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  Tuesday, Jan. 25 7:30pm ET
East Coast snow affects sports schedule
 
  GAME UPDATE

A snowstorm that blanketed the East Coast and the Carolinas forced postponement of the New York-Washington NBA game and the Phoenix-Carolina NHL game Tuesday night.

Knicks, Wizards reschedule
WASHINGTON -- Tuesday night's game between the Washington Wizards and New York Knicks at the MCI Center was postponed due to heavy snow in the Washington area.

The game was rescheduled for Wednesday, March 8, at 7 p.m. ET. Tickets for Tuesday night's game will be honored then.

The Wizards are scheduled to play in Toronto on Wednesday night, while the Knicks travel to Atlanta for a game Friday night.

It is the second postponement of the season for the Knicks, whose game at Charlotte on Jan. 14 was called off because of the death of Hornets guard Bobby Phills.

Philadelphia Park and the Meadowlands also canceled their racing cards Tuesday because of snow, and the Stony Brook at Loyola, Md., basketball game was also postponed.

The storm, which dropped 2 feet of snow in some areas of North Carolina and South Carolina, also forced postponement of seven college basketball games scheduled for Wednesday night.

The North Carolina State-Clemson game and Maryland-North Carolina game were set back to Thursday night.

Twenty inches of snow fell Monday night and Tuesday in Chapel Hill, site of the Maryland-North Carolina game.

In Clemson, S.C., site of the game between No. 21 N.C. State and Clemson, travel was nearly impossible along the border of the two states.

A state of emergency declared by Gov. Jim Hunt prompted Carolina general manager Jim Rutherford to call the NHL and ask that the game be postponed.

"The governor has told people to stay off the road and you don't want to jeopardize safety," Rutherford said from his home, where he was snowed in.

No make up date was scheduled.

The Villanova-Pittsburgh game scheduled for Wednesday night was also postponed and will be made up Thursday.

Villavova's team was unable to fly from Philadelphia on Tuesday because the airport was closed for much of the day and most airlines canceled all service.

The Army-Navy, Howard-Morgan State, James Madison-North Carolina-Wilmington, and Winston-Salem State-Virginia State games scheduled for Wednesday were also postponed.

Phoenix will try to get to Atlanta on Wednesday for its game against the Thrashers at night, but Raleigh-Durham International Airport was closed.

"We're trapped like rats," Phoenix coach Bob Francis said. "We're three miles down the road (in a hotel) from where we should be playing and we can't play."

Francis said he would like to play the game.

"I'm not crazy about the whole scenario," Francis said. "We didn't skate Monday because we spent all day traveling from West to East, so you lose the hours and the ability to skate and then today we haven't skated. We will have been off the ice for 48 hours and we'll have to step right into a game situation."

Rutherford, who was a goaltender in the NHL for 13 seasons, said he was involved in a postponement once as a player in Detroit. He said he also played games in which snow prevented all but a few hundred fans from attending.

"It was almost like having a scrimmage," he said. "It really shows how important the fans are to making the game exciting."

Phoenix returns to the East Coast one more time this season for games at Montreal and Toronto on consecutive nights.

"It is probably going to put us in an unfortunate predicament down the road as far as the schedule is concerned," Francis said. "You only come out East so often and there are only so many places to plug games in."

The Knicks-Wizards game was rescheduled for March 8.

 


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