
Sports writer, Mike Fornabaio, keeps us posted about the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.
January 7, 2009
Aerodynamic
Houston is here! It has been a long time since we could say that.
(I'm not sure I knew what a blog was then. Wow. I want to say the first blogs I really knew about were the Milblogs from Iraq. Maybe Off Wing? How old is Off Wing? Anyway.)
I catch but one 'A' on a Sound Tiger tonight. We'll see what the lineup says. Schaefer plays for Houston over the All-Star; maybe the in-laws are here somewhere?
LINEUPS
BRIDGEPORT
F: Packard-McLean-Iggulden
Bentivoglio-Walter-Nikiforov
Sixsmith-Haskins-Haley
Fritz-Marcinko-Pitton
D: Hillen-Callahan (A)
Lee-Wotton (C)
Kohn-MacDonald
G: Danis
(Mannino)
HOUSTON
F: R.Hamilton (A)-Madsen-Irmen
Kassian-Ryznar-Lundbohm
M.Hamilton-Locke (A)-Olvecky
Beaudoin-Rosa-Schultz
D: Mojzis-Rogers (C)
Falk-Noreau
Albers-Adams
G: Schaefer
(Brust)
R: T.Koharski. L: Redding, Wahl.
Posted by mike on 6:50 PM
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There goes the Planet
PlanetUSA is here. Locally, of interest are the pick of Jaime Sifers as Toronto's representative, and the picks of no additional Sound Tigers.
OK, have at it, 'cause I know Andy at least is worked up: Kurtis McLean?
(These rosters aren't set in stone, of course, because there will be late replacements if players are up in the NHL. In that, however, they'll still ensure that every team is represented.)
Posted by mike on 2:09 PM
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Coupla things:
1) Nikiforov's coming.
2) Don't go to Springfield on Wednesday.
Yeah, that's a couple. Good night. (Or good morning, as the case may be.)
Posted by mike on 12:18 AM
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January 6, 2009
MacDonald, Iggulden (back) to Worcester
The Canadian team also includes Jason Krog. (Vinny Ferraiuolo's the equipment guy, too.)
Posted by mike on 2:01 PM
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Aeronautics
Visitors this morning included Wade Dubielewicz and li'l Travis Dubielewicz. Travis, not quite 2, can shoot the puck. (Toby O'Brien wanted Dubie to turn him into a right-handed defenseman.)
Didn't get to talk substantially, but we'll catch up to him. (Wade, I mean. It might be fun to interview Travis, but...)
Still no Joensuu this morning, so Jack Capuano said they were considering calling someone up, and that Vladimir Nikiforov would top the short list, "for offense, with Smitty, JC, those guys out."
Canadian All-Stars come out this afternoon. Houston's on the ice right now.
Posted by mike on 12:17 PM
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January 5, 2009
Wrapping up
Canada wins the World Juniors for the fifth year in a row. Russia takes bronze; the United States' fifth is its worst performance since 2002.
Pittsburgh traded T.J. Kemp to Montreal.
All in the Hearst family: Pete Dougherty runs the Times Union's hockey blog, new this year, joining Phil Janack's in covering the Rats.
And RIP, former Hartford Mayor Mike Peters, and Twins owner Carl Pohlad.
Posted by mike on 10:23 PM
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Meaningless nostalgia
This is at the bottom of a file of mine, as a lineup template/reminder:
LINEUPS
BRIDGEPORT
F: Comeau-Colliton (A)-Regier
Tambellini-Nielsen-Nilsson
Nolan-Nokelainen-Ferraro
Marjamaki-(Ogorodnikov-scratch)-Pitton
D: Fata-Berry
Mitchell-Wotton (C)
Campoli-Rourke (A)
Just got a kick out of some of those names.
One of them didn't skate today, Jeremy Colliton. I asked for an upper/lower characterization and didn't really get one; it's kind of in-between, somewhere. The dreaded middle-body injury. Out awhile, but not, you know, awhile, is what it sounds like. He was walking around on his own again this morning.
And Jesse Joensuu was sick but is expected back tomorrow, when they'll return to Harbor Yard now that the Empire On Ice is gone. Houston's already in town.
The other 12-8-and-3 skated today, and the goalies worked with Sudsie Maharaj, who's in town.
