About That Schedule...

I stopped by the LEC today to talk to Coach Ruskowski about the 2008-09 schedule, among other things, and let's just say he isn't too thrilled by what the CHL put together for his team this season.

Many of the topics we discussed will be addressed in my story in tomorrow's Times. But, of course, some quotes didn't make it to print, so here's a little bit more of what he had to say:

On starting the season at home - “I’d prefer to play on the road, but I guess we’ll have to play at home. We’ll do what we have to do.”

On being on the road for the holidays - “It's very unfortunate that had to happen. I feel that Thanksgiving is a time to be with your family, and certainly for the birth of Christ, you want to be home and stay with your family and celebrate it with your family. It's very unfortunate that we have to be on the road for that.”

On one-game trips to Odessa (March 6 and March 26) - “We play at home, then we go all the way up to Odessa and play one game, then come home. We do that twice in March. Right at the end of the season, that's very tough. What you want to do with a schedule is have the least amount of travel you can, especially if it's a tight race and every point is very important to you. You don't want to be in a situation where you're tired or whatever, so that's another situation I'm not very happy with.”

On the team's first three-game weekend (October 24 at Rio, October 25 at Corpus, October 26 vs. Rapid City) - “That's not as bad. You're talking about getting home at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, then playing the next day. That's not awfully bad; it's almost acceptable.”

All-around, it seems the team is not too thrilled with this season's schedule for the aforementioned reasons and because there will be seven home games following which everyone has to pack up and hit the bus to head out for a road contest.

I'll have a notebook running in Monday's paper with more about the schedule, Ruskowski's opinions about the announced players and more about a few other topics.