Chirps from Center Ice

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

Tidbits

Comments Off on Tidbits Posted by on August 15, 2011

I have nothing for you other than these links which are of interest:

  • The AHL schedule will be out this week.
  • Hockey’s Future has a feature on Paul Thomspon who will be a mainstay in Wilkes-Barre this season.
  • Some kid by the name of Daniil Tarasov received an invite to prospect camp next month.
  • The SportsBusiness Journal and Daily released its report on minor league markets today. Hershey was number one. Wilkes-Barre was 139. This is out of 241 markets. There is actually a bunch of articles on the list, which you can click off in the main article. I talked about it a bit on the Twitter side today. I’m not going to make a separate blog post on this because the list is on a national, broad scale covering all sports. If you are interested in my take, hop over to the Twitter feed.

On the subject of the Twitter feed, I have some shameless self-promotion to get out of the way. I have two sets of tickets to give away for the Black and Gold Game II September 19. That’s two sets of two, for a total of four. Anyway, if I get to 600 followers on the Twitter side, two random followers will win them.

Next post should, hopefully, be reaction to the 2011-2012 AHL schedule.

Keep chirpin’. Go Penguins.

The AHL, WBS

Piecing the Pie Together

Comments Off on Piecing the Pie Together Posted by on August 12, 2011

One of the two road preseason games Wilkes-Barre / Scranton will play in was revealed today. The game is against the Hershey Bears at 7 p.m. on Saturday, October 1.

When I am blogging about a road preseason game which holds no significance at all in the big picture, you know it’s summer.

Expect either Binghamton to Syracuse to announce their preseason opponents soon and expect the Penguins to be on one of the the lists. When that happens we’ll probably make another blog post out of it.

WBS

Streaking to the Finnish

Comments Off on Streaking to the Finnish Posted by on August 11, 2011

Couple of moves today made by some teams which involve ex-WBS Penguins.

First, the Syracuse Crunch signed ex-Captain Nathan Smith to an AHL deal today. Smith captained the 2007-08 team which lost to the Chicago Wolves in the Calder Cup Finals that year. Check out some of these names which played for the Pens that year:

  • Dave Gove, who is now selling real estate in Cape Cod (whom you can follow on Twitter @SellingCapeCod )
  • Dennis Bonvie, his last year of professional hockey.
  • Everyones favorite twooper, Paul Bissonnette @BizNasty2point0
  • Assistant Coach Alain Nasreddine.

Smith is most famously remembered in these parts for this incident. It’s too cold in Syracuse for that kind of activity.

Second, the Winnipeg Jets are giving a tryout to Janne Pesonen. The link takes you to a site which is all in Finnish, so this is as good a time as any to play Fun with Babelfish, courtesy of Google Translate:

Ice hockey world champion Janne Pesonen goes to show their talents NHL club training camp in Winnipeg.

The attacker Pesonen, 29, Winnipeg trip in early September, well before the start of training camp. Pesonen, the camp aims to one-way NHL contract.

– Winnipeg direction had a clear interest in, and I am going to fight tooth and nail to one-way contract, Pesonen told STT.

Pesonen kontrahti KHL league play with Kazan last season ended. Many European club has shown interest in him,Pesonen, but would like to pursue an NHL dream. He played in North America, Pittsburgh Penguins in seven games during the 2008-09 season, spending most of farmiryhmässä.

– I like the North American style of play. I believe that I still have to give there.

Winnipeg Jets return to the NHL league a long break after the next season. Society have successfully played, among others, Teemu Selanne and Teppo Numminen.

– Finnish Society of previous players have done a fantastic job. I believe that in Winnipeg, valued at more Finnish, Pesonen thought.

I don’t think, if Pesonen doesn’t make the team out of camp, he would go to St. John’s. I think he would just go back to Europe.

Finally I’d be remiss if, when mentioning Pesonen, I didn’t include this link. Enjoy.

The AHL, WBS

Home Preseason Dates Announced

Comments Off on Home Preseason Dates Announced Posted by on August 10, 2011

Today, the Pens announced their home preseason schedule and opponents:

  • Friday, September 30 vs. Hershey at 7:05 p.m.
  • Sunday, October 2 vs. Adirondack at 5:05 p.m.

The Pens will play two road preseason games. Against who isn’t known yet. Have to figure one game versus the Bears in Hershey and another either against Binghamton or Syracuse. If those teams put out dates and opponents I will have it here and on the Twitter feed.

Interesting that we would play an out of division opponent in Adirondack in preseason, given we will only play them twice all in the regular season.

Look for the league schedule within the next week to 10 days.

WBS

Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Night

Comments Off on Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Night Posted by on August 9, 2011

Announced today that Hershey’s play-by-play voice John Walton has been “called up” by the Washington Capitals to serve as the Caps’ Director of Radio Broadcasting.

When the announcement was made, I saw a flood of kind words to Mr. Walton on the Twitter side. The AHL is truly losing a legendary voice and a man who has helped grow the league to where it is today.

Nice article here from Bears beat writer Tim Leone who, interestingly enough, mentions Wilkes-Barre’s own Scott Stuccio as a possible replacement to the departed Walton. John and Scott are friends. Stuccio previously served as Wilkes-Barre’s play-by-play voice. Scott does a TON of behind the scene work for the Penguins. He’d be the perfect guy for the job, actually, but so would the nearly 100 other applicants eluded to in the Leone article.

Silly season exists for AHL players moving to new teams, teams getting new NHL affiliations and now apparently broadcasters.

I would like to wish John the best. Whomever takes the microphone in Hershey to call Bears games this season will have extremely big shoes to fill.

The AHL

Deep Depths*

Comments Off on Deep Depths* Posted by on August 8, 2011

News is slow. I have been absent on Twitter enjoying my summer lately. However, I have been monitoring my feed every now and then for news and notes. Found this tidbit retweeted by Texas Stars blogger extraordinaire @100degreehockey:

Chupp’s numbers with Texas last year were 5-9-14, -9 in 58 games last year. It looks like an ECHL deal. Here’s his hockeydb page. He’s never played in the ECHL, so this is a bit peculiar to me that he would sign an ECHL deal on tryout with Wilkes-Barre. He may never see the Wyoming Valley. Potentially a depth signing, and by that I mean a deep depth signing for the Penguins.

I asked Hundred Degree Hockey about Chupp and here is what he tweeted me:

So we will see what happens. Hey, it’s something on a hot, humid, sticky Wilkes-Barre mid-afternoon.

* – I always look for innovative headline posts. I was actually going to go with “Chupp Yours” but decided against it because I like to keep things headline-wise, rated G.

WBS, Wheeling

Nothing to see here!*

Comments Off on Nothing to see here!* Posted by on August 2, 2011

Just a quick update to say that there are no updates. You are not missing anything. I have not given up on the blog. There simply is nothing going on at this time in Penguin land worth blogging about.

We’ve hit the summer doldrums. Schedule will be out soon then I can start planning my road trips.**

For the sake of adding something, St. John’s is officially the IceCaps and the Bears re-signed Joel Rechlicz.

News will pick up again and we will be back to the daily updates. Until then, enjoy the warm weather.

*- well, maybe.
**- love this story. It’s all on a giant board full of magnets.

Just Rambling, The AHL

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