Chirps from Center Ice

On the evening of the Calder Cup Finals, I offer the following:

–> Here’s the official Calder Cup Finals press release from the league. If you haven’t heard, it’s Toronto Marlies and the Norfolk Admirals.

Norfolk scored the most goals in the regular season (273) while Toronto allowed the fewest goals in the regular season (175)

Should be an interesting matchup against two teams which have never played each other. (which I still find hard to believe) Marlies are missing 28 playoff points and 119 regular season points in Matt Frattin (out for season with a knee injury), Mike Zigomanis and Nazem Kadri.

Marlies are 11-2 in the postseason and have won 23 out of 29 games overall.

Norfolk is 39-3 in their last 42 games. Let me type that again: 39-3.

Should be a very exciting series. One that you can’t watch on TV in America, which is a travesty. You can watch it in pretty much every other country outside of America, but not here. That is a joke. AHL Live charges you $12.99 for a grainy works when it wants to game and is flat out unreliable. The fact that the second highest level of professional hockey in North America, some would say the world, can’t find a way to put its championship series on television in America, rife with programming which can best be described as garbage, is downright outrageous.

Deep breaths, Jason. Deep breaths.

…

Elsewhere:

–> Washington re-signed G Dany Sabourin for another year. He will mentor Philipp Grubauer, who was third in goals against overall for ECHL South Carolina.

–> Speaking of the ECHL, it released its 2012-2013 schedule Wednesday. If you are looking for an .ics format of the Wheeling Nailers for your iCal, iPhone or iPad you can e-mail me and I can send you my self-built schedule.

–> Keith Wozniak, mastermind behind LetsGoAmerks.com, had an article about hybrid icing which could be implemented in the AHL as early as next season. Read all about it here.

–> Oh, my prediction for the Calder Cup Finals is Norfolk in six. Marlies are a tough team, but I don’t think they have seen anything like Norfolk out in the Western Conference. The fact that they are missing key guys makes it that much more difficult.

Check me out on Twitter for the latest, as always.

Have a great weekend!