Quote:
Originally Posted by Sylvanfan
Even two days to get from Edmonton to Portland on a bus is tough. At the minimimum, they'll fly to Vancouver or Abbotsford, and bus it the rest of the way I'd think.
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The WHL doesn't allow teams to travel by air. I'm not sure if that changes for the Finals but you'd almost think it has to.
EDIT: Looks like the finals are flight by charter but teams are forced to bus during the regular season and first three rounds.
Quote:
It was situations like that which brought in the “no fly” rule to the Western Hockey League.
It’s a bus league until the league final when both teams are mandated to fly unless the bus trip is less than eight hours (or especially the two and a half hour run between Cranbrook and Spokane).
“It was a commitment all WHL clubs made to protect the business model we put in place,” said WHL commissioner Ron Robison.
“We have significant discrepancies between size of markets with Swift Current, Prince Albert and Kootenay playing in a league with Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary.
“We needed to put in controls on major expense areas so there would be no competitive advantage in series between small market teams and big market teams.
“In the years before we put them in, we’d gone a few years when it was a gentleman’s agreement, but there was a need to institute hard and fast rules to force them to respect one another and be fair to the players.
“We agreed on bus travel for the first three rounds and to charter teams to the conference final and Memorial Cup,” he said of the agreement in 2002.
“We wanted both teams to fly to series games in our final so the winner would best be able to compete when they got to the Memorial Cup.
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http://www.edmontonsun.com/2012/03/3...oys-on-the-bus