B-E-A-R-S blog blog blog

We’re hanging out at home tonight, waiting for the beginining of the one appearance in Hershey. We’ll toss up some liveblog thoughts as they come while we listen in to Phil.

From the pregame lineups, looks like Gillies, Morency and Rechlicz are out. The Thursday-morning permutation thus appears possible; it was a little shaken up, with DiBenedetto playing with Haskins and Martin, and with Bentivoglio playing with Reich and Moore.

A sold-out Giant Center tonight.

–What? The Bears wearing Capitals sweaters? Yikes. The Caps should be wearing Bears sweaters.

–Took 104 seconds. Perreault on a rebound. Hershey 1-0.

–Matt Martin scores short-handed, and the Sound Tigers tie it up in a hurry. His first short-hander as a pro.

–Phil notes that Mark Wotton, who I think he said blocked a shot, misses a shift; Aucoin scores to take the lead back.

–This line continues to devasatate the rest of the league. Andrew Gordon makes it 3-1.

–The Bears make it 4-1 and go on the power play at 16:39.

–Well, IE crashed on me, so I’ve no idea how Alex Giroux made it 5-1. He, Bourque and Aucoin have three points apiece. Five goals ties the team record for goals against in a period.

–The Bears have played 226 minutes, 34 seconds without trailing at home.

–Should we move on and liveblog the curling instead? Canada just nailed a draw to go up 5-2 after seven ends.

–Munroe replaces Lawson for the second period. It’s the first non-Rick-DiPietro-related goaltending change for Bridgeport since its last visit to Hershey, March 28 of last year. (Peter Mannino, who returned to the Wolves today, replaced Lawson in back-to-back games back then.)

–Phil notes that Mark Wotton is not back on the Bridgeport bench.

–In the past 80 minutes in that building, the Bears have outscored Bridgeport 12-3. Wow.

–Mathieu Perreault scores on a penalty shot to make it 6-1 (Edit: that’s the hat trick). That ends a string of five consecutive unsuccessful penalty shots against the Sound Tigers. Still only the fourth successful penalty shot in 18 tries against Bridgeport. (Keith Aucoin has two, when he was with Albany; Alex Giroux has the other.) Edit: Guess the Sound Tigers don’t like the call from Chris Cozzan.

–I spent so much time over the past few years making sure I left the ‘e’ out of Joel Perrault’s last name that now I can’t spell Mathieu Perreault’s name right.

–Perreault has given me plenty of practice, at least — he beats Munroe for his fourth of the night, and the night’s only half over.

–Guess it’s worth mentioning, with 30 minutes to go, that the team record for goals against is eight, done three times and not since early in the ’05-06 season.

–I’m drawing a blank. Has anyone scored four goals in a game against Bridgeport? Feel like it has happened. Edit: see below

–Chris Bourque makes it 8-1. (No problem, Phil!)

–Figren tries to kick one in. “That would not have counted,” Phil says. But it would have been cool, no doubt.

–Spending more time updating the record book than the box score. Gordon’s second makes it 9-1 and the most goals against ever in a Sound Tigers game.

–Canada wins gold in men’s curling.

–Bridgeport answers with 1.9 seconds left in the second period, Reich’s fourth. It’s 9-2 after two.

–Team record for goals, combined, both teams: 12, twice in 2005. (Both games were 7-5.)

–Phil notes that Max Gratchev, recent PTO-signing, has a goal for Rochester. And Jason Chaimovitch notes that it was Erik Christensen who scored four against Bridgeport, opening night in 2005-06, the second of those eight-goal-against games.

–Know what makes me smile? Before I see these teams play Tuesday night, I’ll have watched a meaningless baseball game. Mets vs. Braves, SNY, Tuesday afternoon.

–As tweeted from the league office, Hershey has eight or more goals in eight games. This is the third time it has scored nine (made it to 10 in one of those).

–That is all: Hershey 9, Bridgeport 2.

–I hadn’t caught the second of these, but Jack Capuano said they lost Mark Flood early in the game as well as Wotton (edit: off the box score, looks like Flood was gone in the second). Down to four defensemen, they used Trevor Smith on defense at times and Tomas Marcinko for a lot of the third period. Capuano said Marcinko did a pretty good job back there. He also said some players didn’t look ready, without naming names. “We had some passengers.” Round 2 on Tuesday.

–No updates on those two defensemen, by the way. Upper body.

Day off tomorrow. Enjoy the medal games. See you Monday.

Michael Fornabaio