It seems that whenever the Red Wings go to San Jose you can expect things to get a little bit weird.
A power outage at HP Pavillion in San Jose is putting tonight’s Sharks game against the Red Wings in danger. The Red Wings had their morning skate at the arena canceled and now it’s up in the air as to whether or not tonight’s game will even happen. At 11:40 am Eastern time, the power to the arena went out and engineers have been working on the problem all day to get things together.
David Pollak of Working the Corners says that should they get things fixed, the condition of the ice won’t be a problem if the power is out less than six-to-eight hours. Red Wings forward Kris Draper informed XM Home Ice that the teams would be notified by 6:30 pm Eastern whether or not there will be a game tonight. 6:30 would make it about seven hours since the power went out so the time frame makes sense.
Pollak also mentions that the Sharks and Red Wings have seen a postponement once before in their history.
You have to wonder about that though since arenas are kept cold to keep the ice in good shape and an arena without power is an arena without any refrigeration. Players hate skating on bad ice and having a rink that’s been sitting warmer than usual all day long is begging to have terrible ice. Even giving things the OK now, or anytime before 6:30, if the ice is going to be any good is begging to have a bad game out of both the Sharks and Red Wings. Both teams thrive on playing quickly so giving the fans a watered down product (no pun intended) is questionable.
It’s unknown as of yet how or when the teams will reschedule the game should the game be called off. At the very least, having a power outage at the arena gives me the opportunity to link you to a more than appropriate song (title-wise) by Scorpions.
