Upcoming Halifax home dates moved to Hamilton
Graeme Hossack, Halifax Thunderbirds (Photo: Ryan McCullough)
The Halifax Thunderbirds have confirmed that two upcoming home games that were recently put on pause due to the province of Nova Scotia’s extended restrictions for indoor events, will now be played at the FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton, Ontario.
Games against the New York Riptide on February 4th and the Philadelphia Wings on February 13th (originally scheduled for Feb. 12th) will now both be played in Hamilton.
“We have exhausted all avenues to continue playing in Halifax,” said Thunderbirds President and CEO John Catalano in today’s team announcement. “At this point with scheduling conflicts for the Thunderbirds and other teams across the NLL to be able to finish our season, we have no choice but to play games outside of Halifax. We are extremely disappointed that we will be having to take away games from our loyal fan base. We appreciate our fans' support through these frustrating times.”
The FirstOntario Centre is the full-time home of the Toronto Rock, who this weekend will be playing their second-straight game with no fans in the stands due to Ontario’s own indoor event restrictions. After debuting in Hamilton with one of this season’s strongest crowds in the National Lacrosse League so far (8,043), the team has since been hindered by pandemic-related fears & restrictions. While those restrictions have heavily hurt their ability to generate revenue through ticket sales and other game-day income opportunities, the Rock, like the Thunderbirds today, have opted to play by any means necessary to avoid negatively impacting the NLL’s regular season schedule any further than it as already been.
The Government of Ontario did announce last week that they would begin lifting restrictions starting January 31st, including indoor sporting events. Events with spectators such as sporting events will be capped at either 500 people or 50 per cent seated capacity, whichever is less, Ontario officials confirmed last week.
While today’s announcement by the Thunderbirds did clarify that Halifax fans would be automatically refunded for those previously mentioned dates that were to be held at the Scotiabank Centre, they did not indicate whether tickets could be purchased for their upcoming games in Hamilton.
The NLL issued the following statement regarding the team’s venue change:
“In light of the ongoing restrictions due to the Pandemic in the province, we support the team relocating games to Hamilton, Ontario in order to continue playing the 2021-22 season. We also want to express appreciation to the Toronto Rock and the FirstOntario Centre for supporting the league and providing this solution.”
The Lax Mag has learned that other venues had been looked at by the team, including the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena in Six Nations. The lacrosse-specific arena is owned by Halifax owner & GM, Curt Styres, and regularly hosts NLL team practices, NLL exhibition scrimmages, and a year-long schedule of local lacrosse in the area.
Other teams in the league had also offered their arena as a possible solution for those two Thunderbird home dates.