1997: After spilling 2-0, 3-2 and 5-4 leads―and briefly trailing, 4-3, in the interim―Providence wrests away a 7-5 barnburner from the visiting Carolina Monarchs, enough to grant them a six-game winning streak and eight wins out of nine tries.
2002: Andrew Raycroft answers 40 out of 41 shots, allowing the offense to pace the P-Bruins to a fight-filled, 4-1 win at the Springfield Civic Center.
2003: The P-Bruins win their first-ever meeting with the Manitoba Moose, claiming a 4-2 decision to extend their team-record home unbeaten streak to 16 games.
2007: Nathan Dempsey, Petr Kalus and Matt Lashoff each register three points in regulation before Ben Walter scores in overtime to top the Worcester Sharks, 5-4, at The Dunk.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
All-Star Hosting Rights Underscore P-Bruins’ Durability, Fan Base’s Leadership
Providence is to the AHL what Toronto is the NHL. No playoff appearances in recent memory, yet consistently one of the league’s best performers at the turnstiles.
The Providence Bruins are on the cusp of rounding out two full decades of existence, in which time they have never finished outside of the top 10 on the AHL’s attendance leaderboard. They may or may not salvage a surprise playoff passport in the forthcoming homestretch, but a third consecutive finish among the league’s five best draws is most likely.
Of the still-living franchises, only the Hershey Bears, Chicago Wolves, Grand Rapids Griffins and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins have been comparably dynastic at the gate in recent memory. Like Providence, all four have finished within the top 10 every season and placed among the top five on multiple occasions since 2002-03. And all five are on pace to be among the 10 best draws in 2011-12.
And whether it was in the AHL or IHL, each of the aforementioned have hosted at least one All-Star Game more recently than the Baby Bs. Grand Rapids (1997 and 2004) and Hershey (1996 and 2011) have held two apiece in the interim, as have the Portland Pirates.
So while there are 16 other cities that have not seen a midseason classic since the P-Bruins helped to bring it back in 1995, there is no disgrace giving the game a second shift next season, which was confirmed in Wednesday’s press conference.
One week after playing its special exhibition on a thoroughly neutral pond in Atlantic City, the AHL was apt to abandon that experiment effective in 2013.
Wednesday’s announcement indicates league president Dave Andrews and his board of governors want to plant their All-Star magnet in an established, healthy market. They want to let the crowds watching the Eastern Conference combat the Western Conference to be constituted by a nucleus of an exemplary fan base supplemented by following tourists.
Andrews said it himself on Wednesday that “the Providence Bruins organization has been a cornerstone for the last two decades.”
The third-longest-tenured franchise in the circuit, the P-Bruins had their leanest year at the gate in 2007-08, when they placed 10th out of 29 teams with a nightly median audience of 6,107. And that was in spite of that team’s plow to the summit of the AHL standings and threat to eclipse the records set by their otherworldly predecessors from 1998-99.
Since that season, the results between the boards have withered. Yet the Bruins have ascended the attendance leaderboard with final average figures growing from 6,343 to 6,770 to 7,324.
An egregious start and futile homestretch cramming session en route to a second straight playoff no-show failed to curb fan support last season. On the contrary, Providence had its best finish on the attendance list (fourth) since 2003-04 and drew its greatest outpouring of spectators since 2004-05.
With that kind of upswing under these sorts of circumstances after that business nadir of four years ago, the P-Bruins and the Dunkin Donuts Center are the right label and right facility to draw attention to the AHL. Those flocking in from other markets or taking in a rare minor-league hockey television fix next Jan. 28 are all the more likely to absorb and transmit the host city’s passion for pucks.
Barring new trends between now and then, some of the most logical candidates for the 2014 All-Star Game include Lake Erie (Cleveland), Milwaukee, Peoria and San Antonio.
Either that or perhaps the peerless multitude of neighboring fan bases will follow the Divine City’s lead and ultimately prove itself worthy of providing future hospitality. Springfield, another classic AHL city, has seen its yearly attendance hover consistently within the 3,000-range since 2003-04 while the two Connecticut clubs have repeatedly drawn 5,000 or fewer for five-plus years.
Those cities and/or others could improve upon that by feeding off what stems from the 2013 AHL All-Star Classic at the Dunk.
