AEC Scheduling Conflicts, 2nd Round Matchups & Attendance

Allen Event Center Availability May Impact Americans Playoff Dates

- At the risk of talking about the second round of the playoffs way too early I took a look at the upcoming events at the Allen Event Center. Turns out there are several prime dates when the AEC is not available. Keep in mind all first round series will be completed no later than April 11. As soon as second round opponents are determined the two teams will work out a mutually agreed upon schedule for the second round. The AEC is not available Friday, April 12 (MMA Legacy Fighting Championships) or Saturday April 13 ( Texas Revolution Football). Looks like Sunday, April 14 might be opening night for the second round. All conjecture at this point as we will have to see how the games play out over the next few days.

- As the playoffs move on and if Allen is still going strong there are even more AEC unavailable dates toward the end of the month. It will be difficult to get good weekend dates as we go deeper into the playoffs.

- The top seeds look to be moving on with Wichita having advanced to the second round with a 4-0 series sweep of Arizona with an overtime win (4-3) last night. Fort Worth also won in overtime (3-2) and has a commanding lead of 3-0 in their series with Quad City. They can close out the series on Friday in Quad City.

- Looking ahead to a second round Wichita vs Fort Worth match up is interesting as they played eight times during the season with Wichita having a 5-3 edge in victories. However, if you look at when they played you see a different story as Wichita won the first four times they played while Fort Worth won three out of the last four times they played. They have played only one time since the first of the year which was a 3-2 Fort Worth win on March 6th. So you have a match up of two teams who saw a lot of each other in November and December but only once since. Should be a great series. The home ice advantage which Wichita holds could be huge.

- The only home team to win last night was Missouri (also in overtime) as they beat Rapid City 3-2. Rapid City leads the series 2-1 with the next game Friday night in Missouri.

- What this means for the Americans is it looks very likely that they will be playing the winner of the Rapid City vs Missouri series. Here is the schedule for the rest of that series:
Game 4 – Fri., Apr. 5 – Rapid City at Missouri, 7:05
Game 5 – Sat., Apr. 6 – Rapid City at Missouri, 7:05
Game 6 – Tue., Apr. 9 – Missouri at Rapid City, 6:35
Game 7 – Wed., Apr. 10 – Missouri at Rapid City, 6:35
 If the series goes less than seven games a midweek opener for the Americans at the AEC would be possible. But if they can't play the first playoff game on Thursday April 11th, the won't play until Sunday, April 14 because of the scheduling conflicts at the AEC mentioned above. 

- Attendance continues to be disappointing  from my perspective. All teams are drawing less than they did during the regular season. I know it is just the first round and attendance will pick up as the playoffs move on but the figures below are not encouraging. I've heard the advance sale for the Saturday game with Denver is good so we should see a big improvement with the crowd in the 4000-4500 range.

TEAM	YESTERDAY	TOTAL	Games	AVERAGE
Missouri	3,708	3,708	1	3,708
Rapid City		7,334	2	3,667
Arizona	3,341	6,521	2	3,260
Allen		6,224	2	3,112
Quad City	3,034	3,034	1	3,034
Wichita		5,535	2	2,767
Fort Worth		2,966	2	1,483
Denver		2,652	2	1,326
TOTALS:	10,083	37,974	14	2,712