Bears welcome Amerks in 10-11 home opener

Tonight the Bears will put the final touches on the 2009-10 season as they receive their championship rings and drop the 11th Calder Cup Championship banner. Festivities kick off at 6:15 so make sure you get to your seat early to see it all. Surely there will be an awesome video on the big board as well.

It should be fun.

But after that we get a special treat as well. Sheldon Souray and Michael Nylander are both expected to suit up for the game tonight. And they are making a ton of money this season!

Just for some perspective (and some fun) I ran some numbers. I looked at all the AHL salaries (according to capgeek.com) for the Bears and Americans. Obviously there are some players not included as they are on AHL only deals, players such as Nycholat, Wellar, and Kane. So this is not a perfect calculation but I think there is still some wiggle room for my findings.

Here is the finding (and what I assumed going in):

Both Souray and Nylander will make more this season then all the players on both teams playing tonight.

Souray is scheduled to make 5.4 million and Nylander 4.875 million.

The Bears are scheduled to make about 2.5 million. And that includes Sean Collins, who many don't know is actually on a 1-way contract and will make $675,000 this season, Dany Sabourin who is scheduled to make $250,000, and Keith Aucoin's $300,000. You eliminate those 3 salaries and the numbers are even more impressive.

The Americans are scheduled to make 1.645 million this year. And that includes Clay Wilson's 1-way deal for $500,000.

Rochester + Hershey = 4.1 million!

That is ridiculous. And awesome at the same time. There are some players missing (5 for Rochester and 7 for Hershey) that are on AHL/ECHL deals so there numbers don't appear on the site. Assuming they all make $50k a year they still come up short of Nyles and Souray.

Okay...enough of that. Let's talk hockey now.


The Bears come into this game on an offensive high as they dominated the Binghamton Senators last night 7-1 up in New York.

Rochester is coming in off a losing effort at home last night to Hamilton 5-2.

Rochester was up 2-0 in the first period of that game after 2 power play goals late in the period but Hamilton stormed back with 1 in the last 30 seconds of the first period and 2 goals in each of the 2nd and 3rd periods.

The Americans come in with a record of 1-2 as they lost to Hershey last Sunday and to the Bulldogs last night.

Hershey meanwhile is 2-0-1 with a shootout loss to Wilkes-Barre the only blemish on their record to this point.

Players to Watch tonight:

Hershey:

• RW Brian Willsie (18) - he scored a goal and added 3 assists last night
• C Keith Aucoin (11) - he had 2 assists last night and had 2 goals and an assist against Rochester last weekend
• D Sheldon Souray (7) - assuming the veteran plays again tonight it will be interesting to see his skill set and how it translates to the AHL

Rochester:

• D Clay Wilson (5) - the defenseman has 3 goals to lead the team right now including one against the Bears last weekend
• D Mike Kostka (28) - another defenseman leading the team in a category...assists, with 3
• C Michal Nylander (19) - since the post was partially about him I figured I would include him. He has only 1 goal and is a team worst -4 this year.