The "CPC Curse": Fact or Fiction?

Friday night, the San Antonio Rampage will kick off season number twelve in the Alamo city. In those twelve seasons, the franchise has had more tough luck seasons than not, which makes it that much harder to watch that franchise 90 minutes north, in Cedar Park, have such great success so early on. Stars fans come to San Antonio by the car loads. They shout “STARS” during the national anthem and freckle the crowd of black and white with “Stars green”. And quite frankly, they leave the arena happier than the fans that outnumber them far too often for my liking.
   
This doesn’t even take into account the “nightmare” of Rampage games in the Cedar Park Center. It seems that no matter how good the Rampage are, and no matter how bad the Stars are, it’s a foregone conclusion that the visitors are going to leave the Austin suburbs as a defeated group.

But why is that? Places like the old Boston Garden and Notre Dame Stadium have (or had) been around for decades. The thought of leprechauns under the floor or Jesus statues blessing the field really aren’t that far fetched. Not to hardcore sports fans who have seen the impossible happen in those buildings while their favorite teams come away empty-handed.

But the Cedar Park Center is less than five years old. What possible curse, hex, voodoo, or ghosts could possibly exist in a place so new? Maybe it’s not a curse or hex or any of those things.

 
Often times, numbers can paint a better picture than emotional thinking. Fun with numbers:

Overall Record                                                    Head to Head
   
Stars                                             @SA                                     @CPC
09/10: 99 pts (3rd)                          3-3                                        5-1
10/11: 92 pts (7th)                          2-2-1                                     4-1       
11/12: 67 pts (14th)                        1-3-2                                     4-2
12/13: 97 pts (1st)                          5-0-1                                     5-0-1

Avg Pts: 88.75  (6th)                      11-8-4                                   18-4-1   

Rampage
09/10: 84 pts (10th)                       3-3                                         1-3-2
10/11: 87 pts (10th)                       3-2                                         1-1-3
11/12: 87 pts (6th)                         5-1                                         2-1-3
12/13: 67 pts (14th)                       1-4-1                                      1-5

Avg Pts: 81.25  (10th)                   12-10-1                                  5-10-8
 

To put it in the simplest terms possible, there are two very distinct reasons it might seem like the Rampage are cursed when they play in Cedar Park.

1)    The Stars have just been a better team in their 4 year history than the Rampage over the same time period.
2)    The Rampage have lost 8 out of 23 games played in CPC in OT or a shootout. Those losses will always sting a bit worse.


One more crazy number to consider; in this same time frame, the Rampage were 8-14-2 in Houston. In other words, they netted the same amount of points (18) in both Houston and Cedar Park between 09/10 and last season. Yet, no one talks about the "Toyota Center Curse".

It’s easy to point at the record, without context, and think the team is “cursed” in a specific building. It somehow justifies the lack of success in some ways. But if you remove emotion and fandom from the equation, it’s pretty clear to see that the Rampage just haven’t been very good; especially away from the ATT Center.

Hopefully, for my sanity’s sake, there’s only one way to go. Up.