Lynx Will PLay Post Season at Williams Arena

[Ignatius L Hoops]

http://www.gophersports.com/sports/w-baskbl/spec-rel/072717aaa.html

The Minnesota Lynx will play all potential 2017 WNBA Playoffs home games at the University of Minnesota’s Williams Arena. The Lynx have won three WNBA titles, most recently in 2015. Last season they made their sixth WNBA Finals appearance under head coach Cheryl Reeve. The team is moving from the Xcel Energy Center, its temporary home during Target Center’s renovation, to accommodate the Minnesota Wild preseason schedule and other events.

"We are excited to partner with an amazing organization like the Minnesota Lynx and be a small part of its postseason run by hosting the team's postseason games at Williams Arena," said University of Minnesota Athletics Director Mark Coyle. "Williams is one of the most historic and unique venues in all of basketball, and our programs know it creates one of the greatest home court advantages in the sport. With the stands filled with dedicated Lynx fans, the Barn will provide a home court advantage like no other for what we hope will be another WNBA championship run for the Lynx and the entire state of Minnesota."

 

[Ignatius L Hoops]

http://lynx.wnba.com/news/minnesota...s-arena-home-potential-2017-postseason-games/

One other note:

In order to secure the maximum comfort and experience for Lynx fans during the 2017 WNBA Playoffs, the Lynx have accepted the financial responsibility of temporary air conditioning systems at Williams Arena.

Too bad it's temporary and too bad they can't redirect some of it to the Pav for early season volleyball.

 

[Shades]

Hate this. Have any of you sat through a Lynx game at Williams, even with "temporary AC"?

 

[fanfromthevalley]

The last "temporary" AC for the Lynx game versus the Monarchs would have been ok if someone at the U hadn't turned the specially added ventilation fans off the night before the game. It's not ideal, but we can make it work. Thought they'd worked out the schedule issues with the Xcel arena for playoff time, but apparently not! I feel for the ticketing folks who are going to have to figure out where to assign season ticket holders in comparable seat locations.

 

[Ignatius L Hoops]

http://www.startribune.com/reeve-un...r-playoffs-vows-to-make-most-of-it/437024063/

Cheryl Reeve is "frustrated" by the move.

As far as a Plan C goes, Williams Arena is a very good option for a basketball team.

Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve said as much Thursday in reacting to the news that her basketball team will play the 2017 postseason in Williams Arena on the U of M campus.

On general principle, though, another venue change has Reeve frustrated.


“No, it’s not OK from the standpoint that it sucks we’re in this position,” Reeve said after practice Thursday, before the 17-2 Lynx prepared to fly to Atlanta for a game Friday. “But what we do as women is we’re resilient. Unfortunately, we find ourselves in these situations often.”

 

[overpass]

It's just kind of strange that the Lynx played semifinal games farther into the Wild preseason there last year but this year they aren't able to? I'm shocked this wasn't planned for before the X agreement was made.

 

[oak_street1981]

Hate this. Have any of you sat through a Lynx game at Williams, even with "temporary AC"?

It would be nice it they could just put down the floor in Mariucci Arena and play there. My recollection is that there are HS sectional games played there at times and it is a pretty good basketball arena as well.

They could probably squeeze 11,000 in there if they pot some seats on the excess floor areas, and it is a high tech state of the art building relative to Williams Arena at least. Maybe they want to get in a few thousand extra at Williams and think the crowd could be a big factor with the sound reverberating at Williams, capturing some of that Whalen/ McCarville NCAA magic when UCLA and Kansas State went down hard at Williams.