Quad City Sweeps

Sometimes, you have to hand it to whoever is making up the schedules for teams in some minor-professional leagues because they certainly must be sadists. If you've been following the SPHL this season, you know they have a brand-new expansion team in the Vermilion County Bobcats who play out of Danville, Illinois. Just as we see with most expansion teams, there are ups and downs in their first season with the hopes of being competitive throughout the season, but the SPHL schedule makers are apparently here for their own amusement at the expense of the Bobcats.

The Bobcats have opened this season with an 0-6-0 streak that doesn't include two games against Peoria back on October 15 and 16 that were postponed and a game that seemingly disappeared from October 26. I'm not kidding - the game against Evansville is shown on the Vermilion County schedule, but it officially was never played nor does it show on the SPHL website. Odd, right? It's like the game was simply pulled off the schedule without explanation.

Anyway, what makes these six games rather unique is that Vermilion County has played just two teams thus far in the season - four against Quad City and two against Evansville. It's highly unusual for any team to open their season with four of six games against one team, but the SPHL isn't made of money so most of the games are two-in-a-weekend sets against the same team. But four already against Quad City does seem a little heavy for an expansion team.

The scores in those games were all in favour of Quad City - 3-2 on October 23, 5-2 on October 30, 4-1 on Halloween, and 8-1 on November 6 - as the Storm officially swept the Vermilion County Bobcats if this were a playoff series. The season series, though, hasn't finished after these four games. We still have NINE more meetings between these two squads! Imagine playing a 56-game season and seeing one team 13 times in that season. Can you imagine the hostility?

What makes the early part of Bobcats' schedule even more crazy is that they've only scored six goals thus far, and all six have been scored against Quad City. The Evansville Thunderbolts have two wins against the Bobcats, and both cam via shutout as the Thunderbolts won 4-0 on October 29 before downing Vermilion County 5-0 on November 5. Evansville netminder Brian Billet is a perfect 36-for-36 in terms of stopping shots from Vermilion County to this point in the season, but he won't get to see Vermilion County again until January 7. That might be for the best as far as the Bobcats are concerned.

The Bobcats will get a shot at breaking out of their Quad City-Evansville universe this weekend as they play the 0-2-4 Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs who have shown an ability to score, just not win. In an 11-team, 56-game season, Vermilion County has to beat the teams of whom they're within striking distance, and Roanoke is one of those teams. The only other team that they can either tie or pass with wins this weekend is the Macon Mayhem, and they only see them twice on March 25 and 26. Needless to say, the Bobcats need a few wins before those dates come to pass.

Minor-pro hockey always has some weird schedule quirks, but if Quad City makes the playoffs on the strength of a 13-0-0 record against the Bobcats this season, there may have be discussions about evening out the schedule for a few other teams. Having 23% of a team's schedule against a vastly inferior opponent seems a wee bit off.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!