Soundin' Off

This place is… nothing like I imagined.

The barn is bright, for one thing. Vividly so. The bright comes from white-painted cinder-block walls that stretch maybe 15, 20 feet up to yellow rafters under a silver roof. The vivid comes from greens and blues: light-green ventilation; blue curtains on the windows; alternating light-green and forest-green seats, every other section, 15 rows in most from floor level to the wrap-around concourse, with concessions in every corner. (Was built in the ’70s, you know.) Stand anywhere on the concourse and you’ll still be able to watch the game, like Lowell. But it feels nothing like Lowell.

It’s still cozy. If you’ve been, you know how Binghamton feels a little like New Haven, minus the top 100 rows or so? Just seating-wise, this feels a little like Binghamton, if you cut the top seats off, left the concourse open and had one incredibly big elephant gate between the benches. But brighter. Cheerier. We’ll have to see what it’s like with some anger in the seats, if such arrives. (The downstairs is much less cheery and much less bright and much more peg-on-the-wall. But I digress.)

Five banners hang over seats in the west* end of the arena, white banners with red winged-wheel logos. The first honors AHL legend Glenn Merkosky, though Matt Clackson is wearing his 15. The other four honor their four championship teams in order. For a moment, looking up at the last two, I was an angry kid again. They broke our hearts here a couple of times. The last finals game for a New Haven hockey team? Here, May 16, 1989, after the circus left through that elephant door. The final Nighthawks game ever? Here, April 18, 1992. Those two years stare you in the face. I swore at a few far-away people under my breath and moved on.

The Phantoms brought their Calder Cup banners from Philly, and they hang in the corners, not quite flanking the Red Wings’ banners. They were made for the Spectrum, a much bigger building. They’re huge in here. Not exactly their fault, but still.

Outside, it’s like any other run-down river town in this league, except for the “run-down” part. Parts look old, sure, but well-kept, and there’s a library up the block that looks recent and beautiful; lots of foot traffic on a dreary Saturday. Were it a nicer day, I’d have taken a walk around. (It’s rainy and dismal.)

Nice town. Sorry it took me almost 25 years to get here for a hockey game.

Been here before, though. Cousins have a place in Lake George, and we’d spend some time every few summers in the area when my brother and I were kids. (They themselves have cousins in Trumbull, to make this plausibly local; turns out they’re in Shelton tonight.) Caught the old Glens Falls Tigers of the Eastern League once, in 1987. On the home team’s roster but not chucking that day: John Smoltz. Closest I’d be to a Hall of Famer for about a decade.

—-

Oh, yeah, they’re playing hockey. Just a rotation on defense:

BRIDGEPORT
F: Bentivoglio-Moore (A)-Haley
Smith-Mauldin (A)-Martin
DiBenedetto-Marcinko-Joensuu
Gillies-Romano-Figren
D: MacDonald-Flood
Wotton (C)-Gleed
Kohn-Klementyev
G: Munroe
Lawson

ADIRONDACK
F: Maroon-Matsumoto (A)-Legein
Kolanos-Ross (C)-Laliberte
Nodl-Kalinski-Bellamy
Klotz-Beaulieu-Clackson
(Dingle-apparent scratch)
D: Lehtivuori-Mormina
Marshall-Stephenson
Bourdon-Curry (A)
G: Riopel
Backlund

R: Ciamaga. L: Lemay, Harper.

I had thoroughly forgotten that Pat Bingham coached here. Will have to ask him a bit about the town.

Meanwhile, for the Adirondack perspective on things, here’s Tim McManus’ gamer, full of Greg Gilbert genius: “We don’t shoot the puck,” Gilbert said. “We all think we’re Wayne Gretzkys and Mario Lemieuxs (with) these fancy plays we’re looking for. Put the puck to the net. I guess that’s a hard thing to understand.” Sound familiar?

