'We'll be playing hockey, where?' UPDATE - They're playing game 5 in Fredericton

Generally, a good rule of thumb for scheduling a playoff series is making sure the arena doesn't have a prior booking.

Somehow, the Moncton Wildcats, who are certainly not strangers to playing into springtime, did not do this while setting the schedule for Round 2 against the Halifax Mooseheads, who are up 2-0 going into games 3 and 4 this week in the Nova Scotia capital. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the the 'Cats and owner Robert Irving having made no secret of wanting a new arena to replace the aging Coliseum. It just happens. Year after year.

Long story short, if Moncton wins at least one of the next two games to force a Game 5, they'll be hosting it, just not at the Coliseum, which is already booked.

From CBC:

In the long view, few can disagree that the Moncton Coliseum's best days are behind. The city is surely losing a share of the sports and entertainment dollar to nearby Saint John, which has the newer Harbour Station arena. (Moncton and the province are also in a jam fiscally, though, so there's probably higher prioirities than a sports and entertainment centre.)

The short view, though, is that is incumbent upon a major junior team and the league it belongs to work know when/where it will play games. That seems more responsible than publicly posturing that it has no idea with fewer than 72 hours before the potential game.

Coincidentally, Moncton's opponent, Halifax, didn't play a single game in its home barn in the first round. Scotiabank Centre was booked for the world men's curling championship. The Mooseheads moved their three games against Shawinigan to the Halifax Forum and won the series.

As for as contingency plans go, the Wildcats aren't up a creek sans paddle. They would need an arena that can accommodate a TV telecast as well as video replay and othe off-ice officials. The arena at Université de Moncton only holds about 2,000 fans, but there are also two good out-of-town options in Saint John's rink. The University of New Brunswick's Aitken Centre can hold about 4,000 fans, enough for a second-round playoff game.

UPDATE - City Council held an emergency vote at 5 P.M. local time in Moncton, and they voted 6-3 in favour of a $125,000 payment to allow the Wildcats to play the potential game 5 at the Aitken University Centre in Fredericton.

The team said they will honour any tickets already sold for game 5 if fans wish to use them. If not, they will be given the equivalent credit.

The Moncton Wildcats will let fans know when tickets go on sale in Fredericton.

Additional information shows the City of Moncton, and not the Wildcats, might have messed up, as part of the lease the Wildcats share with the city was posted to twitter by CBC's Jacque Poitras.

This booking issue is a yearly one, and the city and the team battle tooth and nail to get the best dates available for the Wildcats and also for the money-making exposition events, which come around during playoff time.

The first round against Chicoutimi had to be booked around the Moncton Boat Show, for example, so game 1 of that series was Thursday and game 2 was Sunday, even though every other series went Friday-Saturday.

In 2009, Moncton's home games in a series between the Rimouski Oceanic and the Moncton Wildcats were held at the J. Louis Levesque Arena on the campus of Université de Moncton.

The section of the lease above shows that the city has to make dates available for the Wildcats for playoff dates between March 15 and May 31 each year. That provision, as noted by Poitras above, could be why the city is paying $125,000 for the team to play in Fredericton, and why the team doesn't have to pay their own way.

Of course, Moncton still has to win a game. If they don't play game 5, no one pays. -Mike Sanderson

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.