Last Wednesday night/Thursday it was discovered that for the first time in the 70 year+ history that an AHL team was involved in a serious accident. The Albany River Rats were on their way home from their game in Lowell against the Devils. Their bus broke down and they had to wait 2 1/2 hours for a replacement bus. Several members of the team were seriously hurt. While most members of the team were released from the hospital, one remained until yesterday. He joined the team and they were all happy to see him.

The next day, the Rats were scheduled to play the Sound Tigers in Albany. That game as well as Sunday’s game was canceled for the obvious reasons. Tonight, for the first time the Rats take the ice to face the Sound Tigers, only this one is in Bridgeport.

Most fans are planning to give the Rats a warm reception, at least until the puck drops.

In other Sound Tiger news, the team is currently on a 5-0-0-2 streak and slowly creeping towards the WBS Penguins and the Hershey Bears. This up coming weekend, the Tigers will play a home and home against the Penguins. These are the last 2 regular season games this year they will play.

Posted under Uncategorized

Well, the Sound Tigers returned home after a disappointing 1-2 road trip in Norfolk and Philadelphia. After dropping into 4th place, the Sound Tigers managed a 4-3 thriller over the San Antonio Rampage,  at the Arena at Harbor Yard. The win moved the team 1 point ahead of the Binghamton Senators into third place.

San Antonio took the lead during the first period on a goal against Tobais Stephan, a conditioning goalie from the Dallas Stars. The Tigers would tie the game at 1 later in the first period. The Rampage took a 2-1 lead in the second period and kept that lead into the 3rd period.

The Rampage then took a 3-1 lead about 4 minutes into the 3rd. During the period,  the Sound Tigers failed to capitalize on a couple of Rampage penalties. For the first time in at least 10 games, Jamie Fraser lit the lamp to cut the San Antonio lead to 3-2 at the 12:07 mark. The teams then hit center ice for a face off which the Sound Tigers won. Just 8 second later, Jeremy Colliton lifted a gorgeous shot up and over the Rampage goalie and just into the net for the tying goal.

Finally, we were sent home very happy as Mike Iggulden scored on the power play in overtime. With the win, the Tigers not only gain points on Binghamton, but Hershey lost as well. The WBS Penguins however did win last night, so the Tigers still trail them by 6 points in the standings.

Thanks for reading and see you Friday.

Posted under Uncategorized

Once again the Bridgeport Sound Tigers continue to slump in putting the puck in the net. For the third time in about 8 days the Sound Tigers played the Portland Pirates, only this game was in Bridgeport. Last week in Portland Maine, the team lost games of 1-0 and 2-1 with Nathan Lawson in net both times.

In front of a crowd of just over 7,000 people, the Tigers manage to score just enough to win against the Portland Pirates. The first period was scoreless, however something unusual happened. Each team was given a penalty shot and both teams came up short on the shot. From the angle where Portland was given the penalty shot, it appear to my vantage point that the puck was touched before the Pirate was tripped. On the penalty shot awarded to Bridgeport, it looked like Jeremy Colliton did not have control of the puck. Alas, he missed his chance on rookie phenom Jhonas Enroth who opposed Nathan Lawson in all 3 games in the last 8 days.

During the second period, Vladimir NikiForov opened the scoring and gave the Sound Tigers a 1-0 lead after 2 periods. In the third period, Portland tied the game on a power play goal with Pascal Morency in the box.

In the closing minute of the third period, the Tigers put a lot of pressure on the Portland Pirates in their own end. With a scramble on in front of the Portland net, Ben Walter managed to get the puck behind Enroth with only 14.4 seconds left in the third. Bridgeport gets a hard fought victory over Kevin Dineen’s fiesty Portland Pirates.

The team travels to Norfolk for 2 games against the Admirals on February 6th and 7th, then head to Philadelphia for a 5pm game against the Phantoms. This is the second to last visit in the regular season for the Tigers at the Spectrum. Next season, the Spectrum will be gone and no longer used for hockey.

The Tigers return to the Arena at Harbor Yard with a game against the San Antonio Rampage, of the Western Conference, on Wednesday February 11th.

That’s it from the  “Bridge” until Friday.

Posted under Uncategorized