It worked that way in 1995 when it was the Providence Civic Center. “Our league is a much different league than it was 18 years ago. Our thanks go to Providence for helping us kick that off and re-define who we were,” Andrews said Wednesday.
There is no reason to think it won’t work that way again.
The Providence Bruins are on the cusp of rounding out two full decades of existence, in which time they have never finished outside of the top 10 on the AHL’s attendance leaderboard. They may or may not salvage a surprise playoff passport in the forthcoming homestretch, but a third consecutive finish among the league’s five best draws is most likely.
Of the still-living franchises, only the Hershey Bears, Chicago Wolves, Grand Rapids Griffins and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins have been comparably dynastic at the gate in recent memory. Like Providence, all four have finished within the top 10 every season and placed among the top five on multiple occasions since 2002-03. And all five are on pace to be among the 10 best draws in 2011-12.
And whether it was in the AHL or IHL, each of the aforementioned have hosted at least one All-Star Game more recently than the Baby Bs. Grand Rapids (1997 and 2004) and Hershey (1996 and 2011) have held two apiece in the interim, as have the Portland Pirates.
So while there are 16 other cities that have not seen a midseason classic since the P-Bruins helped to bring it back in 1995, there is no disgrace giving the game a second shift next season, which was confirmed in Wednesday’s press conference.
One week after playing its special exhibition on a thoroughly neutral pond in Atlantic City, the AHL was apt to abandon that experiment effective in 2013.
Wednesday’s announcement indicates league president Dave Andrews and his board of governors want to plant their All-Star magnet in an established, healthy market. They want to let the crowds watching the Eastern Conference combat the Western Conference to be constituted by a nucleus of an exemplary fan base supplemented by following tourists.
Andrews said it himself on Wednesday that “the Providence Bruins organization has been a cornerstone for the last two decades.”
The third-longest-tenured franchise in the circuit, the P-Bruins had their leanest year at the gate in 2007-08, when they placed 10th out of 29 teams with a nightly median audience of 6,107. And that was in spite of that team’s plow to the summit of the AHL standings and threat to eclipse the records set by their otherworldly predecessors from 1998-99.
Since that season, the results between the boards have withered. Yet the Bruins have ascended the attendance leaderboard with final average figures growing from 6,343 to 6,770 to 7,324.
An egregious start and futile homestretch cramming session en route to a second straight playoff no-show failed to curb fan support last season. On the contrary, Providence had its best finish on the attendance list (fourth) since 2003-04 and drew its greatest outpouring of spectators since 2004-05.
With that kind of upswing under these sorts of circumstances after that business nadir of four years ago, the P-Bruins and the Dunkin Donuts Center are the right label and right facility to draw attention to the AHL. Those flocking in from other markets or taking in a rare minor-league hockey television fix next Jan. 28 are all the more likely to absorb and transmit the host city’s passion for pucks.
Barring new trends between now and then, some of the most logical candidates for the 2014 All-Star Game include Lake Erie (Cleveland), Milwaukee, Peoria and San Antonio.
Either that or perhaps the peerless multitude of neighboring fan bases will follow the Divine City’s lead and ultimately prove itself worthy of providing future hospitality. Springfield, another classic AHL city, has seen its yearly attendance hover consistently within the 3,000-range since 2003-04 while the two Connecticut clubs have repeatedly drawn 5,000 or fewer for five-plus years.
Those cities and/or others could improve upon that by feeding off what stems from the 2013 AHL All-Star Classic at the Dunk.
It worked that way in 1995 when it was the Providence Civic Center. “Our league is a much different league than it was 18 years ago. Our thanks go to Providence for helping us kick that off and re-define who we were,” Andrews said Wednesday.
There is no reason to think it won’t work that way again.
Deraney’s Friars Need To Spread Eagles Wings
Boston College is liable for the termination of both the Providence College men’s and women’s hockey teams’ most recent playoff runs. Friartownies who support both programs are bound to still have visions of Nathan Gerbe turning a fruitful 360 on Ryan Simpson’s porch and Kelli Stack smuggling a sudden-death strike through the five-hole of Genevieve Lacasse.
But with his team’s arrangement as of the 2011-12 homestretch, women’s bench boss Bob Deraney can and should pluck a key element from each of those vinegary memories to give Friar Puck a long-awaited winning formula without fail.
