B7…”Bingo”

BRIDGEPORT
F: Tambellini (A)-Nielsen-Bentivoglio
Regier-Colliton-Bootland
Kinasewich-Smith-Haskins
Brennan/Haley
D: Fata-Ford
Kohn-Spiller (A)
Sertich-Wotton (C)

BINGHAMTON
F: Weller-Hennessy-Dimitrakos
Donati-Nikulin-Mauldin (A)
Zubov-Mapletoft-McKenzie
Amadio/Yablonski
D: Kinch-Carkner (A)
Nycholat (A)-Lee
Kudelka-Waugh

I needed a follow-up story for Wednesday’s paper, and I needed to get something on Tambellini winning player of the week. Ain’t it great when things work out like that?

Sertich donned No. 15 in his AHL debut, which took a second to click in the mind sometimes that it wasn’t Rullier.

Nycholat missed the third period with a groin pull, P+SB beat writer Michael Sharp reports. They moved Amadio back to defense and shuffled the lines a bit; McKenzie was the 10th guy.

Bridgeport is now 1-1 in New Year’s Eve games at Binghamton: Dec. 31, 2003, 2-0, Denis Hamel scores ’em both, one a short-handed breakaway on Rick DiPietro (conditioning), the other into an empty net with some tiny fraction of a second remaining. A broken foot prevented that from having a chance to happen again.

Between-periods guy mentioned that the Sens would be home Jan. 11 against “these same Bridgeport Sound Puppies.” If he’d said “Kitties,” we’d give him the pat on the back, but “Puppies”? C’mon. (He’s no Dave.)

Bridgeport is still seven points out of fourth after Hershey won (the Bears are only five behind the Phantoms now as the division tightens up); the Sound Tigers are only two behind fifth-place Binghamton now, though. Wilkes-Barre won its eighth in a row. Same link: Norfolk lost its ninth in a row.

Oh, and Providence hit New Year’s at 28-5-2-0. (Six of ’em are shootout wins, but we won’t hold that against them. Right now.)

—-

And so ends 2007, which included a 39-37-1-2 record (including eight shootout wins).

We met Chris Lee, Todd Griffith, Nick Martens, Dustin VanBallegooie, Stephen Wood, Matt Reid, Rob Rankin, Cam McCaffrey, Lance Galbraith, Kyle Rank, James Sixsmith, Steve Crampton, David Desharnais, Trevor Smith, Andrew MacDonald, Sean Bentivoglio, Tim Jackman, Darryl Bootland, Kip Brennan, Matthew Spiller, Joey MacDonald, Ben Walter, Pascal Morency, Olivier Labelle, Mike Morrison, Ryan Kinasewich, Scott Burt, Joe Franke, Micheal Haley, Tyler Haskins, Keith Johnson and Andy Sertich, among others.

We said farewell to the likes of Matt Koalska (for real), Robert Nilsson, Ryan O’Marra, Dan Marshall, Joe Ferras, Paul Camelio, Eric Boguniecki, Brandon Nolan, Jason Blake, Allan Rourke, Rick Berry, Petteri Nokelainen, Brandon Cullen and Masi Marjamaki.

And we watched Wade Dubielewicz go up to the Show… though he may pop back for a visit; we’ll see how long he has to carry the load up there.

Those who called it a career included Brian Leetch, Ryan VandenBussche, Scott Mellanby, Steve McKenna, Mike Ricci, Eric Daze, Pierre Turgeon, Eric Cairns, Matthew Barnaby, Sean Burke, Peter Bondra, ombudsman Eric Lindros and Wes Walz.

We said hello and goodbye to Tomas Malec, Ryan Smyth, Jamie Johnson, Gregg Johnson, Joe Rullier and equipment managers Eddie Summers and Mike Burkhead.

We said hello again to Pat Bingham and Scott Ford, and we said goodbye again to Kevin Mitchell and Peter Ferraro.

We said our last goodbye to Earl “Dutch” Reibel, Gump Worsley, Warren Strelow, Gaetan Duchesne, Dave Balon, Jimmy Skinner, John Ferguson Sr., Dave Fay, Sam Pollock, Max McNab, Bill Wirtz, Darcy Robinson, Tom Johnson, Don Chevrier and Stu Nahan, and I know I’m forgetting people. We ’round here lost Tom McCormack and Bill Gonillo.

Pick your own Doug Gilmour Memorial “I Retire. No Wait, I Don’t. Do I” Award recipient from among Scott Niedermayer, Dwayne Hay, Jeremy Roenick and Barrett Heisten — and maybe now Darren McCarty.

And for the Bridgeport Sound Tigers… The year began with new hope, which was followed by injuries that cut hope short. It moved on with optimism, then devolved into doubt. Hope returned in this latest stretch. We’ll see where it goes from here.

Either way, remember what it was like 365 days ago? A bit better than that, huh?

Happy new year.

Michael Fornabaio