- Who, when, whatever: Sound Tigers at Wolf Pack, Hartford Civic Center, 5 p.m.
- Watch: AHLTV pay-per-view
- Listen: Mixlr audio
- Twitters: Alan / the Sound Tigers / the Pack / Bob Crawford
- Box score: Good idea (R: Riley, Curtin; L: K.Briganti, St. Lawrence)
- Game notes: In Thursday’s paper, I’ll be like the 27th person to tell you a story about Kieffer Bellows. Unlike the other 26, mine will have been reported before his first pro hat trick. So take that, other 26. Yeah, chatted with a few people after that last Hartford game for a weekly-page story. Then on Saturday, Bellows scored three in the third to tie it. (Then Springfield scored early in overtime, making Bellows only the second Sound Tiger to score three in a loss.) Worse, now I have the story written and will have to update “12 goals in 13 games” factoids in like eight paragraphs. You Don’t Care. Anyway, in that game, Bridgeport apparently looked like it did Friday, except that Bode Wilde returned from a three-game absence, replacing David Quenneville. The injured list plummets to seven. We’ll see if anyone else sneaks back in today; Brent Thompson had suggested Friday that nobody was imminent, but then Wilde showed up Saturday. Bridgeport goes into the last day of the calendar year 35-31-6-3 in 2019. Let’s not have that “when does a decade start” argument here, but in the 10 years of 201n, Bridgeport is 354-324-48-40. (It has won 51 overtime and 38 shootout games. So 89-88 beyond regulation. #coinflips)
- Meh, what else is going on: My personal day was really nice Saturday, thanks. Saw lots of family we don’t see often. Then yesterday, while doing wash, I pondered this a little… though, naturally, trying to construct a 23-man roster, not just picking six, like we did for the 10th-season series. (Props to the Twitter reply that picked a goalie and five forwards. Perpetual five-on-three, then?) Goalie’s relatively easy. But then I started thinking defense, and you’re almost certainly leaving SOMEONE good and/or important off if you stick to seven D, and even if you don’t you’re leaving someone good and/or important out of your top six, and that broke my brain and I stopped. As noted in that 2001-10 post, I had obsessed over defense for two months. I do not have time to do that again. But if you’re not busy, have at it. Elsewhere, Oliver Wahlstrom, Spencer Knight, Jack Drury and the national junior team will face Finland in the quarters.
- RIP, Neil Innes.
- If this were a regular blog post, what word or phrase would most likely follow “More” at this point: Thursday or Friday, probably. A very happy, safe and healthy new year.
–Josh Ho-Sang is reported “under the weather.” But Simon Holmstrom returns. From a distant look on video:
BRIDGEPORT
F: Ladd-St. Denis-Durandeau
Bellows-Lorito-McDonald (A)
S.Holmstrom-Kubiak-Bardreau
R.Bourque-Koivula-Schilkey
D: Wotherspoon-Burroughs (C)
Aho-Hutton
Helgeson (A)-Wilde
(Cornell-apparent scratch)
G: Coreau
Skarek