*-Or west-southwest, or southwest, or whatever you’d call it. The Hudson takes a turn here, as you’ll see if you pop the city into your favorite map/satellite Web site, and the barn kind of parallels that, adjacent to the falls.

Bobby Hughes is out on bail and on his way upstate, if he’s not there already. Howard Saffan (”We stand by Bobby. … We look forward to him getting back on the ice”) said Hughes has an expected court date within a week. Will he then be back with the team? Could depend on what happens in that court date, but it doesn’t sound as if the team will keep him away.

Anyway, they’re playing tonight in Springfield. Joensuu is out sick. Rechlicz apparently has a hand infection that’s keeping him out. Saw Klementyev here, but he’s not playing.

BRIDGEPORT
F: Smith-Moore (A)-Bentivoglio
DiBenedetto-Romano-Mauldin (A)
Martin-Marcinko-Haley
Gillies-Morency-Figren
D: Wotton (C)-Westgarth
Kohn-MacDonald
Katic-Flood
G: Munroe
Lawson

SPRINGFIELD
F: Trukhno-Potulny (A)-Thomas
Linglet-Wiseman-Fretter
Reddox-O’Marra-McDonald
Brennan/Paukovich
D: Arsene (C)-Taylor (A)
Armstrong-Motin
Peckham-Plante
Nickerson
G: Dubnyk
Sorochan

R: L’Ecuyer. L: Colby, Redding.

Edit: Change on Springfield. Guess I gave up on their rushes too soon./Edit2: BTW, Mauldin is starting with Smith and Moore.

Interesting swap on the third line, with Martin playing the left and Haley on the right.

L’Ecuyer usually let them play last year, though he had one or two whistle-happy games.

Meanwhile, Chris Armstrong. Not a whole lot of links to the 21 Finalists floating around this league anymore. (Except, of course, for the one who keeps dominating this league and has been to a couple of more finals.)

You know it’s a good night for a team when you have to work to pick only three stars. DiBenedetto-Lawson-Bentivoglio is a fine choice, but I can’t leave Marcinko out.

Not sure how I could leave Bentivoglio out of mine, either. “Sean Bentivoglio was outstanding,” Capuano said. “He blocked some shots. He scored the short-handed goal. We need to play with heart and desperation, the way Benti played.”

The combination of effort and achievement have to make this the best game of the first 10. Solid effort, hard work on the penalty kill, sacrifice (would love to have the blocked-shot count), and four whole goals.

And they’re on pace for another 48 wins, too.

—

DiBenedetto’s postgamers have been coachspeak to the point of comedy. (Granted, I’m no Edward R. Murrow, neither.) Tried to break him out of it and asked if he was expecting the first goal to be disallowed for some inexplicable reason. He chuckled an “I dunno” and went into the great-feeling-credit-my-linemates bit. We’ll get him eventually.

Capuano said Haskins was held out with an upper-body injury. Kohn and Mauldin were held out after blocking shots. (Yes, even that is a “lower-body injury.”) None sounded too severe. No details on Koskinen, even confirmation that he’s injured, are available at present. Hopefully more in the next couple of days. (They’re off tomorrow as usual after three-in-three.)

Bridgeport scored on four of its first six penalty-shot attempts; the Sound Tigers are 0-for-6 since then.

This ice is coming out for the circus. They’re striking the set as we speak I type.

A nice appreciation of Bill Chadwick. As tweeted, I never heard him call a game (nor, obviously, saw him call a penalty), but I heard all the stories. Last night’s postgame header is in my vocabulary for good.

Look, I laughed when Stirling and Mapletoft said that 7-1 loss seven and a half years ago would be good for them, and exactly four months later I was chilling out in downtown Chicago awaiting Game 5.

So when people start talking about how this 4-0 loss marked an improvement from the one-goal losses of the weekend, I pause a little.

I mean, we spent Saturday night yelling “shoot,” and look at all those SOG numbers, including 11 from the pointmen, 10 from the Single-Digits Line, 12 from the top line.

