sea-Hawks (9-3) continue to hold first place in the Atlantic University Sport (AUS) women’s basketball standings, two points ahead of the second-place Acadian Axewomen.
Memorial (5-7) is n sixth place, the last playoff position, in the men’s conference.
The Sea-Hawks teams, which feature players challenging for conference scoring titles — Cole Young and Haille Nickerson — return to play next weekend, when they host the Cape Breton Capers for Saturday and Sunday games at the Field House in St. John’s.
The Memorial women’s volleyball team also had no games this past weekend. The Sea-Hawks v-ballers, sill looking for their first win this season, travel to Halifax later this week for games against Dalhousie and Saint Mary’s.
Three regional/provincial hockey leagues were impacted by the storm, leading to the postponement of 15 games in total.
Games that had been scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday — seven in all — in the Mary Brown’s St. John’s Junior Hockey League — were postponed. The same goes for four games in the East Coast Senior Hockey League and four more in the Newfoundland and Labrador Major Midget Hockey League.
Twitter: @telysports
