At The Quarter Pole, the Hershey Bears Are Staying Strong

20 games into the 2015-16 campaign, the Hershey Bears sit only eight points behind first place. The most significant moment of the last weekend series for the Bears may not have been the three points they got, or the win over the Providence Bruins on Thanksgiving Eve; The biggest moment may have been on Saturday night. Hershey came back from a 3-0 deficit against their arch rivals and that first place team, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.

The Bears rallied to cut the lead to 3-2, only to fall short after a big effort in the third period. The loss to the Penguins ended a five game point streak for Hershey. Just a couple weeks ago, the Bears lost to the Penguins 7-0.

“There was no quit tonight,” said coach Troy Mann after the game. “I really liked our first period. We played exactly the way we wanted. We got away from the game plan a little bit in the second period. I can’t fault the effort. Certainly if we put a 60 minute structured game together, these guys are certainly beatable.

“We got three out of six points [this week]. I didn’t feel we played our best hockey this week. We were a little rusty against Providence. The Lehigh Valley game was a bit of a track meet. We’ve got a big week of practice and we’re going to work on a lot of stuff. We know there is room to grow and we have Wilkes-Barre ten more times.”

The next time comes quickly, Sunday night at Giant Center. First, the Bears will be in Hartford on Friday and home Saturday against Lehigh Valley before that rematch in Chocolate Town.