FRIDAY FEATURE: Idle Firebirds Spread Their Wings In Hershey

FRIDAY FEATURE: Idle Firebirds Spread Their Wings In Hershey

HERSHEY, Pa. - After the Coachella Valley Firebirds closed out the Western Conference Finals on the road in five games last Saturday night, they had a decision they needed to make. And quickly.

Fly back to Palm Springs, California and the Pacific time zone and await the conclusion of the Eastern Conference Finals (Cleveland's Game 5 win over Hershey that same Saturday night extended the series to Monday's Game 6) or fly to Hershey, Pennsylvania and get acclimated to the Eastern time zone in advance of a potential Calder Cup Finals match-up vs Hershey (who had a 3-2 series lead at the time) which would see that series begin in Hershey mid-week.

"With the logistics of the American Hockey League, and flying a charter is not something we do ever or very often and having lost game 4 we had to make a plane that was gonna go somewhere on Sunday and if we lost game 5 it was going back to Coachella Valley for Game Six and playing Milwaukee in Game 6," Firebirds head coach Dan Bylsma explained to InsideAHLHockey.com after the team's practice at Giant Center Thursday afternoon.

"We were also waiting for (Cleveland/Hershey)'s Game 5 to end as we were ending our game. And if they won the game we're starting here on Wednesday. It didn't happen, but you know odds are most likely that the team that goes up three-nothing in a series is going to win the series."

So on Sunday, the Firebirds flew from Milwaukee to Hershey with Firebirds staff in attendance at Giant Center watching both Games Six and Seven.

Avoiding jet-lag and the quick turnover between the Conference Finals and Finals rounds - just one day - also "was part of it."

"The decision of going back to California and flying two hours back and waiting and then have to fly here three hours this way. We would have to.. we'd be flying [Thursday] because we had to wait for Game 7, so we would have had to scramble and fly today to get here for a game tomorrow. That doesn't make a lot of sense. So we flew to Hershey and had a beautiful time in Hershey PA for five days," Bylsma said of detailing the logistics of the Firebirds' early trip to Hershey.

Coachella Valley and Cleveland were reportedly staying at the same hotel during the end of the Eastern Conference Finals, and from what I've been able to gather if Cleveland had won Game 7 on Wednesday the two teams would have shared the charter flight to Palm Springs for Game 1 Friday out in California.

Some last-second logistical decisions aside, the Firebirds did what was best to have their players in the best position to be ready for the Calder Cup Finals. It shouldn't go unmentioned the added costs incurred by Seattle for chartering their AHL team in the air and keeping them in Hershey for an extra five days instead of at home.

So, what did the players do with their spare time in central Pennsylvania?

"It was kind of a unique situation, but it's just kind of the nature of business," Andrew Poturalski said of the team having several extended breaks during the playoff run. "We came here and we ended up renting an Airbnb like 45 minutes away that fit the whole team, so we all  got out there. We cooked a big team dinner pretty much like we're a big family - everybody was chipping in cooking different things. And yeah, we had like a sauna and a cold plunge at the place, which was pretty cool."

Poturalski added that the team was able to do some fishing and get outdoors, as well as watching the Stanley Cup Final games.

"You know, to get away from it for a day to mentally reset and then you know last two days right back to business focusing on the job in front of us and getting going I think it was actually a pretty, pretty productive week we made the most out of it and it was a unique situation but we had fun and now we're ready to go."

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