And none past McKenna.

Romano wondered when his line was going to finish. He and DiBenedetto seem to be around the net at least every other shift, and they have only an assist apiece. Joensuu has those three points but hasn’t looked like Joensuu.

The Haskins line cooled down. The defense has been just OK after a good start.

We knew we were going to be talking about consistency with a young team. Here we go.

“It’s a different team every year. You don’t coach any differently,” Capuano said. “I want them to have success. I can’t fault their effort tonight. If we get an effort like that every night, that’s all I can ask for.”

Perhaps. Manchester looks like a solid team. That’ll be a good test Friday.

—

Mark Flood’s going on waivers would indicate he’s healthy enough to actually be sent to Bridgeport. (Because he was injured during training camp, he technically stayed on the NHL roster and NHL injured reserve.) He would clear Wednesday at noon.

Micheal Haley should be available for the weekend, Capuano expected.

The defense pairs were all over the place in the second half of the game, including a long stretch where Kohn and MacDonald, unusually, didn’t play together. Part of that was penalties, but not all of it.

Attendance was 1,103. Distributed.

Rob Davison wore the other ‘A’, then scored the first goal by going to the net on a three-on-three and getting lost after the play almost broke down. Then he tied up Trevor Smith and prevented him from scoring on a rebound. Then he fought Matt Martin. That’s a pretty good little hat trick right there.

Dean McAmmond is under contract here, by the way, but he did not play.

Heh. The idea of a few diehards sitting in New Shea Bob Murphy Stadium Citi Field waiting for a playoff game makes me smile.

Joe Posnanski makes a good point.

Several important messages from Safety Graphic Fun.

And a nice read about the day Chicago almost flooded from below.

Apologies for the lack of communication. Spent an hour and a half on the phone with the phone company yesterday. Tech support says my line is bad. Maintenance says my line is good. Dollars to donuts says I’ll try something different if changing the jack fails.

Anyway.

Trevor Gillies has been hit with a two-game suspension for his part in the brawl Saturday in Wilkes-Barre. He’ll miss the weekend. Drew Fata received a four-game suspension in the same press release. Haven’t heard what he did.

Joel Rechlicz was in town and skating with Gillies on a shortened fifth line; Pascal Morency was with Haskins and Martin, because Sean Bentivoglio was given a day off, Capuano said. A good day to get a breather. Capuano said the other day he was upset at the conditioning level? At the end of a 45-minute practice, he had them sprinting. Three times, goal line to blue line, goal line to red line, goal line to far blue, goal to goal. That’s about a half a mile of stops and starts in full gear. “I didn’t like our third period,” Capuano said.

Micheal Haley remains out, and since he has a doctor’s appointment on the Island on Thursday, it doesn’t sound all that promising. “Upper body” is the only report.

Meanwhile, Allentown may be a little closer. (HT: Dartmouth writer Tris Wykes.)

And forget Houston. The official unofficial nonlocal local team is Olimpija Ljubljana. I count five Tigers and a Beast.

A couple of weeks ago, maybe, this might have gone differently. Mikko Koskinen wasn’t as comfortable on the North American ice back then.

Um, the kid looked pretty comfortable tonight.

He has things to work on — he mentioned, especially, managing to cover up or get the puck to the corner when it’s in tight — but it was a solid first start, especially in that first 15 minutes, when Worcester could have run away with the evening. The Sound Tigers popped in three goals in a little over three minutes, and that was that.

(Literally. Until the bonus round.)

—

Bentivoglio, Haskins and Martin had a combined one point tonight, and that was Martin’s on the five-on-three, but they were buzzing, forechecking, wreaking some havoc for the second game in a row. “They’ve been good,” Capuano said. “They’re doing the right things at the right times. They understand the system. They believe what we’re trying to teach, and they’re having success. We hope to get more guys on the same page.” Was a little surprised to see they got only four shots to the net.

