Archive for May, 2006The long week continuesThere’s a seventh game in Portland-Hershey, a series that looked over in the second intermission Monday night. And there’s not even a fifth game in Milwaukee-Grand Rapids, with a team that’s just dominated since its parent club got knocked out. And just when the momentum looked to have swung, Drury’s boys hang on to take a lead. Anybody seen a Bluefish box score? It’s the only thing keeping me here… Begin the long weekSpringfield announces its coach today. Sounds like we’ll be interested. (Afternoon update: Yup, it’s official. Steve Stirling is the Falcons’ new coach. Good to see him back behind a bench.) Keep them funky nicknames comin’ below. I just remembered another of mine, one that fits my MO pretty well: Victorb Zambrano. It keeps getting truer that the ‘B’ is for bargain. So over at the Worcester Land Sharks’ Web site is a piece that basically lists Worcester’s opponents– presumably the tentative list that’s set up now, so teams can (at least attempt to) horse-trade for a month. What’s most striking about it? Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barre don’t see Worcester. Houston and San Antonio are the only Western Conference teams on the Land Sharks’ docket. There was at least some talk about getting teams to play more clubs… Guess not. The 1988 Bears can break out the champagne: No one’s going unbeaten to Calder this year. And crackdown or no crackdown, I only hope that double-overtime hooking penalty was a doozy… But hey, Hershey’s back on the horse, so… Sweden wins; Bergenheim gets a bronze… Took a peek back at this post the other night. I mentioned bringing British Invasion CDs for the Game-5 trip? Well, one that I did was Vol. 3. After the accident, they found the case and the notes… but not the disc. Replace it? Well… After checking out the prices on Amazon, I’m starting to wonder if I should have insured the CDs instead of the car… One song on that CD that I could be playing in tribute right now: Do the Freddie. RIP. BRAKE TIME: All five Brakettes draft picks have advanced to the NCAA Super Regionals. Florida Atlantic has not, so Brakettes manager John Stratton should be on his way back north shortly… And a win for a local at the tracks this weekend; John Kurtzman of Norwalk won the X-Modifieds race Wednesday at Waterford Speedbowl, taking over the early points lead. Give a hoot: Read a book!*Since I’ve thrown one down on the comments to the last post… You have any nicknames for people, places or, particularly, players that make absolutely no sense to anyone else? A few years ago, my Dad and I were watching a game… must’ve been a Devils game, because I’m pretty sure Chico Resch was the broadcaster in question. He said “Teemu Selanne,” and it came out “Timmy Slaney.” Dad and I were looking for the little Irish guy on the wing. We have never said “Selanne” again.** Last weekend, I was in the car during Saturday’s Mets-Brewers game***. The Brewers walked Chris Woodward intentionally; later, Woodward came around to score in a big sixth inning. “Yeah,” I said to no one, “fear the Owl!” Thankfully, no one was around to hear, because, um, what? (Woodward last year in the kitchen became “Woodsy” rather than the natural “Woody,” and Woodsy, naturally, became Woodsy Owl. Naturally.) So c’mon, I can’t be the only sick one. (Can I?) *-7G12. Boom!Speaking of Sweden, there’s apparently reports out of Europe that defenseman Johan Halvardsson and the Islanders have agreed to terms. No apparent confirmation from the Isles, but it makes sense: They have until June 1 to sign the 26-year-old, or they lose his rights… Edit to add: Nighthawks reference. Edit edit… Bill at the office pointed me to this, which I hadn’t seen before… Who’s up for the Raffi Torres Celebrity Golf Tournament? Edit edit edit because the header works… What a way to end Invasion. Painful to see that series go. It took a while to tie everything together, and the story dragged in places, but what a finish. Things changeSo by now you’ve probably seen the blurb in Tuesday’s paper. Bill McLaughlin won’t be back as the voice of the Sound Tigers in the fall. The backhanded good news is that that’s all. No horror stories. No chilling vision of things to come*. They let him go. Neither side wanted to air it in public. Fair enough. These things happen; we’ll all move on. I’ll miss him. You get out on the road in this league, and a lot of times it’s him and me. You hang around, you BS, you help each other out, you trade stories and tidbits and URLs. Sometimes, you assure each other of your sanity (Who took the initial shot? Why didn’t he get an assist?). While the wall is always there, you’re friendly if not friends. And when I was stuck at home, I’d listen to the Webcast. The man was certainly one of the best in this circuit. It’s a shame. I wish