Successful somewhere

The Grizzlies are on to the National Conference Final after an 8-3 victory over Victoria, and a 4-1 series win. The three stars were on the scoresheet before the game was over (at least, by the clock on the page). That’s efficiency. Labelle-Mole-MacDonald, three familiar names. Waiting are the Las Vegas Wranglers and former Tigers Tyler Mosienko, Aaron Power and Peter Ferraro. Here’s a nice read on Mole off his Game 4 win.

The Bucs aren’t going away. Simon Ferguson scored 6:30 into OT and the Pirates have tied up the Bruins. Fascinating. Darryl Bootland scored his first goal since March 2 to make it 2-0, but Zach Hamill and T.J. Trevelyan (from Petteri Nokelainen) tied it.

Syracuse grabbed a stranglehold with another win at Ricoh. Bates Battaglia scored for the Marlies, but he also took an early penalty that allowed the Crunch to score first on a five-on-three. The teams traded goalie-interference penalties in the first 37 seconds. Fun times. Rockford, meanwhile, got its first win of the series on a penalty-happy night.

Elsewhere in Canada, Russia won a back-and-forth affair against the Czech Republic; no two-goal leads all day, and Alexei Morozov scored the winner in overtime. A two-goal lead wasn’t enough for Canada against Latvia; onetime New Haven Knight Raitis Ivanans picked up a spearing major late. Denmark beats up on Italy, so Italy is out, but oh well: Chitaroni feature!

And oh yeah, the U.S. won, too. Hat trick for Phil Kessel. Canada’s next, Tuesday afternoon. (Afternoon?) Latvia and Slovenia meet Tuesday night: Loser goes home. The U.S. and Canada have clinched berths in the second round, or more officially the “qualification round.” They’ll probably be grouped in with Slovakia, Finland and Germany, unless Norway throws in a wrench.

Interesting bit from the tournament format page, BTW: the quarterfinals aren’t a crossover anymore. If you win your second-round pool, you’re playing the fourth-place team from your own pool, a team you’ve already faced. That’s… different.

Just noticed that a former Sound Tiger (sort of) will win a championship in the Central League. Colorado and Sebastien Laplante (who backed up in Norfolk for two games in March 2004, the same two games the vanquished Wes Goldie played with Bridgeport) are facing Arizona and Marco Emond (who backed up David St. Germain 1/22/03 in Binghamton, came in when St. Germain cramped up, allowed one goal on three shots in 5:20, and has what may stand for all time as a Sound Tigers record: an 11.25 GAA). ‘Zona, for whom Emond is backing up, is up 2-0 after two home wins.

Interesting read on the bloodlines of the Derby horses: They’re all descended from Native Dancer, for one thing. Was sad about the filly yesterday. For a second near the top of the stretch, I thought she might run down Big Brown. Phil notes in his excellent blog-wrap that one of the horses that’ll run in the Preakness is named Tres Borrachos. Got to love that name.

Michael Fornabaio