Eric Boguniecki in the dressing room afterward, visiting the folks, so he visited the boys. He’s still hoping to latch on somewhere.

Thanks to Gerry Cantlon: Junior Lessard landed in Finland with Ilves. And Mark Parrish landed in Norfolk on a PTO.

Lots of systems work this morning, transitions, backcheck to breakout. Good pace. Then as they stretched at the end, Bryan Trottier implored them to shoot the puck and get to the net. He invoked “the biggest goal of my life,” Tonelli to Nystrom, a little pass across as Nystrom went to the net to tip it in. Hard not to get chills listening to that.

Mark Wotton returned to practice, but Tyler Haskins didn’t; Bobby Hughes took his spot with Bentivoglio and Martin today. Jack Capuano insisted it was just an extra day off for Haskins, who, granted, is not all that far removed from hip surgery.

Might be a little out of touch the next couple of days for personal reasons. In the meantime, enjoy Sunday’s Lio.

So the Devils trapped, and the Sound Tigers threw pucks around (did everyone put a pass behind Katic at one point tonight?), and it wasn’t always the prettiest game, but hey, you get a crowd like that (biggest announced crowd ever by five), you give them a win, a lot can be forgiven.

The Bentivoglio-Haskins reunion paid dividends. Haskins came out hitting, they drew a power play, and a pretty power play later, 1-0.

Six power plays later…

Weird first period to watch, that way. The second was a little better. The third wasn’t terrible, but… The ice, only skated on a few times and in a crowded house, couldn’t have been great, especially by the end of the night, and they were being too fancy on it. (At the same time, if Zharkov could have pulled the trigger, he’d have had two or three.)

In overtime, Haskins won a draw, got it to Bentivoglio, who got it back to MacDonald. MacDonald shot as Haskins went to the net. Goal.

Simple won out.

—

A moment of silence for Roy Boe before the game, eight years since he stepped out at center ice to introduce this Sound Tigers team.

Chris Elsberry’s column today is on the Sound Tigers’ on-ice results since 2002.

I never got Nighthawks tickets for reading. Darn it.

The Lighthouse deadline is gone, “and apparently (Charles) Wang’s patience is through, too,” Chris Botta writes. Then the kid went out and scored a goal.

Oh, Louis Robitaille. How you’ve been missed.

And so Bridgeport is tied for first with Springfield (with four former Sound Tigers), Worcester (spoiling Glens Falls’ return) and Manchester (coupla points for Kevin Westgarth).

Back-to-back Bombulie tweets tonight: “Wyatt Smith tips in a Chris Lee point shot as Eric Tangradi crashes the net. 1-0 WBS.” “@fornabaioctp No, the second assist didn’t go to Masi Marjamaki.” Smith finished with two goals and an assist in his first Penguins game.

Two goals for Peter Zingoni tonight.

Jason Krog was named captain of the Wolves.

Austin to San Antonio is about 80 miles. The American Statesman didn’t staff the Stars’ first game. Well, it was Friday night.

If Safety Graphic Fun isn’t in the RSS reader by now, I mean, c’mon.

Wha? OK, second source.

And deepest condolences to Phil Giubileo, whose brother passed away today.

Tomas Marcinko is apparently playing tonight for the Big Club and won’t yet be assigned to Bridgeport.

One mystery solved: The unknown tryout is Jeff Pierce of Odessa. Another not solved: There’s apparently one list of players and line combinations floating around among the Sound Tigers staff, and no one seemed to have it this morning. No names on the back, as usual, so we’re left to guesses.

The most familiar faces appeared in groups: Figren together with Morency, and Nikiforov and Sixsmith together. Jean Bourbeau was out there with Paul Healey, on whom a little more should appear in the paper. Katic did skate on defense; Mark Wotton didn’t, for a doctor’s visit, Capuano reported.

Otherwise, lots and lots of tryouts. There wouldn’t appear to be a lot of room for many of them right away, though 1) this may open the door for a look down the road, and 2) if the Islanders keep coming up with funky injuries, hey, maybe they’ll all be here.

