On Thursday the Worcester Railers announced their regular season schedule for the 2019-20 season. Their season is scheduled to begin Saturday, October 12th, hosting the Adirondack Thunder. Fans of the Railers that enjoy seeing their ECHL North Division rivals won’t be disappointed as 62 of Worcester’s 72 game slate will be against those foes.
With the Manchester Monarchs folding after the the upcoming season’s schedule was almost completed it was a certainty that the games that would have been played against Railers closest opponent would be then switched to other divisional opponents, and that’s exactly what the ECHL did.
Worcester will play the Maine Mariners 18 times (9 home/9 road), the Adirondack Thunder 14 times (7/7), the Reading Royals 13 times (7/6), the Kelly Cup Champion Newfoundland Growlers nine times (5/4), and the Brampton Beast eight times (2/6).
In non-division games, the Railers will face off both against the Jacksonville Icemen and South Carolina Stingrays two times, once each home and road. Worcester will also host the Indy Fuel, Allen Americans, Atlanta Gladiators, and Norfolk Admirals. It will be the first trip to the DCU Center for Indy, Allen, and Atlanta.
On the road the Railers will visit the Greenville Swamp Rabbits on the same trip it faces the Stingrays and Icemen.
The home slate at the DCU Center has the Railers playing nine times on Friday, 13 times on Saturday, and nine times on Sunday. There are five mid-weeks games, with four on Wednesday and one on Thursday. One of the Wednesday games is on November 13th against Reading at 10:30 in the morning as Worcester holds another “Hockey in Education” game. The Thursday game fellows that contest. A second Wednesday game is the day before Thanksgiving.
The schedule itself is a good one for Worcester, especially considering the circumstances. The longest home stand is four games, which ticket sales folks will tell you is a good thing. But three of them include three-in-three weekends, which those same folks will say isn’t that great.
Three of Worcester’s home games, October 27, November 24, and December 15, are opposite New England Patriots games.
The longest road trip the Railers have is five games, which they do twice. The first isn’t even much of a road trip as it’s the standard Adirondack to Reading “mad dash” weekend sandwiched between two trips to Maine. The February trip is a true road trip as Worcester starts in Reading and then goes to the southeast for four games in Florida and South Carolina.
As for other mad dashes the team will need to make, the first is in late October with an overnight bus ride from Glens Falls, NY to Brampton, Ontario, which is just over six hours. In early January Worcester will leave Reading, PA on Saturday night to head home to face Jacksonville Sunday afternoon, a trip that takes about five and a half hours in good weather.
When you consider how far apart some of the ECHL teams are, just having three long bus rides during the season isn’t bad at all.
As has become my tradition, I like to take a guess at how many nights the team will be spending in hotel rooms. In the WorSharks era I had it down to a science, the fact they generally had very few made it a lot easier of course. Year one of the Railers I missed by a lot, but last season I was once again almost exactly on the money.
So using lots of complex math, and by “complex math” I mean just kind of guessing, it looks to me as if the Railers will be spending 26 night in hotels.
OCTOBER
SAT 12 ADIRONDACK 7:05 p.m.
FRI 18 MAINE 7:05 p.m.
Sat 19 @Adirondack 7:00 p.m.
Fri 25 @Adirondack 7:00 p.m.
Sat 26 @Brampton 7:15 p.m.
Sun 27 @Brampton 2:00 p.m.NOVEMBER
FRI 1 NEWFOUNDLAND 7:05 p.m.
SAT 2 ADIRONDACK 7:05 p.m.
Fri 8 @Adirondack 7:00 p.m.
Sun 10 @Adirondack 3:00 p.m.
WED 13 READING 10:05 a.m.
THU 14 BRAMPTON 7:05 p.m.
Sun 17 @Brampton 2:00 p.m.
SUN 24 ADIRONDACK 3:05 p.m.
Tue 26 @Maine 7:00 p.m.
WED 27 NEWFOUNDLAND 7:05 p.m.
FRI 29 NEWFOUNDLAND 7:05 p.m.
SAT 30 INDY 7:05 p.m.DECEMBER
Wed 4 @Brampton 11:00 a.m.
Fri 6 @Newfoundland 5:30 p.m.
Sat 7 @Newfoundland 5:30 p.m.
FRI 13 MAINE 7:05 p.m.
SAT 14 MAINE 7:05 p.m.
SUN 15 READING 3:05 p.m.
WED 18 ALLEN 7:05 p.m.
Fri 20 @Brampton 7:15 p.m.
Sat 21 @Brampton 4:00 p.m.
Fri 27 @Adirondack 7:00 p.m.
SAT 28 MAINE 7:05 p.m.
Mon 30 @Newfoundland 5:30 p.m.
Tue 31 @Newfoundland 2:30 p.m.JANUARY
Fri 3 @Reading 7:00 p.m.
Sat 4 @Reading 7:00 p.m.
SUN 5 JACKSONVILLE 3:05 p.m.
FRI 10 ADIRONDACK 7:05 p.m.
SAT 11 NEWFOUNDLAND 7:05 p.m.
SUN 12 READING 3:05 p.m.
Tue 14 @Maine 7:00 p.m.
Sat 18 @Adirondack 7:00 p.m.
Sun 19 @Reading 5:00 p.m.
Mon 20 @Reading 3:00 p.m.
Fri 24 @Maine 7:15 p.m.
SAT 25 MAINE 7:05 p.m.
SUN 26 ADIRONDACK 3:05 p.m.
FRI 31 READING 7:05 p.m.FEBRUARY
SAT 1 READING 7:05 p.m.
Tue 4 @Maine 7:00 p.m.
Fri 7 @Maine 7:15 p.m.
SAT 8 ATLANTA 7:05 p.m.
SUN 9 NEWFOUNDLAND 3:05 p.m.
Sun 16 @Reading 3:00 p.m.
Wed 19 @Jacksonville 7:05 p.m.
Fri 21 @Greenville 7:05 p.m.
Sat 22 @Greenville 7:05 p.m.
Sun 23 @S Carolina 3:05 p.m.
FRI 28 BRAMPTON 7:05 p.m.
SAT 29 S CAROLINA 7:05 p.m.MARCH
SUN 1 READING 3:05 p.m.
SAT 7 READING 7:05 p.m.
Sun 8 @Maine 3:00 p.m.
Tue 10 @Adirondack 7:00 p.m.
FRI 13 MAINE 7:05 p.m.
Sat 14 @Maine 7:00 p.m.
SUN 15 NORFOLK 3:05 p.m.
WED 18 MAINE 7:05 p.m.
SAT 21 ADIRONDACK 7:05 p.m.
Wed 25 @Reading 7:00 p.m.
Fri 27 @Maine 7:15 p.m.
Sun 29 @Maine 3:00 p.m.APRIL
FRI 3 MAINE 7:05 p.m.
SAT 4 ADIRONDACK 7:05 p.m.
SUN 5 MAINE 3:05 p.m.
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