Halifax Hurricanes hope playoff success will put fans in seats

The Halifax Hurricanes are hoping to parlay a strong regular season into a long playoff run and an NBL championship.

The Hurricanes tip off against the Island Storm from P.E.I. in a best-of-five series starting tonight at Scotiabank Centre.

• Halifax Hurricanes continue to win games but not fans

"We had some goals we wanted to meet and we met our objectives, but that's out the window because it's a new season starting now," said Hurricanes general manager Andre Levingston.

"Teams are gearing up and ready to play against us. The P.E.I. series will be very tough and we're looking forward to it."

The Hurricanes won a league high 29 games in the regular season and finished four games ahead of second place Saint John in the NBL's Atlantic Division.

"I think every team has been really gunning to beat us," said Hurricanes forward Mike Glover. "So we have to come in with the mindset that we need to be 10 or 15 points better than each team we play."

Last season ended in controversy

This is the Hurricanes' first season. The team was completely rebranded from the old days of the Halifax Rainmen.

Only one player on this year's team played for the Rainmen last year when they advanced to the league final.

Cliff Clinkscales remembers how the season ended in controversy when the Rainmen players decided not to play in the final game due to security concerns after an altercation with their opponents, the Windsor Express.

"Last year, what happened was very unfortunate but that's in the past," said Clinkscales, who played his college basketball at DePaul University in Chicago.

"I'm worried about this year and the championship is still a long way from now. We've got to take it one game at a time and one series at a time just to get there."

Even though they were the top team in the league during the regular season, the Hurricanes have still struggled to land a consistent fan base.

1,150 attended per game

Levingston is hoping a strong playoff showing will solve that problem.

"We anticipate with the good run we had in the regular season, hopefully the fans will come out and support us for this run," he said. "We're really looking forward to opening up on Thursday night."

The team says average attendance, based on turnstile count, was 1,150 per game this season.

Game 2 in the best of five series will also be played at Scotiabank Centre on Friday night, with the series switching to P.E.I. for Game 3 on Sunday.