Inquiry to the City brought this, and this alone at the moment, from Elaine Ficarra, spokeman for Mayor Bill Finch: “We fully expect the Islanders to honor their obligations to the City.”
Sean Backman, speaking of Sound Tigers leaving town (OK, I’ll stop), has signed with Manchester after two years here. Joins former Yale teammate Brian O’Neill there.
Jeff’s comment on the last post, though it went in a different direction, inspired this bit of curiosity on my part. There were 27 teams in the AHL in 2001-02, Bridgeport’s first. How many are in the same place? With Houston gone, the answer’s 15*. How many of them have the same uninterrupted affiliation? Again, after Houston? It’s six. (Four of them in New England, for what that’s worth.)
Just thought it was interesting. I guess there’s perceived perpetual drama around here. The combination of the actual drama of 2004 and the lease actually made this de facto one of the more stable spots in the league in the past 12 years.
BTW, assuming nothing crazy happens between now and Oct. 4, it looks to me like the first time the AHL has had the same number of franchises for four consecutive years since 1982-87, when it had five straight years of 13.
Justin Bourne on Trevor Smith.
Brandon Segal to Hershey. Christian Hanson to St. Louis.
A tip of cap to the Ellery Award winners this year, including Brendan McCarthy, Robin Short and the St. John’s Telegram.
From a friend on Facebook, an interesting interview with Mikhail Gorbachev.
Road trip? Been a while.
RIP, Elaine Sortino, Sid Bernstein and Elmore Leonard.
And big tip of cap to our fearless Internet leader, Sean Patrick Bowley, who’s left us for cough another paper. He’ll be missed more ways than he and we probably know.
*-I’m counting Hamilton. I know some would strictly not. I’m not counting Albany. Both are in line with the league, for what it’s worth.