Berkshire League, Unlocked

Sunday edit: Got a few minutes with Travis Hamonic today: story here with a bit of a more general-audience BST lockout primer.

So the league and the players association didn’t come up with a new CBA.

Contain your shock, please.

While we wait until January, we’ll find other things to do. I think my two biggest upticks in TV-watching coincide with NHL lockouts. Don’t know that that’s mathematically possible with this one, but there is this guy on “Survivor”:

16 ounces of soda, 18 years of regrets

Once the show gets going, I’ll have to see if I’ll find myself rooting for him as an old guy like me a former Major Leaguer, or rooting against him for his 20-year-old crime of Not Being David Cone.

And in four weeks, we’ll have the Locals. Linkage to the guys who’ve Not Been Locked Out in the Northeast Division:

Albany: The Devils sent 24 players to the Devils, most notably rookie sensation Adam Henrique. Tom Gulitti reports that Matt Corrente will sign an AHL lockout deal to play there.

Adirondack: The jump-out name is Sean Couturier from among those sent down today. Like the likes of Dustin Brown and Patrice Bergeron and Eric Staal last time around, and like probably most notably Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in OKC this time, it was agreed that 19-year-olds who played full-time in the NHL as 18-year-olds were AHL-eligible (think Jeff Marek put that out officially today). I will be very happy at some point to pull him aside and ask him what his dad has told him about New Haven. The link also includes the Phantoms’ AHL-contract players.

Hartford: If they’ve announced their full list, I’ve missed it. Edit: it’s up now, with a hat tip to Paul Doyle for the link. The Rangers did announce the eight guys they waived this week, who include one Micheal Haley. (They also include Chad Kolarik, who hopefully gets a chance to play this time.) Not expecting anything crazy. Larry Brooks reported some time ago that Chris Kreider will be here, because you might as well let the kid actually play his first pro season, but other NHL-young’ns won’t — not least because they’d require waivers. And are you going to pass on Ryan McDonagh? Didn’t think so.

Springfield: On paper, the Falcons look good. (#postsfrom2011 #postsfrom2010 #postsfrom2009 #postsfrom2008 #postsfrom2007 #gratuitousjokes…) Their waivers and non-waivers assignments didn’t seem to have any real shockers. They’ll have guys like Cam Atkinson (excuse me, Greenwich’s Cam Atkinson), Jonathan Audy-Marchessault and Tim Erixon, along with the kid picked one ahead of Nino Niederreiter, Ryan Johansen, who played 67 games for the Blue Jackets last year as a 19-year-old. Garry Brown has Springfield’s lengthy list of AHL-contract guys in his story from the other day.

Bridgeport: Where’ve you been? (Or maybe you’re using Internet Explorer and the page has looked funny. Sorry about that. Passed along word. And hope I’ve got a temporary workaround.) You’ve more or less got 27 names to use to sort out a lineup.
G–Nilsson, Poulin, Reiter
D–Cantin, de Haan, Donovan, Hamonic, Landry, McIver, Ness, Wishart
F–Backman, Cizikas, Clark, DeFazio, Gallant, Halmo, Kabanov, MacKay, McDonald, Nelson, Persson, Riley, Sundstrom, Ullstrom, Watkins

Oh, and for the sake of argument, if they do settle this thing this year: The locked-out Islanders are sitting at two goalies, four defensemen and 12 forwards.

So, 26 days until opening night in Hartford. Another 23 and a half hours past that to opening night in Bridgeport. And then another week to Game 3, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Michael Fornabaio