No home edge? Goudie not worried

So Richmond didn't earn home-ice advantage for the first round of the playoffs against Fayetteville. Does that make any difference to the local Southern Professional Hockey League club?

"We won 13 games on the road and 14 games at home, so you do the math," said Richmond coach Brian Goudie. "Are we a road team or a home team? It doesn't really matter, does it? All the pressure is on the home team. That's the way I look at it."

Fourth-seeded Richmond was 14-9-3 at the Coliseum and 13-13-0 on the road. The No.3 FireAntz were 14-9-3 at home and 11-10-5 on the road. The best-of-three, first-round series begins Friday in Fayetteville, N.C., and returns to Richmond for Game 2 on Saturday night (7:35).

Game 3, if necessary, will be Tuesday in Fayetteville.

"You go in there Friday night and beat them, who's the pressure on then?" Goudie asked. "Fayetteville's ice surface is the same size as our ice surface. It's not like we're going to Jacksonville or Knoxville, where the rinks are different [sizes]."

The Renegades were 5-7-0 vs. Fayetteville this season, including 2-4-0 at the Cumberland County Crown Coliseum. Both of the wins came in overtime. Richmond was 3-3-0 against the FireAntz at the Coliseum.

"It's no big deal," Richmond defenseman Dan Vandermeer said. "You've got to win on the road if you're going to win in the playoffs. It doesn't matter right now whether we're starting at home or away. The boys are ready to go."

The winner of this series faces the winner of another first-rounder between No.2 Jacksonville and No.5 Twin City. The other first-round series is a best-of-five matchup between top-seeded Knoxville and No.6 Columbus. The winner of that series advances to the President's Cup final.

Gades increase average attendance

For the second consecutive season, the Renegades finished second in league attendance, but the numbers were up for the second-year club.

Richmond averaged 3,902, thanks in part to a franchise-record crowd of 6,819 on Saturday. Fayetteville averaged 3,931 for 26 dates.

Allan B. Harvie Jr., president and general manager of the team, said the attendance would help him "break even" this season after losing money in the inaugural year.

"I would certainly like to see more, and I don't understand why we don't have more, with a city and surrounding area of a million and a half people," Harvie said. "We almost doubled up in advertising this year and we got after a lot more groups."

The Renegades averaged 3,419 a year ago, which was well behind Huntsville's 3,914. The league average fell from 2,985 in 2006-07 to 2,969 this season.

Legal aide Miss Renegades winner

Alexis Feldt, an aspiring lawyer, was the winner of the first Miss Renegades contest Saturday night. The 23-year-old VCU graduate student and legal assistant beat out six other entrants, who competed in evening gown and swimsuit competition between periods of the game against Twin City. -- John Packett