INDIANAPOLIS — After traveling more than 37,000 miles across the country, from the WNBA draft in New York to the All-Star Game in Phoenix, including 20 road games and the playoffs in Connecticut, my adventure five months after Indiana feverThe 2024 season is over.
It was a new experience for me; This was my second year covering Fever, but the first I traveled for it. Where I saw the constant sellout crowds, the seemingly almost always home games for the Fever and their much improved record.
First of all, I have no idea how players managed to get on commercial flights during the first 26 years of the league’s existence. With dawn flights, delays and cancellations, I thought there were times when I would barely have the energy to sit at the press table and watch the game – let alone play 40 full minutes.
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(Thanks to the Denver airport, where I spent seven hours after my flight to Los Angeles was canceled due to an air conditioning problem and I didn’t manage to catch two more waiting flights before take the last flight of the night.)
(Another homage to my flight from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, where we couldn’t land and had to walk around the airport because someone refused to come out of the restroom.)
What these commercial flights showed me was how a charter system was overdue for these athletes.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m very lucky to have had the opportunity to travel the country and cover fever for a living. Very few reporters in the league are able to cover every game in person like I was, and I went to cities I’d never been to before, saw different landmarks for the first time, and visited every WNBA arena.
I was able to see records fall and great games flourish; like when the Fever picked up their first win of the season in Los Angeles after starting 0-5; when Caitlin Clark dropped a single-game championship record 19 assists in Dallas before the Olympic break or when Kelsey Mitchell pushed the Fever to a victory in Dallas with 36 points, extending her franchise record 20 games points or more, on their second trip. after the break.
I also saw some low points in the Fever’s season: notably when Clark ruptured his eardrum and Aliyah Boston injured her ankle in the 36-point loss to the Liberty in New York around the start of the season.
Being able to travel with the Fever also showed me some crucial updates behind the scenes. When Mitchell was injured in the Fever’s final regular-season game in Washington, D.C., I saw her go to the locker room, then return to the bench with a knee brace. I watched as she quickly shook off that double, then jokingly tried to get back into the game as she laughed with her teammates.
It was a first confirmation that his injury was not serious; they kept her out of the game as a precaution. It was also something I wouldn’t have been able to follow if I was watching on TV, which was following the progress of the game (and obviously didn’t have a camera pointed at the Indiana bench).
Although the Fever played 20 away games, it seemed like many of them were just home games in a different arena. Los Angeles and Washington DC particularly stood out as Fever-centric games. The two places that seemed like the realest away games occurred in Chicago and Connecticut during the playoffs – even in those games, however, there were loud cheers for any basket by Clark or of Fever.
The Fever are beginning a new era. One that, with the right parts, practice and experience, will likely bring them a lot of success. In the near future, Indiana could be a force to be reckoned with in the WNBA, and I had the chance to document the start of that journey – in Indianapolis and on the road.
Follow IndyStar Fever insider Chloe Peterson on X at @chloepeterson67.
This article was originally published on the Indianapolis Star: IndyStar’s Chloe Peterson covered Caitlin Clark, Fever every game.
