The New York Liberty’s road game against the Dallas Wings was postponed Thursday and moved to Monday night after a charter flight problem left the Liberty stranded on a tarmac for 12 hours. Tipoff at College Park Center in Arlington, Texas, is set for 7 p.m. CT.
That is why liberty vs wings is drawing attention now: the delay changed the calendar immediately, and Dallas had to rework its day on short notice. The Wings turned a gameday shootaround into a practice after learning shortly before midnight Wednesday that the Liberty were having plane issues and the game could be affected.
Pauline Astier, who posted on Instagram story around 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, said that after 10 hours the team’s plane was still sitting on the tarmac. Assistant coach Kristen Mann gave the same picture in a post of her own, saying the team had spent nine hours on the plane and gone nowhere. The Liberty remained in New York on Thursday, then were scheduled to fly to Indiana on Friday before Saturday’s game against the Fever.
The WNBA said the postponement was tied to mechanical issues with the Liberty’s charter flight, not weather, even as storms were disrupting travel in both Dallas and New York. Heavy rain and thunderstorms in north Texas led to hundreds of flight delays on Wednesday, and the Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Dallas Love Field. Thunderstorms also swept across the greater New York City area late Wednesday afternoon.
Dallas coach Jose Fernandez said, “We saw this type of stuff in college,” and added that he believes “you control what you can control.” He said, “Sometimes chaos is good (to test) how you respond to it,” and later said, “I thought these guys really responded.” The Wings now face a compressed stretch, hosting the Los Angeles Sparks on Sunday before playing the rescheduled Liberty game on Monday night. Broadcast details for the game were still being finalized.
What still hangs over this is the simplest unanswered question: what exactly failed on the Liberty’s charter flight and left the team sitting for 12 hours. Until that is clear, the postponement reads less like a weather story than a reminder that even charter travel can stop a team cold.
