Party like it's 1995

It didn’t seem to matter much who was on the ice tonight.

Not to say they were the ol’ Jacques-Lemaire-style interchangeable flock of forwards* or anything like that, but come the third, they were putting out some offbeat combinations.

Jack Capuano said it was because of the early power plays, when he had to overuse the likes of Regier, Colliton, Nielsen, Tambellini. He left a lot of the late time to Haskins, Kinasewich, Labelle, Haley, Johnson.

And it still looked good. It had pretty much looked good from the drop of the puck.

“They did a good job,” Capuano said. “They kept it simple. That’s all we ask them to do.”

What they didn’t do, Mike Morrison made up for. Walter took advantage of a miscue. Tambellini blasted home another short-hander; he’s one off of Sean Bergenheim’s single-season team record of four, and also one shy of the career team record of five, now held by Bergenheim, Rob Collins and Jeremy Colliton (who has two this season). And then Tambellini and Nielsen and Jamie Fraser combined to put it away.

Three in a row. What a concept.

BRIDGEPORT
F: Tambellini (A)-Nielsen-Kinasewich
Regier-Walter-Bootland
Haskins-Colliton-Johnson
Haley/Labelle
D: Fata-Spiller (A)
Kohn-Ford
Fraser-Wotton (C)

NORFOLK
F: Stewart-Kearns-Wanvig
Keller-Henrich-Milley (A)
Rosehill-Collymore-Klinkhammer
Smolenak/Hrdel
D: Smaby-Fletcher
Rogers-Schneider
Scalzo-Jancevski (C)

A little surprised at the announced attendance, 1,309. I thought the crowd looked bigger than last Wednesday (1,611) and the comparable Wednesday two years ago, 12/21/05 (The Wilkes-Barre Game, 1,660), which had been the smallest crowd ever until last week. (Not that this crowd was sizeable by any means.)

Bernie Cassell was upstairs as an eye in the sky again.

Concussion to Bentivoglio, but he apparently tested fine today and is day-to-day. Rullier was apparently in a minor car accident and was banged up; he’s day-to-day, too.

Adam Goodman was back on the public address. He was also doing the TV-timeout promotional stuff. After the first one, a trivia quiz, some folks in 105 shouted, “We want Dave!” Adam turned around slowly, gave them a stare, and said, “So do I.”

No sooner did the league note that Jamie Fraser didn’t have a penalty this season… He said it was “a little embarrassing” to still have the zero, but he wasn’t quite happy about the way he got that crooked number. “If you’re going to take it, I’d rather it be important. It was kind of a careless hook,” he said.

Random thoughts: Clint Hurdle manages the Colorado Rockies; Zbynek Hrdel dresses like a Colorado Rockie**.

Denis Hamel could miss a month in Bingo.

This got addictive quickly. (Oops – didn’t hat-tip to Geographic Travels with Catholicgauze)

So you’ve got Jon Bois, who does “The Dugout: The Official Chat Room of Major League Baseball.” And then you’ve got The Sporting News’ replay of 1986 in Strat-o-Matic form. Put them together, and you get… well… ObiWanKenOberkfell. Everybody plug in your Commodore 64s and get chattin’…

*-Colin Campbell, 1997 — but that doesn’t rhyme.
**-Rocky?

Michael Fornabaio