Posted by mike on 1:47 PM
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January 4, 2009
Tough BST news in Worcester
Not the score. Not the fact that Alexandre Giroux is back in the AHL and meekly scraped out four goals and an assist. Not that Bridgeport is right now closer to fourth place than first place (though with a game in hand). None of that.
Had Hershey lost in regulation, its points percentage would have plummeted to .708. That would have dropped the Bears behind Milwaukee's .714, and that would have meant that the Admirals' coaching staff -- Lane Lambert, former Sound Tigers assistant, presiding -- would have led the Canadian team at the All-Star Game. Instead, it'll be Bob Woods and Mark French leading the group. Don Granato and Chicago's staff, which includes former Utah coach Jason Christie, will coach PlanetUSA.
You have until 11:59 tonight to vote for players, and the teams will be released this week.
Calamari, no, I won't PM ya. A Google search should do it, though. Use the show name and "in a repeat" inside quotes.
And for those who still have money: Nighthawks Starter jacket.
Posted by mike on 6:29 PM
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January 3, 2009
Make up, break up...
So with about eight minutes to go in this one, I was starting to think I was living a repeat*.
Early goal against, play just well enough not to finish, finally get a power-play goal, headed to overtime…
Oh, nope, no overtime as Yannick Tifu throws it at the net and it finds its way in (apparently deflected by Michael Ryan, hat tricked without hats). So no point here…
Oh, nope, it's overtime again. At least it's not a repeat.
Then Albany digs out a puck -- Capuano actually called Skinner out for not getting the puck, which is pretty close to a first, though Skinner didn't seem to think he had earned the denigration -- and sets up Ryan at the back door to finish it off, and it's a loss. Sort of. (Counts as one for Nathan Lawson, for the first time, so yeah, it's a loss.)
Still…
"I thought, as a whole, we played well," Sean Bentivoglio said. "The guys picked it up. Lawson played great. It's a tough one to lose, but there's definitely positives to take out of this game."
They did get themselves some chances.
There was one in the second where they were scrambling around Daniel Manzato's net, and Kurtis McLean passed up a shot to hit Andrew MacDonald at the back door, and Tim Conboy blocked it. McLean passed up another shot in the third, but Manzato stopped Ben Walter.
Three things I take out of the night, not necessarily in this order:
--They aren't finishing at even strength. Since Haley's goal late in the Hartford game Dec. 26, they have gone 192:04 without a goal at five-on-five. (The tying goal, technically even strength with an extra attacker, ended a 188:01 streak without an even one.) Over 142 minutes of that has actually been played five-on-five (including pulled-goalie time,which is harder to separate).
They're sticking with the positives, that they're creating chances. And they're not wrong about that. But they have scored six power-play goals, one short-hander and one with the goalie pulled in the past three games.
--What probably hasn't helped these past two games is that taking Trevor Smith out of the mix changes things up quite a bit. Colliton is a fine replacement…
--And since we drop the name, we'll come back to the lines, because Colliton left 7:45 into the second period. He was driving in, protecting the puck from a bunch of defenders, and as he appeared to be going between Nicolas Blanchard and Jerome Samson, he went down in a heap. He said he got cross-checked in there. He wasn't specific about what had happened, injury-wise, but he was on crutches and in obvious discomfort.
Hurts, obviously. It meant some PK time for Walter and a bit for Bentivoglio.
--OK, back to the lines. Capuano had talked about considering a shakeup last night in Philly, but he said he looked up and saw the shots coming. Tonight, he couldn't have; shots were 8-2 Albany to start. So the vanguard was Pascal Morency, who suddenly appeared in Bentivoglio's spot right before the Sound Tigers' first power play. Then James Sixsmith was in Mike Iggulden's place. Then Morency was with Bentivoglio and Walter. Then Iggulden was with Joensuu and Marcinko.
Yeah, that's some juggling.
When Colliton went down, the only other second-period, even-strength shift for McLean and Iggulden had them together, joined by Bentivoglio. Walter took that spot with McLean and Iggulden to start the third; then came almost nine solid special-teams minutes, but they stayed together afterward, and the other lines were basically unrecognizable.Lots of juggling shift-to-shift. And then in overtime, the only four forwards used were Walter, Iggulden, McLean and Tyler Haskins.
