Have been sitting on most of these links for a while, but a bit of news to spur actually posting it: The Islanders announced PTOs for Matt Carkner, Tyler Barnes and Parker Milner, all of whom are under contract to Bridgeport.
Missouri, Bridgeport’s ECHL affiliate, signed Patrick Cullity and Wes Cunningham. Cunningham was briefly, twice, a Sound Tiger in 2011-12, Brent Thompson’s first go-round. Coincidences, whether they exist or not.
Missed it, but Elite Prospects caught it: Dyson Stevenson, who went to Allen late last season after Bridgeport picked him up from Portland, signed with Allen for next season.
Former Sound Tigers defenseman and occasional in-a-pinch sniper winger Jordan Hill signed with Norfolk (ECHL). He did a nice job for that Bridgeport team and had done the same for St. John’s since.
Sports Business Journal came out with its minor-league market rankings last week. Bridgeport (er, Bridgeport/Danbury) has been all over the map since we picked up on those a few years ago, falling from 50th to 161st since the last iteration two years ago. We’ll assume the mathemagic is sound. But we’ll definitely question SBJ’s evaluation of the 860. We’ve harped on that “Norwich/West Haven” thing for years. This time around, noticed that SBJ put the Connecticut Sun in the Hartford market. With a good arm, you may be able to literally throw a basketball from the Mohegan reservation into the City of Norwich. If you drove the length of that Norwich-West Haven market — I mean, if you stopped random people on the street in each city, what percentage do you think could direct you to the other? Even spotting them “both on the Turnpike”? — you’d pass right by Mohegan Sun.
In other words, this is about two paragraphs more than I planned to waste on those. Anyway. Let’s stick with tradition and yelp that we’re No. 161: Take that, Joliet!
Columbia’s Bob Klapisch on the Yanks’ Bryan Mitchell and getting hit in the face by a comebacker. Remarkable stories.
Tip of cap to Bob Howard, who’s called a halt to the Power Play Post Show after 11 years.
RIP, Merl Reagle.
And best of luck to Katie Strang, back home to cover the Detroit Tigers. Will miss her on hockey.