By accident of Christmas timing and the recent three-day Christmas break in the CBA, this’ll be the first time Bridgeport plays on Dec. 23 in 11 years. At least each team today has an assistant coach who was there. (Bridgeport is 3-0-0-1 on 12/23, for what it’s worth. First time it’s on the road. The first three games were all against the Wolf Pack, too)
Stephen Gionta is out with the upper-body injury he suffered last night in Springfield, but John Stevens is apparently going to give it a go, which is apparently a relatively late development. The lines are rearranged. They rushed as such:
BRIDGEPORT
F: Bourque-Stevens-Fritz
Dal Colle-Eansor-Bailey
Johnston-B.Holmstrom (C)-J.Holmstrom
St. Denis – C.Jones – Ho-Sang
(Schempp-scratch)
D: Lafranchise-Aho
Toews-Burroughs (A)
Helgeson (A)-Vande Sompel
G: Gibson
Gudlevskis
HARTFORD
F: Schneider-Holland-Kosmachuk
Leedahl-Fogarty-Whitney (C)
Fontaine-Lettieri-Tambellini
Selleck (A)-Herbert-Chapie
D: Gilmour-Pionk
Crawley-Sproul
Graves (A)-DeAngelo
(Pedrie-scratch)
G: Georgiev
Mazanec
R: K.Anderson, Schlittenhardt. L: Wahl, St. Lawrence.
Bridgeport scratches (believed healthy unless noted): Cullity, Wotherspoon, Gionta (upper), and one more (Schempp).
I take Route 8 to I-84 and turn right at Waterbury to get here, and it was pretty wild early this afternoon at the Mixmaster: You could see exactly where they’d treated the (elevated) roadway and where they hadn’t. The guardrails were coated in ice. The roads were OK — it was right about at 32 degrees the whole way — but then getting into the building across the sidewalks was fun. Be safe out there. Hopefully it warms up.