"We've got a bunch of guys working extremely hard," Capuano said. "We've got to try to find some secondary scoring. We're doing the right things, going to the front, to the paint. We've got to keep working for it."
They'll have a couple of days of practice to try to piece something together for Houston.
---
Don't look back, said Satchel Paige: Wilkes-Barre is two points behind. (Bridgeport has a game in hand.) And this division isn't exactly Atlantic-tight yet, but Norfolk and Albany are but 11 points out of playoff position again.
Slovakia's WJC magic ran out in the last 13 minutes. The Swedes get Canada, which won in the bonus round shootout after tying it with five seconds left, speaking of extra-attacker goals.
Every time I connected to a wireless router tonight, it immediately became the one with the weakest signal. One of those nights.
And tip o'cap to Doug Weight for 1,000 points.
*-South Park episode 704, "Canceled." There is no way I can provide a link that is consistent with our being a family blog.
Posted by mike on 11:39 PM
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Albany sunset
Dirty old river
Must you keep rolling
flowing into the night?
--Ray Davies
Here in the sultry Times Union Center. Here's where I made my first big drive on a road trip, paying my own freight and bringing Jerry Higgins of the Register along, the night before Easter, 1998.
I always come here with mixed feelings. It's not simple to get here; that drive up Route 8 (or up the Turnpike and the Thruway, today) isn't all that great. It's almost always 100 degrees up here. You have to hope you don't catch yourself on the plywood table they have set up for us.
But the folks here are great, staff, off-ice guys, everyone. Some of my best friends on the beat work here. And hey, it's the capital of my home state.
The lordly Hudson rolls seaward from here to pass the borough where I was born. My parents uprooted us and plopped us next to another (less dirty) old river, the Housatonic. After adapting, as little kids do, my best friends became another Mike and a Matt.* We lost track of each other, Mike and I in high school, Matt and I after college. But this funky Internet thing brought us back in touch.
They're working in jobs they love. (I think. Like, at least.) They're married to lovely, bright women.** One of the perks this year has been landing in just the right place to catch up with both of them.
I met Mike and his wife for a late lunch Nov. 1 in Binghamton and later traded jokey e-mails about Jack Hillen's "game-winner."
And today, I got to meet Matt's little boy for the first time, two and a half months old. (The little guy smiled and giggled when he first saw me, then got a littleagitated. It's the reaction most people have.) To first hold the son of a guy I've known for almost 30 years, I imagine the only thing better will be one day (God willing) holding my nieces or nephews, and (God willing even more, 'cause there's a necessary component missing right now) holding one of my own.
We're growing up, or at least growing older. It's comforting to see how happy they seem to have turned out. Gives me a little hope, anyway. We're all wondering about this economy, which is messing with our industries in different ways, though I'm sure we'll all find our way, somehow, however it forces us to adapt.
What does this have to do with hockey? Virtually nothing. What does this have to do with anything? No promises. Was just on my mind today, chugging up the Thruway, listening to the Kinks, heading to the site of my first big road trip.
Anyway, no changes for Bridgeport from last night, except in goal. Continuing to rest the defensemen, said Capuano. Jamie's cousin wears the stripes. Albany has 11 forwards and seven defensemen; the centermen and left defensemen kept cycling through, so the lines changed each rush, but here's their first runs.
LINEUPS
BRIDGEPORT
F: McLean-Colliton (A)-Iggulden
Bentivoglio-Walter-Joensuu
Sixsmith-Marcinko-Haley
Pitton-Haskins-Morency
D: Fraser-Wotton (C)
Lee-MacDonald
Hillen-Skinner
G: Lawson
(Mannino)
ALBANY
F: Ryan-Petruzalek-Tifu
Blanchard-Helminen (A)-Samson
Angelidis (A)-Dodge-Weston
Herauf/Reed
D: Borer-Carson
Rodney-Conboy (C)
Melichar-Paiement
/Flood
G: Manzato
(Peters)
R: R.Fraser. L: Briggs, F.Murphy.
*-Mike has a brother named Matt. Matt has a brother named Mike. You know my little brother. Freakish.
**-The cynic would say I'm married to my job. I'd like to think they're wrong.
Posted by mike on 6:55 PM
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