Valkyries could be forced to celebrate championship on practice court
· Yahoo Sports
The Golden State Valkyries might end up in the awkward position of having to celebrate a historic championship win at an auxiliary gym.
The Valkyries secured a 3-2 series lead against the Dream on Monday, beating Atlanta 64-55 at home to bring Golden State one win away from winning a championship just two seasons into its existence. However, if they pull off the win on Thursday, the celebrations might not take place in the traditional setting of the court the winning team secured victory on. They could be at a practice court instead.
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This is according to ESPN's Ramona Shelburne, who was on Monday's NBA Today to discuss the ongoing scheduling mess that the WNBA faces for the Finals. While the Atlanta will continue to host every Finals matchup at State Farm Arena, an over-17,000-seat arena where the Atlanta Hawks play, the trade-off is that they'll have to play Game 6 at 12:30 p.m. locally (that's 9:30 a.m. for those in California) and will have to quickly move out of the arena for the full-time NBA tenants before their scheduled 8 p.m. local tip-off. This scheduling crunch has already happened with Game 4, where teams and media were basically rushed out the door after the postgame interviews finished.
This was done to avoid hosting a Finals game at the Dream's normal home: the 3,500-seat Gateway Center Arena in College Park. As a result, any possible Valkyries celebrations will have to wait.
"That championship celebration may not actually be on that court," Shelburne said on a television appearance. "I've heard there are discussions about whether there's enough time to turn the arena over in time for the fans to celebrate on the court. It could be moved to like a practice court... Look, 12:30, you just do the math.
"And what do you want to do, tell people to wrap up your celebrations so we can get the Hawks game started?" Shelburne added. "It's not a great option, but it's the option they've chosen."
A championship was always going to mean making history for Golden State. But, in potentially hoisting a championship trophy at a practice court, it seems like there will be some history that might not be as worth celebrating.
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This article originally published at Valkyries could be forced to celebrate championship on practice court.