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

Last night the Sound Tigers played host to the Houston Aeros. This was the Aeros first visit to Harbor Yard in nearly 5 years. The game started a bit slow, but the Sound Tigers managed to take a 1-0 after 1 period on a goal by Kurtis McLean (who was passed over for the all-star game).  Sound Tigers came out in the second period and did score a nice goal by Ben Walter to give the Tigers a 2-0 lead.

Now, in the 3rd period, McLean struck again just 10 seconds into the period. From what Mike Fornabaio of the CT POST (Their beat writer), this goal was the fastest goal in the regular season in team history to start a period. Vladimir Nikiforov, who was recently called up with the rash of injuries, took a boarding major. This was discussed by many of us after the game. While the boarding call was the right call, it did not look like a major to many fans. The referee, Terry Koharski obviously so it as a major. On that major, Houston set another record according to Mr. Fornabaio of scoring 3 goals in 82 seconds. Eventually the game went to a shootout where Bridgeport goalie Yann Danis (Now going back to the Islanders) stopped all 4 shots and Bridgeport got 2 of 3 goals to win the game.

Please visit Mike at his blog as well as this blog from a fans prospective.

Posted under Uncategorized