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Snow storm forces RBNY-D.C. United postponement to Thursday

The New York Red Bulls-D.C. United Eastern Conference playoff semifinal set for Wednesday night was postponed due to the snow storm that hit the area. The match will now be played on Thursday at 7:30pm (NBC Sports).

Major League Soccer officials made the decision to postpone the match after failed attempts to control the field conditions and keep snow off the field.

To accommodate the change, MLS has also decided to move the first leg of the Eastern Conference final from Saturday to Sunday.

What do you think of the decision?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. This won’t abate my support for DC United, but from now on I have better things to do with my time than watch MLS games that do not involve United or look at MLSSoccer.com, and I have better ways to spend my money on products or services from MLS sponsors that do not support DC United.

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  2. A screwup by MLS. I wonder if NYRB had agreed with DCU to play the game if MLS would have still canceled it? I think not. As it is, I can’t think that the 700 DCU will all be able to stay an extra day. This puts the winner of this series at a significant disadvantage against Houston (who has at least one extra day of rest in a short schedule).

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  3. Trecked to the game tonight as well. Traffic sucked getting there,back home even worse. Should have called the game hours, or days earlier. The entire thing was a huge fustercluck, and it need not be. I think this one falls at the feet of MLS, not so much the Red Bulls. Now who do I talk to to get the parking money refunded? Not to mention the beer, hot chocolate, and the pretzel.

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  4. And by the way, I’m not going tomorrow and I would guess I’m not alone in that decision. The players who’ve worked their tails off deserve to play a home playoff game in front of their fans. They can blame management for an empty stadium tomorrow

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    • That second leg home playoff game in front of their fans was already taken away from the team that worked their tail off to earn it…and that was before the Benny hill music started up tonight.

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  5. Agree with everything said above. It was amateur hour at its finest. By not calling the game this afternoon, they not only wasted a lot fan’s time, but put them in harm’s way. I trekked out to this game knowing that it was insane to do so. But after calling the Red Bulls three times today only to be emphatically told the game will be played, I thought, ‘well, I’ve waited all year for this and im not missing it.’. I knew something was horribly wrong when I saw 18 office clerks shoveling the snow off the pitch. If this league wants to be taken seriously, they need to take themselves seriously. Do you think the NY Giants would have 18 dudes in sambas shoveling snow? No, they would have machines and an army of maintenance guys. It was a shameful performance by management, both club and league

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    • DING DING DING… WE HAVE A WINNER!

      Best Comment EVER.

      How often would fans like to show up for a game and have it cancelled, because that’s going to happen in the winter in places like New York, New England, Philadelphia, Columbus, Chicago, Denver, Salt Lake.

      I guess we’ll just play all the games in Texas and California from November to March.

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  6. If all of this was happening to Red Bulls fans, I somehow don’t think MLS would have continued to make these decisions. Also, I’m sure they could find some shovels at RFK.
    Backe didn’t want to play so the attempt to remove snow was halfhearted. Anyone watching could see that. And magically the field is unplayable.
    How will DC or its fans get screwed tomorrow. We’ve had two storms, a couple of bad decisions and of course one screw up by Andy Najar. I’m generally a Garber fan, but this whole debacle is just garbage.

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  7. MLS looks totally Busch League on this one. They should have called it hours before and didn’t they instead made all of the fans come out and sit in the cold for an hour to do the inevitable. I was there. It was a joke watching them try to clear the field.

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    • That is what REALLY upsets me the most, having the fans think the field conditions would’ve been sustainable for gametime. I’m not a DC fan, but they really screwed the fans with this one (Red Bull fans too), every major news broadcaster said tonight would be rough with ATHENA the blizzard coming into town tonight.

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      • Pissed me off the way they promoted it on Facebook as if it was going to be equal to the NFL’s IceBowl and after I got a bunch of friends to turn it over to it to give it a chance, they go and cancel it and just confirm what Gridiron Fans thing of our “girly” sport.

  8. Guarantee you all the fans that made the trip from DC would have loved to help shovel that field and get on with the game. Hans Backe knew DC had the advantage and energy tonight. He demanded the game be delayed while Ben Olsen was cool as a cucumber.

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  9. I don’t understand how a professional team owned by a multi-billion dollar company in a quarter billion dollar stadium has a dozen guys with shovels as a snow removal method. This isn’t Miami, it’s been known to snow in New York on occasion.

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    • Good call Northzax. You beat me to it. Spending that much on such a beautiful stadium, one would think an extra couple of mill wouldn’t have been such a big deal for heated coils underneath the pitch to avoid something like this…

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      • Mickey Mouse is what the Red Bulls are as an organization, but I can attribute this to lack of sufficient amounts of gas in the state of New Jersey right now…

      • The stadium has under soil heating. Not sure why they didnt use it. Might have not made a differen e anyway. Snow in NYC this early is actually pretty uncommon btw.

      • The field is heated. Hot air can be blown through the drainage system. Look up SubAir systems if your curious. It doesn’t melt snow though. It just prolongs the growing season for the turf. Which doesn’t grow on the south end anyway because it doesn’t get sun. So they bought grow lights, but you need tons of them on almost constantly for them to be effective. So they end up replacing that half of the field (at exorbitant cost) 2x per year. Maybe that’s why they can’t afford a training center.

    • It was obvious, don’t the MLS leaders watch weather updates before games? Forecasters projected heavy snowfall from the incoming “Nor’easter” . The eastern seabord has been very difficult for games let alone the fans in the area.

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  10. League handled this terribly. They knew the forecast. Should’ve either played the game or postponed it much earlier. Shameless pandering to the Red Bulls and further terrible treatment of the DC fans.

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    • I agree that this was poorly handled by the league; but, how was this shameless pandering to the Red Bulls? Do you think the Red Bulls wanted to play before a largely empty stadium under horrible weather conditions?

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      • No they clearly didn’t, but DC did. It was clear with the interviews with Olsen and Backe. Backe was afraid to play and Olsen and DCU wanted to get on with it. I understand cancelling the game for weather conditions, but if so it should have been done this afternoon when the snow started and before 700 United fans came up for the game.

  11. Good decision but they should have made it this afternoon when it first started snowing hard. It was clear this game was going to be cancelled.

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