The NA3HL South Division Playoff Format is Broken

UPDATE: After publishing this post, the league has rescheduled the series to have all three games in El Paso.

ORIGINAL: The 2022 Fraser Cup playoffs begin this weekend in the NA3HL, and a glaring issue has presented itself in the South Division. With a big run at the end of the season, the Oklahoma City Ice Hawks climbed to second place in the division and will host the El Paso Rhinos.

As such, OKC earns the right to host game one at home. The issue comes in where the NA3HL allows the lower seed to host game two, and game three returns to the higher seed.

For a division like the East Division, where travel is only a few hours between teams, it makes sense. For the South, not so much.

Where this format breaks, is there is no protection for longer road trips. The way the NA3HL schedule reads now, game one starts in OKC at 8:30p Central. At the conclusion of the game, both teams then head to El Paso – an eleven-hour bus ride at minimum – for a 7:05p Mountain (8:05p Central) start.

While the trip between games one and two is manageable, should the series be split and force a game three, both teams are expected back in OKC for an 11:00a Central start for game three. Meaning, best-case scenario, the teams will have about 12 hours to load the busses, drive 11 hours back to OKC, unload, and be back on the ice the next morning.

Doable? Feasibly, should everything go exactly right. Safe? Extremely debatable, as you now have two overnight bus trips. And all it takes is an overtime game to throw the entire schedule out-of-whack.