Full Time Road Schedule will be Tough for Thunderbears
Campbell Blake
Saturday February 24, 2001
In 1997 the Florida Bobcats played only two of their 14 regular season games at home after averaging only 2,785 fans per game in 1996. Along with playing nine games at their opponent’s arena, they played three neutral-site games in Boston, Los Angles and Ottawa. Even after playing more than three-quarters of their games on the road, the Bobcats finished with a 4-10 record, which was still better than three other teams.
Nonetheless, there is no environment like a team’s home arena. This is where the people know your name and want you to do well. They follow you on a daily basis through the newspapers, radio and television. You feel close to them and when they come out to watch you, you want to win, and win big.
Not every arena has the same dimensions or playing surface, so home teams can have an advantage over their opponents based on the different field arrangements. For example, many arenas have a different end zone set-up than the TD Waterhouse Center in Orlando. In Orlando, a portion of one end zone is rounded off by the wall, affecting the strategy of some goal-line situations. The Astroturf is also better in some arenas than others.
Playing games in as many as 14 different cities during the season, the ThunderBears will have to deal with being on the road week after week. Traveling is the biggest obstacle the ThunderBears must overcome this season. Football puts a physical beating on your body and nothing can make up for the comfort of having a good night sleep in your own bed. Can you imagine being 6 foot 3 and 250 lbs., cramming into a coach seat on the plane every week? It can’t be comfortable sitting elbow-to-elbow with a bunch of other giant people when every joint of your body aches.
Even though most AFL teams provide their players with all-expenses-paid living accommodations for training camp and the regular season, they’re close to family and friends. They can also get to know the area and have a sense of ownership to the place. Usually, a team doesn’t mind if a player lives with his family during the regular season as long as it does not interfere with his ability to get to practice, meeting and, most importantly, the games on time. However, many of the players choose to stay in the apartments for at least the duration of training camp to get to know their new teammates and to get away from the daily distractions that occurs when living at home.
So you can see what the ThunderBears will be missing by having to play all their games during the 2001 season on the road. They will be in and out of airports, hotels and restaurants all season, while being away from their families and friends for long periods of time. I do think that the one thing the players will really miss though is not having an arena to call their own while not be able to live in one place during the season.
Even if the Thunder Bears are based out of Houston and the players and coaches live and practice there during the week while traveling on the day before the game to the city that they are playing in, it will simply just not be the same. As we all know it is very important to have a place that we can call home.
Note: Thanks to Jeff Foley for providing me with some of the information for this article. Jeff will be releasing a book later this year called "War on the Floor" about his experiences playing for the Albany Firebirds during training camp.
Campbell Blake was a writer for ArenaFan Online during the 2001 season.
