Sports

Backe ‘surprised’ Red Bulls game not moved due to storm

Despite their own coach broaching the possibility of tomorrow’s Red Bulls-DC United playoff game being cancelled, and Hans Backe expressing surprise MLS hadn’t done so already, spokemen from both the team and MLS insisted the Eastern Conference semi will kick off as scheduled despite a storm expected to hit at the same time.

“I’m a little bit surprised the league (decided to) stick to an 8:21 kickoff, instead of moving it perhaps to 2 or 4 p.m. in the afternoon,” Backe said today. “What I’ve had heard it will peak around 8 p.m. with rain, wind perhaps snow. Then the game would have to be cancelled and played on Thursday.”

With many in the area still without power due to the impact of Hurricane Sandy, another storm is expected tomorrow. And while it won’t be nearly as bad, the high winds could well be an issue.

Official policy states that in the regular-season, if a game is interrupted by weather and doesn’t resume that calendar date, a partial result can stand. In the playoffs, if a game is interrupted, it will resume from that point at another date.

Refs have been instructed to at least interrupt the game for safety reasons if they see and/or hear lightning, but they would evaluate the situation with league and local officials and it could resume after a delay.

“If the storm is that bad, I mean if it peaks around 8:20 when we start or 9 p.m. – I don’t know how had it will be but the talk is it will not be as bad as the last one but still be a bad storm. Normally the worst thing is to play when it’s windy, absolutely the worst.’’

Sandy forced the teams to flip-flop the first leg, with the Red Bulls tying 1-2 at RFK Stadium on Saturday with their home field unplayable. A team spokesman insisted that the game would go on as planned, though, with no cancellation.