Farcical Reschedule For KC-Colorado To Oct. 21st

Today the teams announced that Saturday's postponed game will be played on Wednesday. Oct 21st at 6:30pm Mountain.

Honestly this whole postponement turned into a comical mess where KC played the Rapids (and presumably the league) to get exactly what they wanted.  Almost every MLS postponed game is played the next day.  That's what Pablo was expecting:

"Everyone else (with a postponed game) has always played the following day," Mastroeni said. "I (wasn't) even thinking that it's an option not to play the following day."

To be fair that's not entirely true, there are MLS games that get delayed beyond the next day, but they're few and far-between.

KC had an obvious incentive not to play Sunday.  They were very beat up and they have a game on Wednesday night.  By delaying until October they get all season to get healthy.  They also get a favorable schedule in the final week.  Friday @SJ, Wednesday at home in the make-up game, and Sunday at home against LA.  Meanwhile Colorado does get a bye the weekend before but then they play Wednesday in KC and Sunday in Portland for the final two games of the season.  I'm sure when we get to that week we'll get lots of talk about how the "schedule did no favors" to the Rapids, much like we did last month during the NY-LA trip, without any comments that the schedule wasn't to blame, the desire by the other team to mess with our schedule was.

The league promoted how they are having everyone play a conference opponent on the final Sunday of games and to have all those games kick off at the same time.  Coincidentally they also made sure not to schedule a mid-week game leading into that which allowed every team to have equal rest.  Now that's out the window for these two teams but especially for Colorado who has to travel for two games.

Both teams had June 13th and 14th off and Labor Day weekend off.  Why the league didn't step in and tell the teams to use one of those weekends is beyond me.  KC may have shied away from the June date as its an international weekend and Kc would be expected to be missing players, but that's why they shied away from playing on Sunday as well.  At some point somebody (the Rapids FO or the league) needed to tell them no, you don't get to veto every date.

Its also been reported that MLS's new postponement rules do not apply as the game never started.  Had they applied both teams would have had to use the same 18-man roster they submitted for the game.  That would have been an advantage for the Rapids as KC was a weakened side this past weekend and may have balanced out the travel issue.  While we will now be allowed to use Doyle and any other players added, I would have gladly traded not using Doyle for the number of players KC would have had to leave out.

Playing on Sunday would have been the right thing to do both for the competition and the fans who traveled from Denver.  They spent a lot of money and time to travel to support the team and the decision by KC not to play left them with nothing.  I hope Sporting is taking care of them, its the least they could do for their decision.

In the end this looks like another example of the Rapids taking one on the chin for another team.  First it was the NY game being moved and forcing us to play on both coasts in a 72 hour period.  Now its KC using the weather as an excuse to chicken out of playing us in their weakened state and moving the game to an advantageous position for them.  At some point it would be nice to see some evidence the Front Office is fighting for this team, even if they're losing.  At the moment it appears they're happy to bend over backwards to help out any other team.