Dumb things keeping me up

It has been a long couple of days, and yet there I was wondering whether Jon Sim’s hat trick was remotely close to the fastest in team history. The answer was “no,” any way you slice it.

Well, that was exciting. But for lots of crazy numbers and some first-season nostalgia, click along.

Quick edit, couldn’t resist: Speaking of hat tricks, you’ll never guess who had one tonight. Click there, then click on.

Sim scored his three goals in just over 30 minutes elapsed, which I wasn’t expecting to be all that high on the list. It wasn’t. The fastest is Justin Papineau’s natural hat trick on Oct. 15, 2005, at Binghamton. Papineau scored his three in 12 minutes, 24 seconds. It’s not Mosienko-like, but it’s fast enough.

But Papineau started that late in the second period, and he finished it 5:03 into the third. If you go by elapsed time into the game — 31:21 for Sim today — neither of those is far up on the list. Among those ahead of them were Sean Bergenheim’s four-goal game (he had his first three, the natural, by 4:42 of the second) on Feb. 22, 2006, and Sean Bentivoglio’s hat trick on the night the team clinched a playoff spot, March 31, 2009 (four seconds later, 24:46.)

But the quickest into the game, and not far behind the fastest all-around, was Jason Krog’s on Jan. 26, 2002, at home against Worcester. Krog was done in the first period, at 18:36, on three power-play goals. It had taken him only 16 minutes, 39 seconds. He earned the second Sound Tigers hat trick, after Justin Mapletoft’s natural on home-opening weekend against Hartford (another hatless hat trick).

And it’s among the most memorable three-goal games in Bridgeport history. It came up today, in fact. It’s the only time a Sound Tiger recorded a hat trick in a loss. Had that happened today, it probably would have finished with the same score. And we’d have missed the visitors’ score-by-periods by one, shifted from the third to the second.

One of the craziest games ever seen at Harbor Yard. There were four future Sound Tigers on the other side (Ed Campbell, Cody Rudkowsky, Papineau, Eric Boguniecki). One of the 38 who played that game was in the lineup today: Ben Guite, on the other side.

That was the second of five games in a row without a win for the Sound Tigers, the last of which was the 7-1 shellacking at Springfield with the 11 fights and the 12 game misconducts and the 316 penalty minutes. And that was followed by nine wins in a row. And that is one of the reasons we still remember that year.

Anyway. Before bedtime, the box from Jan. 26, 2002*:


Worcester 1 1 4–6
Bridgeport 3 2 0–5

First Period — 1, Bridgeport, Krog 12 (Armstrong, Torres), 1:57 (power play). 2, Worcester, Pollock 12 (Brown), 3:03. 3, Bridgeport, Krog 13 (Giroux, Armstrong), 12:36 (power play). 4, Bridgeport, Krog 14 (Tuomainen, Armstrong), 18:36 (power play). Penalties — Papineau, Wor (hooking), 1:36; Papineau, Wor (slashing), 3:55; Kolnik, Bpt (roughing), 6:11; Boguniecki, Wor (elbowing), 11:37; Schultz, Bpt (hooking), 14:28; Laflamme, Wor (high-sticking), 17:58.
Second Period — 5, Bridgeport, Guite 5 (Kiprusoff, Mapletoft), 1:40. 6, Bridgeport, Guite 6 (Morisset, Mapletoft), 4:00. 7, Worcester, Laflamme 1 (Troschinsky), 11:48. Penalties — McLaren, Wor, major (fighting), 3:08; Godard, Bpt, major (fighting), 3:08; Giroux, Bpt (holding), 5:18; Torres, Bpt (tripping), 13:42; Jackman, Wor, major (fighting), 16:56; Armstrong, Bpt, major (fighting), 16:56.
Third Period — 8, Worcester, Panzer 18 (Nickulas, Boguniecki), 3:23. 9, Worcester, Walker 1 (Nickulas, Boguniecki), 12:08. 10, Worcester, Papineau 30, 13:15. 11, Worcester, Nickulas 7, 18:26. Penalties — Brown, Wor (high-sticking), 4:28; Boguniecki, Wor (slashing), 15:04; Hunter, Bpt (cross-checking), 15:04.

Shots on goal — Worcester 12-18-12–42. Bridgeport 11-7-4–22.
Power play opportunities — Worcester 0 of 4, Bridgeport 3 of 5.
Goaltenders — Worcester, Divis 16-9-4 (22 shots-17 saves), Rudkowsky, 18:36 first (0-0), Divis, 0:00 second. Bridgeport, Valiquette (40-35), DiPietro, 13:15 third, 13-14-5 (2-1).
Attendance — 5,614. Referee — Spada. Linesmen — Brown, Murphy.

*-Almost nine years later, I checked what I sent to the paper against the box I downloaded off the AHL Web site a few days later. In addition to a couple of assist changes, the official box transfers one save from each of Rudkowsky and DiPietro to the starters. Those updated stats are reflected above.

Michael Fornabaio