Chirps from Center Ice

Congratulations are in order to the Binghamton Senators, winners of the 2010-2011 Calder Cup Playoffs in the AHL’s 75th year of existence.

The East Division’s fifth place team who crossed over into the Atlantic Division and vanquished the Manchester Monarchs in seven games in Round 1, six games needed to defeat the Portland Pirates in Round 2, a four game sweep of the Charlotte Checkers in the Eastern Conference Finals for Round 3 and defeated the Houston Aeros in six games tonight in Game 6 by a 3-2 score tonight via two power play goals in the third period.

It is the city’s first ever Calder Cup in 29 years of being a tenant to an AHL franchise.

Robin Lehner, who by all accounts will most likely be back in between the pipes next year for the B-Sens, was named playoff MVP.

Congrats to the city of Binghamton, one of my favorite cities to visit on the road. Now, they become the team to beat next year.

Below is a list of bloggers I follow on Twitter who cover AHL teams. I tried to include those who were credentialed by the team they cover and included those who cover teams which don’t have any coverage otherwise. I left off other Pens blogs who cover WBS. Why go anywhere else than right here for your WBS coverage? 🙂

If you are a blogger and on Twitter and want in on this list please let me know and I will add you. Here you go:

* – Click the “Providence” tab to be brought to coverage for the P-Bruins.

** – The Power Play Post Show is credentialed in Binghamton, but also has a weekly radio show which covers the whole AHL.

If you follow me on Twitter, you will occasionally see my retweet different people on different issues I find interesting. Sometimes people wonder who these people are and what team they cover. For the most part that information is in the persons Twitter bio and sometimes it isn’t.

I decided to make this post as a handy guide for anyone who is interested in the AHL beat guys I follow. This will move into a tab above as a page as soon as the next blog idea rolls around, so here goes:

This list will constantly be updated as new beat guys are discovered. I am also going to add a page for bloggers too, as some of them cover beats which do not have a beat writer, or one who is on Twitter.

If you know of any glaring omissions, please let me know in the comment section or e-mail me at nafsnep@gmail.com

Epic Game 7 out West tonight with Houston winning 4-3 after winning the first three games, dropping the next three until finally captain Jon DiSalvatore scores in a net front scrum and pokes a puck past Bulldogs goaltender Drew MacIntyre at 18:47 of the third period.

Game 1 of the Calder Cup Finals is Friday in Houston. Here is the rest of the schedule…

Even though Wilkes-Barre is out, you can still follow along with me on the Twitter side, @nafsnep – for updates and the like as I will be watching as much as I can.

The league normally has these games on television too, if I see anything regarding that, I will have a post at the ready later this week.

May the best team win the Cup!

Lots of chatter up on the internet and speculation on the Twitter side on what cities the AHL will be playing hockey next season.

We know that Pittsburgh will be supplying players to Wilkes-Barre for next year and beyond so if you are not in to rumor mongering, stop reading.

There have been tons of reports that the Atlanta Thrashers are moving to Winnipeg to bump out the Manitoba Moose. Including this report from The Globe and Mail. In fact, if the Thrashers move to Winnipeg, there have been rumors that they will take the Moose namesake.

So where do the Moose land? Reports today out of St. John’s, Newfoundland have them playing at the Mile One Centre in St. John’s. The article eludes to a Friday press conference however the Manitoba Moose deny such press conference from occurring.

If the Thrashers move to Winnipeg, it would then leave the Chicago Wolves without an NHL parent. The Wolves are currently the AHL affiliate to the Atlanta Thrashers. The Winnipeg AHL team, in this case the team rumored to move to St. John’s, would be the new Winnipeg NHL teams’ AHL team.

Sigh. Still with me? Good, cause it gets better.

There is more to this AHL merry-go-round of affiliation drama. The Buffalo Sabres have bought, or are close to buying, haven’t done so yet but will soon, the Rochester Americans. Who knows. But then, what happens to the Portland Pirates who are the Sabres’ AHL affiliate? You basically need a Rosetta Stone to figure this one out. Chris Roy from the Maine Hockey Journal blog tries to make sense of it all in his entry:

• Tampa Bay could pull out of Norfolk and move to Syracuse.
• Florida, late of Rochester, could then marry up with Norfolk.
• Anaheim and Portland, left at the dance by their dates, could then marry up again and we will party like it’s 2005.

Imagine for a second what this is doing to the stomachs of the fans in all of the cities affected by the speculation. That is why I say that Penguins fans have it so well because of the stable marriage between Pittsburgh and Wilkes-Barre and grind and gnash my teeth whenever I read how people get bent out of shape that the team didn’t salute the fans like this one fan did in his letter to the Citizens’ Voice editor.

Hopefully, this merry-go-round of affiliation switches and “who’s on first” game of hide the truth will be over soon and we can all get back to playing hockey.

Go Penguins!

The Binghamton Senators are the 2011 Eastern Conference Champions after defeating the Charlotte Checkers 3-2 tonight in overtime to sweep the series 4-0.

Man.

Calder Cup Finals start next week. Elsewhere, The Hamilton Bulldogs staved off elimination tonight winning 8-1 versus the Houston Aeros. The Aeros still lead the series 3-1 and Game 5 is Friday in Ontario. The Bulldogs allowed Houston fifteen shots on goal all game. Wow.