Chirps from Center Ice

A fan blog about the AHL's Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins

Category Archives: Not AHL

To Latvia by way of the Pelican

Comments Off on To Latvia by way of the Pelican Posted by on May 24, 2012

The summer schedule of the blog is going to basically be a weekly gathering of topics which I find of interest which you may as well. I scrape these topics together and have enough to fire off a blog post.

A quick payoff of the poll question one post down was how you would rather lose in playoffs, in seven vs. an opponent who is your equal or swept away by a team that did what it wanted with you. Overwhelmingly, you all chose losing in seven. Can’t say I disagree with you.

Leading into that, the St. John’s IceCaps were swept by the Norfolk Admirals on home ice. They scored two goals the entire series. Yet, IceCaps fans did this. Find me a team, anywhere, at any level, that would do that given the circumstances.

It looks like the Admirals opponent could be the Toronto Marlies, as they won last night to go up 3-1 in the series. Game 5 is Friday in Toronto.

The Hershey Bears and Washington Capitals extended their affiliation for two more years. This should not come as a shock to anyone.

Also announced in the affiliation extension was the news that Head Coach Mark French and Assistant Coach Troy Mann would also return behind the Bears bench for the 2012-2013 season.

Two former Bears are hopping the pond. Danny Richmond to the Pelicans in the Finnish league SM-liiga and Alexandre Giroux to the KHL’s Dinamo Riga. The links are in Finnish for Richmond and Latvian for Giroux. You can play the famous “Fun with Babelfish” to see how funny the translation to English is.

Congrats to the Florida Everblades who captured the Kelly Cup last night in a 3-2 overtime win in front of their fans over the Las Vegas Wranglers.

The Adirondack Phantoms look to be marooned in Glens Falls for the foreseeable future. Their destined home in Allentown hasn’t even been built yet. Here is the story out of Glens Falls on the situation. The arena was rejected in Hanover Township and Bethlehem Township.

Penn State’s fledgling hockey program will play one of its games in the Penguins living room on October 13 at Mohegan Sun Arena vs. American International.

In reviewing the above, not a single link or mention at all about news on the Penguins. No news is good news?

Latest news as always on Twitter, @nafsnep

Not AHL, The AHL

Summer Writing

Comments Off on Summer Writing Posted by on May 16, 2012

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:

https://twitter.com/StocktonThunder/status/202824406433660928
https://twitter.com/StocktonThunder/status/202825386776735744

–

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!

Not AHL, The AHL, WBS

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