Reading Royals coach, Larry Courville, speaks to the media (Photo by Kyle Mace)
The Hershey Bears will have a much easier time getting players from their ECHL affiliate this coming season. The Washington Capitals have agreed to an affiliation with the ECHL Reading Royals. After eight seasons with the South Carolina Stingrays, the Caps will shift their ECHL affilation to an arena and team just an hour from Hershey.
With the Hershey Bears season coming to a close, most Bears fans will be putting all of their focus on the NHL playoffs. One of those teams left in the NHL playoffs are the Washington Capitals, the Bears affiliate. Monday night the Capitals will face off against the New York Rangers in game two of their series, but you could see some recalls before that. Those recalls are called “Black Aces,” named after holding the “Dead Man’s Hand” (two black aces) in a game of poker. So who could some of those “Black Aces” be?
Robert Bortuzzo jumps into the celebration pile after the Penguin’s second goal (All photos by Kyle Mace)
After a rough start to the series, the Hershey Bears came back and won back to back game to send the series back to Wilkes-Barre. After a good first period, the Bears gave up two goals in seven seconds to the Baby Pens to drop the series in five game, losing by a score of 2-1.
Bears Graham Mink (left) and Zach Miskovic (right) celebrate with Cameron Schilling after Schilling’s goal during Friday’s game (Photo by Kyle Mace)
There was a confidence among the Hershey Bears that we hadn’t seen in quite a while, on Friday night. It was a resolve to show their fans and themselves that this team wasn’t about to let the season end, as easily as it looked to be ending after the first two games of the series. The Bears beat the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins on Friday night 4-1 to even the best of five series at two games each.
Ryan Potulny (left) celebrates his GWOTG with teammates Graham Mink (center) and Boyd Kane (Photo by Kyle Mace)
The Hershey Bears came into tonight’s game one loss from elimination and having their 2012 Calder Cup hopes come to a crashing ending. A loss would also be the first time in 46 years the Bears have been swept in a three game, first round series with the last happening in 1966. But after tonight’s game, we will have to wait until year 47 to see if that happens.
The Bears came out to a quick start, scoring 2 goals, but having Wilkes-Barre go toe-to-toe with them and tie it up ever time Hershey would take the lead, but when you go to overtime, you cannot come back and tie it up. And that is exactly what happened tonight. After 60 minutes of play, all Hershey would need is another 2:57 to cut Wilkes-Barre’s two game lead in half and stay alive in the Calder Cup playoffs, after a 4-3 win over the Baby Pens.
Mark French argues with the officials. All photos by Kyle Mace.
Down one game, the Bears had a chance to tie up the series before returning home.
…unfortunately it didn’t go quite as planned. I won’t upset you with the details, but the Bears left the first period down four goals. Between deflections, rebounds, and just plain getting out-worked, the Penguins owned Dany Sabourin and the first period and set the tone for the rest of the game.
Dany Sabourin sees a shot enter his net. All photos by Kyle Mace.
The quest for the 12th Calder Cup began tonight. Even though the Bears are viewed as the underdogs in the series, we know that they’re not going down without a fight (literally and figuratively).
It wasn’t a strong start for the Bears. After twenty minutes, they only had three shots on goal and were down one goal. It could’ve been worse, however. Dany Sabourin was back and doing his best to keep his team in it. The Penguin goal came from Colin McDonald just ten seconds into their first power play of the night.
The last game of the season. Let’s recap this game against the Worchester Sharks so we can all rest up before the start of playoffs on Friday.
In a move that not many people would have seen coming, new signee Barry Almeida scored the first goal of the game! The former Boston College Eagle and cousin of T.J. Syner only needed two minutes and 57 seconds to score his first professional goal. A few minutes later, the Yanni Gourde of the Sharks tied it up but Andrew Carroll regained Hershey’s lead only twelve seconds later with his first goal of the season.
The penultimate game of the regular season: Hershey Bears on the road versus Manchester Monarchs.
There were four goals to talk about during the first period; unfortunately only one of them belonged to the Bears. Richard Clune started off the night by deflecting the puck off of his foot. Ryan Potulny tied it up with yet another power play goal from him. He’s pretty good at those. But Monarchs scored two more times on Daren Machesney. A shorthanded goal and a five-hole goal made it 3-1 Monarchs after twenty minutes.
The former Captain and current Captain take a ceremonial face-off before the game.
So, this is it. We’re down to the final weekend of the regular season. First up: the Portland Pirates and the familiar faces of Ashton Rome and the Mayor of Chocolatetown, Dean Arsene. Here we go: Kyle Greentree started off the scoring with a shorthanded tally halfway through the first period. But the Pirates tied it up by the end of twenty minutes by scoring on a heavily screened Daren Machesney.