Snowbears' foe drilled from start

The Utah Snowbears' first road trip didn't go as planned — it didn't go at all.

The Snowbears were scheduled to take on the Calgary Drillers in Alberta, Canada, tonight and Wednesday in the tipoff of their inaugural season in the American Basketball Association, but complications on the the Drillers' end of the deal mean the Snowbears will start the season at home Friday.

The Drillers were to be the opponent in Salt Lake as well but will now be replaced by the Visalia (Calif.) Dawgs, a team that was originally slated to begin play next year. The missed games should be made up later in the season.

Snowbears' owner and head coach Ike Austin said Calgary had problems securing a venue to play in, while ABA league president Joe Newman blamed it on difficult travel arrangements.

Austin is facing the setback from a practical point of view. "It's frustrating but that's what the league is," Austin said. "It's a developmental league, and you have to be ready to adjust."

Austin called having another team on tap to fill in for the Drillers "a luxury."

Newman said, despite Calgary's problems, the team will still compete in the league this year.

"Calgary didn't pull out. Calgary will have a different schedule, making it easier for teams to get to Calgary and making it easier for Calgary to travel down into the U.S. to play," he said.

The difficulty in scheduling was something he knew was going to happen, Newman said.

"The reality of the situation is, once they all got their schedules and started booking their travel and their ability to get to games, we knew we'd have to make some adjustments and that's what we're doing," he said.

The Dawgs will take over all of the Drillers' scheduled games, freeing Calgary to play an adapted schedule that will be posted Wednesday or Thursday, Newman said.

Newman calls the scheduling shenanigans a byproduct of the rapid expansion of the league, which had seven teams last year and now has 37, at last count.

"It's just what happens when you grow a company or a league as fast as we did, you just deal with that. It is uncomfortable and there are problems, we'll deal with it. It's just that no league has ever grown like this."

Try to keep the league's growing pains in perspective, Newman said.

"Who has more problems, President Bush changing an entire Cabinet, or me changing a schedule in a basketball league?" he said.

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E-mail: RBurton@desnews.com