Bill nothing but the best. And I wish his successor lots of luck. Portland-Hershey begins Wednesday. A mole who’s seen tape says Portland’s goaltending is gonna cost them. You know I’ve been on the Pirates’ bandwagon most of the year, but it’s kinda hard to pick against the Bears right now, isn’t it? Especially since, apparently, there’s yet another building availability thing keeping Game 7 out of Portland… Danbury avoids a Game 7: Glad I didn’t stick around the office to wait out the triple-overtime win. The Trashers, having dispatched one old IHL standby, get another, Kalamazoo, in the finals. Home games next Wednesday, Friday and, if necessary, Saturday. Anybody else getting a kick out of this San Jose-Edmonton series? I haven’t seen nearly as much of it as I’d like. Nice to be missed…Yeesh, take a few days to get back on the horse, and the “where are you”s start! What’s Anon 12:17 gonna do when I go on vacation? (Hi, buddy!!!) Ump: As I go to bed Thursday, I’ve not heard/seen anything concrete about Collins signing in Germany. Wouldn’t be the strangest thing I’ve ever heard, though. Will keep you posted. (You keep me posted?) (We’ll have other stuff to talk about soon.) A note in a Larry Brooks story the other day sparked a thought: Nolan Pratt was 0-9-9 in 82 games for the Lightning; Harlan Pratt was 0-15-15 in 70 for Bridgeport and Springfield. Has a set of brothers ever played more professional games in a season without scoring a goal? (Tack on 12 playoff games if you’re so inclined.) I’m not interested enough to do the research, but… A co-worker (name withheld) has been singing the Danbury “Hell on Ice” jingle around the office the past couple of nights. He’ll be hearing it for a while if the Evil Empire keeps this up. As Brian writes, Game 4 is tonight, and Game 5 is Saturday, 7:30 both nights, in downtown Danbury. If you go, say hi to Steve Feldman for me. And if you don’t mind, I’m just gonna call Muskegon the Lumberjacks, OK? Lotsa neat Dennis Bonvie stuff here from Jonathan Bombulie after one of two stunning sweeps this week. So the national team moves on to Round 2 at the Worlds. It’s Finland today, Latvia Saturday and Czech Tuesday. Russia won Thursday, but Alexander Kharitonov is expected out for the tournament. Kharitonov, you’ll be excused if you don’t remember, was one of the most electric Sound Tigers in five years. Unfortunately, he played only two games, both on the road, in the sweater on his conditioning assignment… Ga-wha?Despite that I never like picking teams that have played seven games against teams that won in a sweep, I would totally have called Hershey vs. WBS (or Hershey vs. Bridgeport) a tossup, just like BPT-WBS was. So this all, from afar, amazes me. Almost confounds me. Hershey leads 3-0. Wow. Meantime across the pond, the US won again, as did Finland over Latvia. The Americans and the Canadians meet Tuesday for first place in the pool. (Tie goes to Canada on goal differential.) There’s also a feature on the site about Sean Bergenheim, headlined “Finland’s Bergenheim finally burying his chances.” Bad timing alert: Bergenheim had no shots today. Oh well. I was momentarily impressed that the writer — no byline — had gotten hold of Dave Baseggio. Then I read the quote, which seemed awfully familiar. With good reason… it’s Dave’s quote in my story from Feb. 22, the night Sean scored four goals against Hartford. Cool… Edit on second thought, re HER-WBS… why not go back to what I was thinking before Game 3 at Bridgeport?* Flip the coin three times. One out of four times, it’ll come up the same way all three times; one of eight times, it’ll be all tails. Or, let’s even use some fake math. Take WBS’s and Hershey’s overall home and road records and turn them into one number: Hershey should win about .428 of the time at Wachovia, and about .522 of the time at Giant Center**. The Bears win the first two on the road about .183 of the time (.428x.428); they take the first three about 9.6 percent of the time (.428x.428x.522=.0956). The math might be fake, but assuming they’re relatively evenly matched — sometimes, even if not — someone’s gonna sweep by accident sometimes. The good news for the Penguins? They’ll win the next four games by accident about 7.4 percent of the time. (That it’s happening in Houston-Milwaukee too? That’s just weird.) *-Pre-concussion, dontcha know. Took me a while to remember. Tomi BoyHat tip to e-mailer TJ, who saw the Frolunda Indians have announced the signing of Tomi Pettinen. I can’t read Swedish, but I have been told it’s a two-year deal with a June 15 NHL out clause… Big first gameSean Bergenheim had the tying goal in Finland’s 5-3 win over Slovenia to open the World Championship. The U.S. beat Norway 3-1. Summertime, and the livin’ ain’t easy“They say the game is 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical. … I