So the pre-season games were announced yesterday, and now the team has announced five regular season home dates, including the home opener.
October 14th will be the home opener, although I think it’s a little late to be a season opener. So we’ll probably open somewhere on the road the previous weekend. The opponent has not been announced yet, but there is a ticket pre-sale going on….you can go to milwaukeeadmirals.com for more info about that. (The Pre-sale is done now. You missed it!
Other announced home games include games Monday December 26th and Wednesday the 28th. Those Christmas-break games traditionally have some great crowds, and the high school hockey tournament usually goes on during that week too. Saturday November 12th and Saturday January 27th are also guaranteed home dates.
So Roundtable….last year we had a plethora of Friday and Sunday home games, and just a handful of Saturday games, thanks partially to the Bucks schedule. With the NBA season in jeopardy, that may even things out a bit. Do you prefer games on Saturdays compared to Fridays and Sundays afternoons?
Note: February 26th is the Daytona 500…..if there’s another home game conflicting with the race, I’ll reach out to Todd from (the re-designed) Milwaukeehockey.com for his annual comment.
Admirals Roundtable 
I prefer Saturday because its a lot easier to make the game for me. The weekday games are tough getting there in decent time from work. Pushing them back by a half hour later again would help, but I know that isn’t popular. The first few months conflict with football on Sunday. Even with the Bucks in years past the Ads were able to work out Saturday games, that’s gone down significantly in recent years.
I know most of the die-hard regulars hate when there’s large crowds of people who do not posses hockey etiquette (i.e. waiting for whistles to get up). And I agree with that, it bugs me when people think they can stand up in your line of sight and have a discussion with their friends about what they want to drink or eat all while play is going on. With that said, the atmosphere of the game is usually better with larger crowds. Saturdays are generally a better draw in terms of getting people in the door, so I’ll say I prefer Saturdays as well. The Admirals have done a good job of getting people in on Fridays too! The one day I hate having games on is Sundays. Too much other stuff on Sundays. It won’t keep me from attending the game though lol!
Friday games are ok if they started at 7:30 as Bugs stated. I first have to travel north to get home, leaving work at 4:30, get home by 5, quick put some Admirals swag on, travel farther north yet to pick up the kids and carpool down to save on parking. I have to come into Milwaukee and make the trek from the county line on 45 all the way to the Zoo Interchange which starts to snarl up from Silver Spring south due to rush hour. It’s worse when there is rain and especially snow. Usually get down there by 6:15 on a good night, get something to eat and drink and basically the game starts. I could really use that extra half an hour. Saturday games rock because we can leave earlier and make a night out of it by stopping at Goolsby’s, Center Court, Buck Bradley’s, etc. prior to gametime.
As creed mentiones large crowd atmosphere is great but as he said not enough of them know much about hockey which make for some annoying things like comments, in a 1-0 game that both teams are playing hard and goalies standing on their head, “god this is boring” or “why was there a whistle”. Weekdays are great! Usually small crowds you can enjoy the game and not have a pile of people to maneuver through in the concourse during intermissions. My wish is the people who help pack the bc were as informed as some fans for nhl teams, like boston, chicago, or detroit, but I know that won’t happen. Just excited that hockey is coming soon!
Our home opener is also late… October 15… the best part of that it’s the same night as the annual October NASCAR Sprint Cup race right here in Charlotte. BRILLIANT scheduling by the AHL gods…. that race has over 100,000 people at it…. it’ll certainly cut into the Checkers attendance. (Of course, on a personal note, my main employer is ALSO opening their season with a performance that night… don’t people know that hockey trumps work, too? Unfortunately, I will have to be at work…)
My site re-design is far from complete (the history pages will take awhile), but thanks for noticing.
I probably won’t complain on the site when the schedule is soon released, but for those keeping score, the Admirals have held a home game during 11 of the last 15 Daytona 500 Sundays.
Why are we even concerned about NASCAR? It’s not even a sport. If I want to watch somebody drive in a circle a bunch of times, I’ll go camp out by a roundabout.
There are probably just as many crushes at a roundabout too.
If you look at the crowd at the Bradley Center (and the surrounding parking lots), you’ll see evidence that a lot of racing fans also enjoy hockey. Scheduling a game against the biggest NASCAR event of the season is costing the team ticket sales. The situation with having a Checkers game during the October race in Charlotte is an even bigger mistake by the league’s schedule makers.
Crashes, not crushes…sorry
The Admirals could give the Merks cheese a makeover for race day. Make the Cheeses look like NASCAR Car’s. This way you could have both.
Last year’s home opener was Oct 9. In 2008, it was Oct 18! I like Saturdays, but Sundays are OK.
Too bad the NBA hasn’t cancelled yet. It’d be nice to get some of those Saturday games back. I agree with frontrow too about the lack of info from some fans, but they can learn. Let’s get the schedule out and get the season started.