Edit: Bridgeport sent Mark Nemec back to Colorado (ECHL) with Griffin Reinhart back. They’ve got seven defensemen again with Scooter Vaughan available to move back if necessary.
The plan Wednesday was to write about the mumps, what precautions Bridgeport was taking. Arrived to find out they were getting their shots. Perfect. Played right into it. Wednesday night was a busy high schools night. With the team traveling today and no practice, we figured the story could hold OK, could run on Friday instead.
HA! Get me rewrite! The Rangers announced that Joey Crabb has been isolated from the Hartford Wolf Pack and is being tested for the mumps. Edit2: The Rangers also announced that Ken Gernander may have it.
The biggest reason I’d been leaning toward writing the mumps story now was because Anaheim had been one of the first focal points of the epidemic, and Norfolk’s Emerson Etem had been the only AHLer diagnosed — and he clearly had contracted the virus as a Duck, only being down for five days when he missed the first of five games. That was two and a half, almost three weeks ago. His last game was in Hartford. Hartford was here the next night. Does any of that matter? Who knows. The Rangers have had two players diagnosed in the past couple of weeks. Crabb has been here the whole year, but other players go up and down.
So anyway, yeah, hypochondria. I’ll be checking my parotids hourly. Where were we?
The other big off-ice news was the formality of the inevitable: Edmonton’s pulling out of Oklahoma City, which has seemed to be the bet ever since the Oilers bought Bakersfield.
The AHL announced Bill Guerin and Eric Weinrich as honorary captains for the all-star game next month.
And belatedly, RIP, Sy Berger.