don’t know if that’s 100 percent true, but…” — Masi Marjamaki I love this time of year… I hate this moment in this time of year. Hung out in the room today with the trainers, with a few players coming in and out, Marjamaki, Hamilton (we compared headaches), Collins, Thompson, Cloutier. A lot had meetings down on the Island today; many are already gone. It’s the last time I’ll be in that room until September, maybe October. You do the same thing, go to the same place, see the same people every day, and then all of a sudden it’s over. It’s very weird. It’s always a long summer, no matter how the season ends. But here it begins. The future. The future is so up in the air right now, because there’s a vacancy at the top. One hopes Mike Milbury’s successor will look at what happened this year and recognize the job Dave Baseggio, Lane Lambert and Pat Bingham did here. One hopes he’ll give a good look at a lot of the players who made the last three-quarters of this season so successful here, consider re-signing them. One hopes he’ll stick with the staff that is here. But that successor has the prerogative not to, so until that successor has a name, a lot remains uncertain. Best I can figure, and I might be off on one or two guys, here’s what it looks like: SIGNED FOR 2006-07 — Jeff Tambellini, Robert Nilsson, Bruno Gervais, Luciano Aquino, Blake Comeau, Masi Marjamaki, Jeremy Colliton, Matt Koalska, Steve Regier RFAs must of course be tendered a qualifying offer in order for the Islanders to keep their rights. PUNKED!Here, in its Game-6 version, is the story you never got: The Dustin Kohn punk story. Dustin Kohn might not dress in a playoff game for the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, but he’s already taking another step on his progression toward the pro game. Though he has another year of junior eligibility remaining, and thus can’t play for the Sound Tigers next season, Kohn, 19, joined Bridgeport earlier this month on an amateur tryout. He played in Bridgeport’s final two regular-season games, his first two professional games. He made his pro debut at Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on April 14. “I felt like I was 16 years old, going back to my first game in the Western League,” Kohn said. Kohn has spent more time this week at Wachovia Arena with the rest of the Sound Tigers during the East Division semifinals. Game 6 was in Bridgeport on Friday night, with the Sound Tigers leading the best-of-7 series 3-2. A victory would have sent Bridgeport to the division final against Hershey; a loss would have forced Game 7 tonight in Wilkes-Barre. Kohn came into the playoffs as the eighth defenseman of an eight-man corps, but with Allan Rourke battling a groin pull, he was a heartbeat away from the lineup. “If it comes to him playing in the playoffs,” Bridgeport coach Dave Baseggio said, “I don’t have a problem with it.” That’s because Kohn, the New York Islanders’ second-round pick in last summer’s NHL Entry Draft, has been impressive from the time the team drafted him. The Islanders kept the 6-foot-1, 195-pound defenseman around late into training camp. “I got to stay around awhile, play a couple of exhibition games, get a little taste of things,” Kohn said. “I want to be able to do the same thing next fall.” When he joined the Sound Tigers after his junior season, he was minus-1 in a pair of games in which Bridgeport was outscored 8-1. “I thought he did really well,” Baseggio said. “He’s a great skater, he’s got good poise and good vision. He’s going to be a real good pro.” Kohn sees skating and offensive abilities as his biggest strengths. He had 72 points over the past two seasons in the WHL. This year, Kohn’s numbers were down, but he worked a lot harder on his defensive game. He felt that improved greatly. In fact, playing against two of the AHL’s Eastern Conference’s best teams, he fit right in defensively against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Hartford. “It’s hard coming in and stepping into two pretty tough buildings to play in,” Baseggio said.” Kohn played most of his time with veteran Tomi Pettinen, a pairing that made Kohn feel comfortable right away. The rest of the corps has helped, too. “Bruno (Gervais) has kind of taken me under his wing,” Kohn said. ” (Ryan) Caldwell, Pettinen, Rourkey — they’re all really good guys. They make this a very easy adjustment.” Kohn’s adjustment has mirrored that of fellow juniors Ryan O’Marra, a centerman who scored four goals in his first three regular-season games, and Blake Comeau, who stepped in at second-line right wing to start the playoffs and has played like a veteran. “It’s great for the future,” Baseggio said. “A young defenseman with that poise, that vision, they’re tough to come by.” |
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