Due to availability issues associated with respective home venues, a mutual consent agreement between the participating teams has been negotiated which will designate the postseason matchup to be conducted as a rare 2-and-5/home-and-away format. The best-of-seven series will be conducted with Gwinnett hosting the first two games of the series, and the remaining five games to be played on the road.
Normally, as the lower seed in the match-up, the Gladiators would host games 3, 4 and 5 at their home arena. However, due to the lack of open dates at the Arena at Gwinnett Center to accommodate the standard 2-3-2 format, the Gladiators and Cyclones have agreed to a compromise arrangement which secures home ice for two games in Gwinnett to open the series, with Cincinnati at home for the subsequent two games, as well as the remaining three games if necessary.
Gwinnett will open the best-of-seven series against Cincinnati at The Arena at Gwinnett Center with Game 1 on Friday at 7:35 p.m. Game 2 is set for Sunday with face-off delayed until 6:05 p.m. due to offsite parking and shuttle operations conducted in the Arena lot for the Final Round of the Greater Gwinnett Championship/Senior PGA Tour event at TPC Sugarloaf. Games 3 and 4 of the series will be played at US Bank Arena in Cincinnati on Wednesday, April 24 and Friday, April 26. If necessary, the Cyclones will also host the final three games of the series at US Bank Arena. Game 5 (if necessary) is scheduled for Saturday, April 27. Game 6 (if necessary) is set for Tuesday, April 30, while a deciding Game 7 would be on Wednesday, May 1st (if necessary).
"It's a tough situation for us as a team. In a perfect world, we'd obviously like to have the opportunity to play this series in the manner that we earned through the season, securing home ice advantage for two and potentially three games. But our home arena just isn't available for us to do that," said Gladiators President Steve Chapman. "We even looked at playing our potential third home game at one of the local practice rinks, but that alternative presents major logistical and operational issues which simply can't be resolved under such a short turnaround cycle. Bottom line, there are extremely limited options in Atlanta for staging a professional ice hockey playoff game and ultimately, it came down to making a decision that we felt gave us the best chance to advance. As a team, the consensus of opinion was that this was our best option. Although it is not optimal by any means, we truly appreciate the Cyclones willingness to collaborate with us on a reasonable solution."
Following established ECHL Playoff schedule guidelines, the higher seed is designated to host the first two games of the Conference Semi-Final Series between April 19th and April 21 while the lower seed should host Games 3 and 4 as well as Game 5, if necessary, between March 23rd and March 28th. The higher seed should host Games 6 and 7, if necessary, on March 30th and May 1st.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2013/4/260589