Between a deceptively poor record (12-15-3 with four games left in the regular season) and a senior class starving for a sound legacy, the PC women cannot ask for a better inspirational tandem than BC’s 2007-08 men and 2010-11 women.
The artist formerly known as the Tim Army Corps spent its last postseason appearance in 2008 serving as the first victim of a nick-of-time resurgence on the part of Jerry York’s BC Eagles.
The BC men were 17-11-8 on the year entering the postseason. Factor out the two extra games that come with the Beanpot and the Eagles’ 34-game transcript read 15-11-8. But either way, the Lamoriello Trophy and automatic bid were a must if they wanted to return to the NCAA bracket.
Only a brittle two-point differential allowed BC to host the best-of-three Hockey East quarterfinals early that March. But two 5-1 triumphs later, it was fast-evident that Gerbe and Friends were finished shrouding their aristocratic persona now that the second season had commenced.
This is not to say that an NCAA championship piloted by Ashley Cottrell, a la Gerbe and his 11-9-20 log over eight postseason games, is within remotely realistic range for these Friars. But a Hockey East pennant and concomitant bid to the national Elite Eight continues to elude Cottrell, Lacasse and their talent-laden classmates.
Anything short of that would render the class of 2012’s time in Deraney’s capstone class incurably disappointing. Their performance between now and March 4 will likely decide the presence or absence of postseason hardware as well as a winning or losing record for their senior season.
As far the elements within their control go, incentive is the Friars’ X-factor from here on out. They can cultivate that by emulating the copilots of the very team that derailed their most promising bid for a berth in the Hockey East championship game last March.
As early their first postseason endeavor in 2008-09, Deraney likened his then-freshman class―complete with Lacasse, Cottrell, a radiant rookie in Laura Veharanta and nascent staples in Kate Bacon, Jen Friedman, Christie Jensen and Abby Gauthier―to BC’s troika of goaltender Molly Schaus, Kelli Stack and Allie Thunstrom.
The latter corps had enrolled at Chestnut Hill two years in advance of Lacasse, Veharanta, Cottrell and Co. and rapidly set the tone by lifting the Eagles to their first-ever NCAA tournament and Frozen Four berth. Four seasons later, Thunstrom had graduated while Stack and Schaus returned from an Olympic sabbatical with an expressed thirst to attain an elusive conference crown, which they were denied as juniors by New Hampshire.
And in a semifinal confrontation at Boston University’s Walter Brown Arena, Schaus and Stack were the two immediate deciders when the Eagles dislodged the Friars, 3-2, in overtime. Schaus held forth through a four-goal, seesaw third period and into the bonus round before Stack inserted the 96th goal and 206th point of her collegiate career and the eighth game-winning strike of her senior season.
Moments later, Deraney spoke volumes on two fronts in his postgame address. Of Stack, he said, “A world-class play by a world-class player. I tip my hat to her. You can’t be ashamed when something like that happens to you…We kept her in check most of the game.”
Of his own international ambassador, who repelled 58 BC shots that day, he said, “she’s a difference-maker, she’s a game-changer. I’m really proud she plays with us, and I’m glad that we have her for one more year.”
Did you catch that? One more year.
There was your difference in that 2011 semifinal struggle: Stack was a senior, Lacasse was a junior. But a year later, PC’s otherworldly class is on its last call and on the heels of back-to-back-to-back baptismal fires in the Hockey East semifinals.
Fittingly enough, the Friars fastened themselves into the 2012 Hockey East playoff picture last Saturday with a startling, 6-2 throttling of the then-No. 4-ranked Eagles, whose loss tripped them up in their footrace for first place with Northeastern.
Hmmm, didn’t the ostensibly underachieving BC men from 2007-08 set the tone for a timely turnaround by beating Providence, who had won their regular-season series, by a four-goal margin?
Be mindful that Florence Schelling and the Huntington Hounds are harboring an equally unquenched hunger for Hockey East banner glory and will likely ride into the postseason as the top seed with both the league’s top offense and defense. But so long as the Friars Xerox a few pages from books of BC’s past, serendipitous bounces should be the decider in this dance.
