Winterhawks Finalize Canada Road Trips


winterhawks road trip

This week the Winterhawks play their last three road games against Canadian-based teams for the season. If that seems like an abrupt end to the border-crossing, that’s because it is; many fans have noted the lopsided schedule thrust upon Portland this year in terms of their outings to the Great White North, with 13 of the usual 16 games in the record books before mid-December of 2014.

A road game in Canada is a big deal for Portland, the southern-most team in the league. It’s important to see a barometer of where the team falls on the larger totem pole. For the last few years the Winterhawks have been one of the larger fish in an extremely small tank, so the traditional eastern swing of games against teams based in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia has always given an early reading to the coaches and players.

[quote align=’right’]A road game in Canada is a big deal for Portland, the southern-most team in the league. It’s important to see a barometer of where the team falls on the larger totem pole.[/quote]Also (not to make a broad generalization regarding the other teams in the U.S. Division), if you can contend with teams in the heart of Canada you should have no trouble with the likes of Tri-City and Spokane. It’s much like a high school football team from metropolitan New England traveling to play a team in rural West Texas. The surroundings make a difference, and the established style of the home team can be the difference on the scoreboard.

While the early road trip has become a bit of a tradition in October, the compression of these Canada games in the Hawks schedule seems to be exacerbated further each year. The 2013-14 season saw only 9 of 16 games played before the holiday break, and those were more evenly distributed from September through December. The fateful 2012-13 championship season was an even wider margin, with only 8 of 16 played in the first half of the season (all within the one road trip) and the next one scheduled well after the break in early February.

Is there a correlation between this stacked schedule and the Winterhawks’ struggle at the beginning of this season? Not necessarily. Likely it had more to do with the new GM/Coach and the struggle to normalize the lineup without all our NHL prospects present. Nevertheless, it will be strange to watch the next two and a half months of regular season only take place within the U.S. Division arenas and it may have a late effect when the team is suddenly thrust back into the heavier competition of the playoffs. In the meantime, it would sure be nice to climb back up to the top of the U.S., with Spokane sliding past both Portland and the Everett Silvertips last week.

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Kyle Martinak
In addition to being a hockey nerd, Kyle is also is an on-camera personality for www.escapistmagazine.com and maintains various podcasts and webcomics revolving around movies, video games, and comics at his personal site, www.chaingangmedia.com.
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