Monday, March 22, 2010

Bears home winning streak ends at 24

24 straight wins at Giant Center. Amazing!

The Adirondack Phantoms ended the run last night with a 4-3 win. Hershey was up 2-1 after 2 periods but the league's #1 penalty kill wasn't able to keep up as they allowed 3 third period power play goals by the Phantoms.

It was a great streak no matter what though. The Bears hadn't lost since the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Guess who that game was against...the Phantoms.

But the Bears are still in first place in the division, the conference, and the league while the Phantoms are 13th in the Eastern Conference and likely to miss the playoffs.

The weekend had actually gone very well for the Bears up to that point though. It started with a 8-2 win over Albany at home Friday night and continued with a 6-2 win in Syracuse Saturday night. So overall the weekend was a win.

Next weekend is another 3 in 3 with 2 big games. Friday the Bears welcome the Atlantic division leading Worcester Sharks to Giant Center looking to avenge the 6-2 beating the Sharks put on the Bears in Worcester a couple Sunday's ago.

Saturday sees the flightless water fowl from Wilkes Barre make their final visit to Hershey during the regular season. The Baby Pens are currently sitting in 9th place in the conference and are going to have to battle for the last playoff spot over the next 10 games. They do have a game in hand against 8th place Bridgeport as of now.

Sunday sees another home game. This time against the Senators of Binghamton. The Sens are not technically out of the playoffs yet and will absolutely be looking for a big win Sunday. Like the Pens this will be Bingo's last visit to Hershey this season.

After this weekend the Bears will have 7 games left, 5 on the road and 2 at home. And 6 of them are against Norfolk and Syracuse with a trip to Rochester thrown in for good measure. Not exactly a gauntlet but still some tough games against division rivals.

The conference standings see Hershey leading Worcester by 18 points right now. The Sharks have 11 games to go so with a possibility of 22 points they could conceivably win the conference but it would take an epic failure by the Bears.

As for the league standings, the Bears are 8 points ahead of the Hamilton Bulldogs and both teams have 10 games remaining. This race will quite possibly come down to the final few games.

4 comments:

Scott B. said...

Excellent blog and insightful comments. My wife and I started coming to Hershey games back in November and we're hooked. We've gotten to know a couple of the players from talking to them after games at the players' entrance (Jason Bacashihua, Andrew Gordon, Matt Perreault, and Braden Holtby). We can't wait to see them in the playoffs. Have you by any chance heard any news about tickets for the playoffs yet? Thanks for your time. I'll definitely keep up with your blog.

GM said...

you won't hear anything about playoff tickets until the dates are announced in April. obviously the Bears will have home ice advantage during at least the first 3 rounds but that doesn't always work out like it should depending on Giant Center availability. Although looking at the GC schedule everything looks clear until the end of May when the circus comes to town. Usually the Bears finish the season at home and then Disney on Ice comes the week after but this year the Bears finish on the road with Disney there before the season ends.

Anonymous said...

Hey GM,
Great Blog, I'm always looking for new posts! I was just wondering if you knew what the Bears do about their jerseys from the season. We just moved here, and love hockey and collecting jerseys. Most AHL teams sell their jerseys via auction or team store at the end of the season, however I received a vague response saying they aren't available and the players get one. So what happens to them? I'd really like to grab one.

GM said...

Honestly I don't know what they do with the jersey's. I have never heard about any auctions or anything. But there are numerous special jerseys and auctions throughout the season.