Nothing earth-shattering out of this morning’s press conference at the arena, trumpeting the Sound Tigers’ takeover — the “official” announcement, more than one person said, though the team has been in charge since it moved upstairs March 30. They didn’t confirm the assumed NHL exhibition game, which should be happening; finalizing the details and announcement. No announcements on other events, either. But there was a logo for the new enterprise, designed by Brian Keegan: I’ll agree with Els.
Maybe the most earth-shattering thing was backstage. A lot of stuff had accumulated back there over 10 years; Charlie Dowd said there was even debris left over from when they built the place. A lot of it has been cleared out. Cleaning the place up is important to them. They’ll be taking the carpet up in the concourse, which will make the place look better and be easier to clean. Howard Saffan said they’re working on ribbon boards as well as larger video screens on the sides of the inside of the arena.
Getting more events in, that was the biggest part of the press conference, but sprucing the place up and improving the experience seems to be as important, or close at least.
Here’s the team’s release today.
Was hoping maybe to get a lead on a new coach. Not really.
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Former Sound Tigers and local-tied players on World Championship rosters: Czech Republic: Radek Martinek. Latvia: Herberts Vasiljevs. Finland: Petteri Nokelainen, (Jesse Joensuu – not on list but reported as a late add). Slovakia: Head coach Glen Hanlon. Sweden: Robert Nilsson. Switzerland: Tobias Stephan. USA: Ryan Shannon, head coach Scott Gordon, assistant coach Greg Cronin, general manager Paul Fenton.
Marc-Andre Gragnani is going to Team Canada instead of Portland. A blow to the Bucs.
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Speaking of whom… Portland is in trouble. Mark Mancari came back to score the tying goal, but defenseman Bob Raymond scored the winning goal for Binghamton, and Kaspars Daugavins tacked on an empty-netter. The Sens lead 2-0 with three home games to come. Charlotte grabbed a lead on Wilkes-Barre behind two Jon Matsumoto goals. And Hamilton leads Winnipeg 1-0, though the Moose didn’t seem to have a problem playing from behind in the last round.