But with his team’s arrangement as of the 2011-12 homestretch, women’s bench boss Bob Deraney can and should pluck a key element from each of those vinegary memories to give Friar Puck a long-awaited winning formula without fail.
Between a deceptively poor record (12-15-3 with four games left in the regular season) and a senior class starving for a sound legacy, the PC women cannot ask for a better inspirational tandem than BC’s 2007-08 men and 2010-11 women.
The artist formerly known as the Tim Army Corps spent its last postseason appearance in 2008 serving as the first victim of a nick-of-time resurgence on the part of Jerry York’s BC Eagles.
The BC men were 17-11-8 on the year entering the postseason. Factor out the two extra games that come with the Beanpot and the Eagles’ 34-game transcript read 15-11-8. But either way, the Lamoriello Trophy and automatic bid were a must if they wanted to return to the NCAA bracket.
Only a brittle two-point differential allowed BC to host the best-of-three Hockey East quarterfinals early that March. But two 5-1 triumphs later, it was fast-evident that Gerbe and Friends were finished shrouding their aristocratic persona now that the second season had commenced.
This is not to say that an NCAA championship piloted by Ashley Cottrell, a la Gerbe and his 11-9-20 log over eight postseason games, is within remotely realistic range for these Friars. But a Hockey East pennant and concomitant bid to the national Elite Eight continues to elude Cottrell, Lacasse and their talent-laden classmates.
Anything short of that would render the class of 2012’s time in Deraney’s capstone class incurably disappointing. Their performance between now and March 4 will likely decide the presence or absence of postseason hardware as well as a winning or losing record for their senior season.
As far the elements within their control go, incentive is the Friars’ X-factor from here on out. They can cultivate that by emulating the copilots of the very team that derailed their most promising bid for a berth in the Hockey East championship game last March.
As early their first postseason endeavor in 2008-09, Deraney likened his then-freshman class―complete with Lacasse, Cottrell, a radiant rookie in Laura Veharanta and nascent staples in Kate Bacon, Jen Friedman, Christie Jensen and Abby Gauthier―to BC’s troika of goaltender Molly Schaus, Kelli Stack and Allie Thunstrom.
The latter corps had enrolled at Chestnut Hill two years in advance of Lacasse, Veharanta, Cottrell and Co. and rapidly set the tone by lifting the Eagles to their first-ever NCAA tournament and Frozen Four berth. Four seasons later, Thunstrom had graduated while Stack and Schaus returned from an Olympic sabbatical with an expressed thirst to attain an elusive conference crown, which they were denied as juniors by New Hampshire.
And in a semifinal confrontation at Boston University’s Walter Brown Arena, Schaus and Stack were the two immediate deciders when the Eagles dislodged the Friars, 3-2, in overtime. Schaus held forth through a four-goal, seesaw third period and into the bonus round before Stack inserted the 96th goal and 206th point of her collegiate career and the eighth game-winning strike of her senior season.
Moments later, Deraney spoke volumes on two fronts in his postgame address. Of Stack, he said, “A world-class play by a world-class player. I tip my hat to her. You can’t be ashamed when something like that happens to you…We kept her in check most of the game.”
Of his own international ambassador, who repelled 58 BC shots that day, he said, “she’s a difference-maker, she’s a game-changer. I’m really proud she plays with us, and I’m glad that we have her for one more year.”
Did you catch that? One more year.
There was your difference in that 2011 semifinal struggle: Stack was a senior, Lacasse was a junior. But a year later, PC’s otherworldly class is on its last call and on the heels of back-to-back-to-back baptismal fires in the Hockey East semifinals.
Fittingly enough, the Friars fastened themselves into the 2012 Hockey East playoff picture last Saturday with a startling, 6-2 throttling of the then-No. 4-ranked Eagles, whose loss tripped them up in their footrace for first place with Northeastern.
Hmmm, didn’t the ostensibly underachieving BC men from 2007-08 set the tone for a timely turnaround by beating Providence, who had won their regular-season series, by a four-goal margin?
Be mindful that Florence Schelling and the Huntington Hounds are harboring an equally unquenched hunger for Hockey East banner glory and will likely ride into the postseason as the top seed with both the league’s top offense and defense. But so long as the Friars Xerox a few pages from books of BC’s past, serendipitous bounces should be the decider in this dance.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)