Trivia Time 2009

Edit: Answers are now here, after you’ve played.

Just like last year at this time, the paper broke out a Pop Quiz for the readers again this year. It’s in today’s paper. I sent in a couple of questions:

Sesame Street Live had booked the Arena at Harbor Yard for mid-April, so the Bridgeport Sound Tigers had to go elsewhere for their first home playoff games in three years. Where did those two games wind up?

(A) Madison Square Garden
(B) Nassau Coliseum
(C) Danbury Ice Arena
(D) Hartford Civic Center
 
 
Which AHL team eliminated the Bridgeport Sound Tigers from the playoffs for the third time since 2004?

(A) Binghamton Senators
(B) Hartford Wolf Pack
(C) Hershey Bears
(D) Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins

Geared more toward the casual reader, of course. The ol’ My-Mom’s-Got-A-Shot questions.

Yours may be a little tougher.

(1) The Sound Tigers set a league record this year (belatedly noted; thanks for checking, Jason Chaimovitch): most consecutive home playoff losses. (Yes, those off-site games count.) How many in a row has Bridgeport lost?

(2) Mark Wotton took over second place on the team’s games-played list this fall; he has played 255.
 (a) Whose record is he chasing, a mark he’ll break if he plays 71 games?
 (b) Who are the other three Sound Tigers with 200-plus games played for this team?
 (c) Who are the three current Sound Tigers who can reach 200 Bridgeport games played this year?

(3) The Sound Tigers clinched a playoff berth on March 31 at Albany.
 (a) Whose hat trick, his first as a professional, paced the victory?
 (b) What future Sound Tiger scored the River Rats’ first goal that night?
 (c) What was significant about that game’s scheduling?

(4) Len DiCostanzo backed up a few times for the Sound Tigers. He finally did get into an AHL game with someone else. Which team?

(5) Which of these players did not wear an alternate captain’s ‘A’ in 2009?
 (a) Mitch Fritz
 (b) Jon Sim
 (c) Pascal Morency
 (d) Kurtis McLean
 (e) Chris Lee

(6) Jack Capuano had a couple of near-mantras in his press scrums this calendar year. We really could have written them in before we started.
  (6A) What was last season’s?
   (a) We skate harder
   (b) We never quit
   (c) Our work ethic beats talent
   (d) We battled
  (6B) What was it early this season?
   (a) I can see the progress every night
   (b) I can’t believe this team won’t succeed
   (c) I can’t fault the effort
   (d) We battled

(7) Mike Iggulden was scheduled to take part in the accuracy contest at the AHL All-Star Game in Worcester. Who thought he heard his name announced, took Iggulden’s turn, and won the event?

(8) Of the teams who are on Bridgeport’s 2008-09 and 2009-10 schedules, which is the only one that they did not face in 2009?

(9) March 28 in Hershey, second-to-last game between the teams.
 (a) Who hit Jeremy Colliton up high, knocking him out until Game 4 of the playoffs?
 (b) Who immediately went to fight that player?
 (c) Alex Giroux scored two of Hershey’s seven goals. Why were they significant?
 (d) Why’d Dan Sernoffsky cover that game for us?

(10) April 3 vs. Hershey, last game between the teams.
  (a) Who scored in overtime?
  (b) Whose diving block on Oskar Osala’s wide-open shot prompted Peter Mannino to say that “Superman came out of nowhere”?

(11) Coming to the Atlantic Division offers the Sound Tigers opportunities to build rivalries with local teams. Think back to one that had some juice in earlier days…
  (a) Bridgeport has played only one current Atlantic Division team in the playoffs. Which one?
  (b) Who played goal for Bridgeport in that series?
  (c) I’d forgotten just how many there were, but that opponent’s roster at the start of the series featured three former Sound Tigers and (to date, at least) four future Sound Tigers. (Two of the former Sound Tigers did not play in the playoffs, and for one of them, that was a familiar predicament.) Name as many as you can.
  (d) What was the head-coaching matchup?
  (e) With which team had those two coaches worked together only a few years earlier?
  (f) What was the final result of that series?
  (g) What’d I pick? 🙂

(12) Match the departed Sound Tiger to his current team.

(1) Mike Iggulden (a) EC Salzburg
(2) Kurtis McLean (b) Lowell Devils
(3) Ben Walter (c) Dynamo Riga
(4) Jeremy Colliton   (d) Lukko Rauma
(5) Brett Skinner (e) Rogle BK
(6) Ryan Duncan (f) Lake Erie Monsters

(13) A what? Mitch Fritz picked up an unusual major penalty on Feb. 28 against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. What was the call, and who was Fritz alleged to have fouled?

(14) A what? Jerome Samson of Albany picked up a different unusual major penalty from Francois St. Laurent in the second period of a game April 5. Which unusual major was it? That was supposed to be one of the questions. Oops. Give yourself a bonus point if you remembered it was a spear.
  (a) Who was Samson alleged to have fouled?
  (b) On top of the tripping penalty St. Laurent gave Samson at the same time (which, you’ll recall, gets served after the major), how many other minor penalties did St. Laurent hand Albany during that major?
  (c) Who was the other person ejected from that game?
  (d) The Sound Tigers tied a team record with five power-play goals in that game. How many were scored during Samson’s major?

(15) Bridgeport’s record for calendar-year 2009 was a pretty-good 47-28-3-5, a .614 points percentage. Thanks to seven shootout wins, that’s the most wins the Sound Tigers have had in a calendar year. Even with the shootout help, though, that’s not the best points percentage in team history (third, actually). What calendar year was Bridgeport’s best?

I may hold comments for a day or two. Answers are now here. Have fun.

Michael Fornabaio