Regardless of which team wins Friday night’s Eastern Conference final between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Boston Bruins, the Vancouver Canucks’ superior regular-season record has already assured them home-ice advantage for the Stanley Cup Final – and that is a bit of a problem for the folks at Rogers Arena.
The home arena of the Western Conference champs was originally scheduled to host two concerts next week: British rock band Supertramp on Wednesday and hip-hop artist Bruno Mars on Friday. The NHL was forced to schedule around these events.
The arena was able to bump Supertramp to another date to allow for the Final to begin on Wednesday as planned, but the Bruno Mars concert will force a two-day break between Games 1 and 2, which will now be played Saturday night.
The NHL prefers to schedule a two-day layoff between Games 2 and 3 as the teams must change cities, but this scheduling conflict will give the teams just one day off to travel. This shortened break will be especially taxing in this series, as Vancouver is more than a 2,500-mile flight from both Boston and Tampa Bay.
The Bruins have already had their playoff schedule interrupted by stadium events on multiple occasions — the quarterfinal series with the Canadiens had to be scheduled around Lady Gaga and Rush concerts at the Bell Centre, and Game 2 in Tampa was delayed by a day to make room for Disney on Ice Presents Toy Story 3 at the St. Pete Times Forum.
Here’s the full Stanley Cup Final schedule, as of Friday (all times Eastern):
Game 1: Wednesday, June 1 — Boston/Tampa Bay at Vancouver, 8 p.m. (NBC)
Game 2: Saturday, June 4 — Boston/Tampa Bay at Vancouver, 8 p.m. (NBC)
Game 3: Monday, June 6 — Vancouver at Boston/Tampa Bay, 8 p.m. (VERSUS)
Game 4: Wednesday, June 8 — Vancouver at Boston/Tampa Bay, 8 p.m. (VERSUS)
Game 5*: Friday, June 10 — Boston/Tampa Bay at Vancouver, 8 p.m. (NBC)
Game 6*: Monday, June 13 — Vancouver at Boston/Tampa Bay, 8 p.m. (NBC)
Game 7*: Wednesday, June 15 — Boston/Tampa Bay at Vancouver, 8 p.m. (NBC)
*If necessary
