The first Game 7 of thee 2012 Ray Miron Presidents’ Cup playoffs will take place on Thursday night in the Turner Conference Finals when the Fort Wayne Komets host the Missouri Mavericks.

The Mavs won the first two games of the series, both in Fort Wayne, and the Komets won Game’s 3 and 4 in Missouri before the team’s held serve on home ice splitting Game’s 5 and 6.

The Komets are the top seed in the Turner Conference and the Mavs are the #3 seed.  Wichita is awaiting the winner as they have already won the Berry Conference, four games to two, over the Texas Brahmas.

Thursday’s showdown will be the first Game 7 of the 2012 playoffs and the 30th in CHL playoff history.

There have been five Game 7’s over the past two post-seasons, including last year’s Finals, and the road team has surprisingly fared well going 3-2 in those Game 7’s.  Last year, there were only two with the road team winning both (Colorado over Rapid City in the Turner Conference Finals and Bossier-Shreveport over Colorado in the Presidents’ Cup Finals).

Overall, the home team is 19-10 in previous Game 7’s with 11 of the 29 games being decided by one goal (five in overtime).

The Mavericks have never played in a Game 7 but they have faced a deciding game twice in their brief history winning Game 3 in their best-of-3 Opening Round series against the Mississippi RiverKings in 2010 and beating the Wichita Thunder in Game 5 of their best-of-5 conference semifinals in 2011.

The Komets lost their only deciding game they have played in their two season in the CHL falling to Rapid City last season in Game 5 of their best-of-5 conference semifinals series.

Komets goalie Nick Boucher has played two Game 7’s with the Komets winning both of them (2008 and 2010).

All of Thursday’s action will be available on CHL-TV!