Playoffs start tonight!

March 26, 2014

The half a week between the regular season and post-season is slightly shorter than the past two years’ interminable waits for the playoffs, barely enough time to get any playoff beard started.

But the Spiders are (hopefully) ready to make their sixth consecutive AHA post-season appearance. And first as neither a first nor last seed. The Spiders’ third-place finish in the regular season put them in the middle of the pack for the first time in Spider playoff history.

After improvnig on their regular season finish (12–7–1–0; 25 pts.), the Spiders hope to improve on last year’s playoff results, where they went 0–2–1, getting a lone point in the tie with the Moose in the first round robin game.

First up for the Spiders, the C3 West division champion Nighthawks (14–2–3–1; 32 pts.).

The last time the Spiders played the Nighthawks was a pre-dawn game on sandpaper ice in Bloomington in the 2011–12 playoffs. The Spiders won that one 3–2, the only win of that post-season.

Get ready, Spider fans, it’s time for grooved ice surfaces, unlucky pucks, indifferent officiating, and at Summit beer, on Sunday no less. It’s AHA playoff hockey!