Chirps from Center Ice

Check back on the blog occasionally for topics such as what you are about to read. Majority of these stories don’t warrant their own blog posts and some don’t even warrant being discussed at all. I guess I am just going to keep blogging to keep myself sharp.

Here goes:

–> Pittsburgh signed Reid McNeill to a three year entry level contract yesterday. From what I have seen / read on him, he is a mobile, steady defensive defenseman.

–> The AHL Conference Finals kickoff tomorrow. You know it’s Norfolk – St. John’s in the East and it’s Oklahoma City – Toronto in the West. It’s the top two seeds in both Conferences. Read all about it here.

–> Here’s my prediction for both series: Norfolk in six, Toronto in seven. We will see how wrong I am.

–> Interesting developments on the Twitter side if you don’t already follow that I haven’t mentioned here on the blog. The Allentown arena that is supposed to be built to house the Adirondack Phantoms is a mess. I’m not going to go into details as to why as I have really haven’t been paying attention to it. Anyway, a man by the name of Paul Carpenter wrote an article last week slamming Hershey and Wilkes-Barre as “podunk” towns. Today, he wrote a retraction after angry Bears and Penguins fans vilified him.

–> A funny exchange between two California ECHL teams:

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Hilarious. Of note, the Bakersfield Condors were the only ECHL Western Conference team to not make playoffs this year.

–> Speaking of the ECHL, they look like they will grow by two tomorrow as the Central League’s Evansville Icemen and league champion Fort Wayne Komets have press conferences scheduled to announce (it’s forecasted) moves to the ECHL in 2012-2013.

–> Finally, decided to make a chart and add it to the tabs above on the blog to keep track of offseason moves for the Penguins. Should be a good project this summer. I will be adding the names and making a chart within 24 hours. I’ll tweet when it’s up and running.

Expect more of these kinds of posts as the summer wears. Gotta stay sharp.

Let’s Go Pens!