Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images(CHICAGO) — Another streak is coming to an end for Chicago sports teams. Every November, the Chicago Blackhawks and Chicago Bulls, both tenants of the United Center, vacate the arena for two weeks for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Now, according to the Chicago Tribune, that will no longer be the case.
After this season, the circus will not return to the United Center. In addition, Disney on Ice, which forces the teams to take another long road trip in February, will be condensed to one week beginning in 2018.
The end of the road trips should have a positive effect on the two organizations, according to Terry Savarise, senior vice president of operations for the United Center.
“The reason we’re doing this is twofold,” Savarise told the Chicago Tribune. “One is that in future years the Bulls and Blackhawks no longer have to endure two two-week road trips, and a subset of that is that those trips had resulted in a compression of our home schedules. There were times when you’d have four home games in a one-week period, which fans didn’t like.”
The Blackhawks have a 14-3-2 record over the last three “circus trips,” while the Bulls have gone 23-78 since Feb. 1998.
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