Sunday's serving . . .

All was quiet on the WHL playoff front Sunday. And all eyes will be on Spokane on Monday night where the Chiefs have earned the opportunity to oust the defending Memorial Cup-champion Vancouver Giants. The Chiefs, thanks to a 4-0 shutout in Vancouver on Saturday, hold a 3-2 edge in the Western Conference semifinal with Games 6 and, if needed, 7 in their home building. Game 7 would be played Tuesday night.
As you no doubt noticed, both road teams won on Saturday night, the Chiefs victorious in Vancouver and the Calgary Hitmen posting an 8-4 series-clinching victory over the Broncos in Swift Current.
So . . . what’s with the road teams having such success in the playoffs?
Going into Monday’s game in Spokane, the road team boasts a 35-28 record in these playoffs, which works out to a .556 winning percentage.
During the 2007-08 regular season, the home team was 441-351 (that includes overtime and shootout losses as losses, period), a winning percentage of .557.
In other words, the role has been pretty much reversed for the playoffs.
Sheesh, five teams that appeared in these playoffs didn’t win so much as one home game. The Chilliwack Bruins, Everett Silvertips, Kamloops Blazers, Medicine Hat Tigers and Moose Jaw Warriors went a combined 0-12 on home ice.
Still, if you play all season for home-ice advantage in the playoffs, shouldn’t it mean more than it apparently does?
Of course, the five teams that remain alive — Calgary (3-3), the Lethbridge Hurricanes (5-1), Spokane (3-1), the Tri-City Americans (4-1) and Vancouver (3-2) are a combined 18-8 on home ice.
So maybe it’s just a case of their being too many pretenders in the playoffs. Maybe it’s a case of what some people see as parity really being mediocrity.
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Of course, the winner of the Vancouver-Spokane series will meet Tri-City in the Western Conference final. The Eastern Conference final will feature Calgary and Lethbridge. . . . An educated guess would have those two series opening Friday in Kennewick, Wash., and Calgary, with Shaw Cable following the Hurricanes and Hitmen. . . . Those are just educated guesses, though, and not official.
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JUST NOTES: Vancouver F Mitch Czibere wasn’t on the bus when the Giants left for Spokane on Sunday. Steve Ewen of the Vancouver Province reports that Czibere suffered an undisclosed injury in Game 5 on Saturday and “won’t return this series.” . . . The Giants also have lost C James Wright, who sat out Games 4 and 5. He, too, stayed home with an undisclosed injury. . . . The Medicine Hat News is reporting that D Jordan Bendfeld, the captain of the Tigers, has been told that he won’t be signed by the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes, who selected him in the fifth round of the 2006 NHL draft. Bendfeld, who can play in the WHL as a 20-year-old next season, had 25 points and 160 penalty minutes in 72 regular-season games.