“I thought it was a good opportunity to get on the ice,” Capuano said; skating as just one group because of the numbers, they went for about two hours. Some skating, some battle drills. He wouldn’t take the who-looked-good bait: “It’s not a day to evaulate,” Capuano said. “As players, when you did practice, you remember what it was like to be a player. You just want to get out, skate, shoot, pass.”

(On first days, I’m always reminded about Greg Cronin’s joke: Some guys are “first-day Tarzans, 10th-day Janes.”)

Elsewhere, Justin Bourne on Nathan Lawson.

Had something here; was concerned about provenance, took it down. If it’s accurate, it’ll be out soon enough.

Elsewhere…

Fantastic 1953 film, Here’s Hockey, as seen on Uni Watch (where Paul Lukas leads into the link with “ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod,” quite fairly). After watching that, check out Roch Carrier’s The Sweater, essential viewing.

Tom Gulitti talks with John MacLean.

Onetime Wolf Pack standout and AHL MVP Derek Armstrong is going to St. Louis and, Dave Eminian reports, probably Peoria.

Terry Gregson took over the NHL officials earlier this week.

Shaun Hannah resigned as coach of Sacred Heart.

And lots of Beatles stuff floating around; it’s fantastic. WDRC-FM was playing albums tonight; how often do you hear “Misery” and “Anna” on the radio? (Apologies for the volume as I drove by, suburban dwellers.) Have I ever plugged Alan W. Pollack’s “Notes On” series here? Outstanding work…

The Sound Tigers are showing off their Twitter and Facebook accounts. While you’re socialistically networking or whatever, if you wanna swing by our Twitterpation and maybe even the not-even-semi-official Facebook*, too, that’d be cool. There may actually be interesting things posted there again soon.

BTW, Twitter reminds me: Joe Franke won’t be back as equipment manager. Matt Broyles will take over. SPOILER: He was with Quad City last year. So it’s a whole new support staff.

Meanwhile, as Ray pointed out, Chris Botta reports that Luke Sellars received an AHL tryout offer. Honestly, the most interesting thing about this to me? Check out where Sellars played last year.

The Flames are going retro. Sweet.

More Paul Kelly stuff, this time from David Clarkson via Tom Gulitti. … and now this report from Tim Wharnsby that says Kelly read a transcript that he wasn’t supposed to read. (It also furthers the “peek”/”peak” problem that makes me wish nobody used either word.)

And finally, informative and/or funny stuff from Safety Graphic Fun, You Don’t Say and Language Log.

*-I set up that Facebook page a long time ago under a different Facebook system… the whole “fan” vs. “friend” thing escapes me. If you can’t actually “friend”** me there, shoot me an e-mail and I’ll try to “friend” you. Unless you don’t want to “friend”*** me. I’ll deal.
**-I prefer “emfriend.” I am surely alone.
***-”Apu friend me good.” (1F10)

Seats quickly, please. Here’s today’s draw sheet…

(Click for the draw sheet cover)

…when “today” is defined as “Aug. 15, 1990.” It’s the first Volvo International to be played here in New Haven.

(Schedule for Aug. 15, 1990)

We’ll be gone for the day long before eventual champion Derrick Rostagno plays, so get your kicks now. (Aw, did I spoil it?) I’m thinking it was Svensson who started walking around and wound up getting me in trouble when I bolted for a seat. Yeah, blame him. That’s it.

(The singles draw)

Wish I had found this two weeks ago. Could have brought it and had Lendl sign it. (Had Crash sign it, I mean. Girl wasn’t even born yet.)

The back cover advertises cars that “start at a very affordable $19,185.” This inflation calculator says that’s about $30,000 in 2007 dollars. As affordability goes, your, um, mileage may vary.

Real, modern tennis news resumes later, possibly in 140 characters or fewer on that Twitter thing (which provided hosting for these scans). We’ll see.