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Archive for June, 2008

A Chance to Watch The Florida Everblades

June 21, 2008 - By Keith Wozniak

If you’re like us and start planning hockey road trips early, you may be interested in marking your calendar for Wednesday December 3, 2008 when the Florida Everblades will be nearby to play the Elmira Jackals.  It’s the only game scheduled between the two teams.  Elmira is a roughly two hour drive from Rochester.

The Florida Everblades are affiliated with the Florida Panthers.  Typically if the Panthers are required to call a player up from the AHL they will replace that player with a prospect they have with the Everblades.  Early in the 07/08 season the Panthers called Tyler Plante up from the Everblades and sent David Schantz down.  Also towards the end of the season players Kenndal McArdle, Peter Aston, Franklin MacDonald, and Adam Taylor had been reassigned to the Blades to assist with there playoff run.

We’ll be keeping an eye on players with the Everblades in the ECHL more during the coming season.

The Everblades are also affiliated with the Carolina Hurricanes (NHL), Albany River Rats (AHL), and the Plymouth Whalers (OHL).

The Everblades are thought of to be model franchise for the ECHL, as they have not missed the playoffs in each of their nine seasons, and making [...]Read More

Tags: ι Categories: In The System

Panthers Trade Jokinen, Effects Amerks

June 20, 2008 - By Alysoup

The NHL held it’s 2008 entry level draft on Friday night in Ottawa and the night did indirectly impact the Amerks.

Olli Jokinen has been on the chopping block in Florida almost every season for the past eight years.  This year it actually happened.  The Florida Panthers traded Olli Jokinen to the Phoenix Coyotes in exchange for defenseman Keith Ballard (21 points in 82 games in the 2007-08 season with Phoenix), defenseman Nick Boynton (12 points in 79 games last season) and the 49th overall pick.

The Florida Panthers still didn’t have a first round draft pick this season.  So, the first draft day was only truly interesting to major Amerks’ fans through any trades the Panthers made.

This lowers the possibility that Panther prospect Shawn Matthias will ever see time in a Rochester Americans uniform.  The Panthers will be in desperate need for some scoring and Matthias has the possibility to fulfill that role.  In four games with the Panthers last season he scored two goals.  It does open the door even further for the Panthers to sign a veteran center to lead the Amerks.

With the Panthers trading for two defenseman, the chances of current defensive prospects making the jump to the show [...]Read More

Tags: ι ι ι Categories: Amerks, Headlines, Panthers

Affiliation and Lease Announcement

June 18, 2008 - By Keith Wozniak

For the past six months Amerks fans have heard an announcement would be made in “a week to ten days,” or  ”within the next month,” on Thursday June 19 we’ll finally get a press conference.  The Florida Panthers will be the sole affiliate of the Rochester Americans.  The City of Rochester has reached a lease agreement with the Amerks.  And we’ll finally get the chance to formally meet the new ownership.

The announcement will be made at 3pm Thursday at the arena atrium.  According to the Democrat and Chronicle the following people will be in attendance:

New owner Curt Styres and business partner Lewis Staats, Rochester Mayor Robert J. Duffy, Florida Panthers scout Jack Birch, American Hockey League vice president of marketing Chris Nikolis, National Lacrosse League commissioner Jim Jennings and arena general manager Jeff Calkins.

It has been a rough six months being an Amerks fan.  We didn’t know if the team would ever be purchased.  We didn’t know if the City of Rochester would ever negotiate a new lease with the team.  Many of us were confident things would work themselves out, but there was that chance we wouldn’t have AHL hockey in Rochester for the coming season.

Everything has [...]Read More

Tags: ι ι ι Categories: Amerks, Headlines, Panthers

Amerks and Crunch End of Season Brawl

June 17, 2008 - By Keith Wozniak

At one of the last regular season games between the Rochester Americans and Syracuse Crunch nine out of ten players on the ice got into a fight. The Amerks were pushed around the entire season by the Crunch, it was sad that it took all season for something like this to happen. I managed to record this video from our seats as the events unfolded.

It was dissapointing that Anthony Stewart wasn’t willing to quickly drop his gloves with Mirasty. Mirasty isn’t a small dude, but neither is Stewart. Stewarts excuse was that the linesman had already grabbed him and pushed him towards the penalty box. Yet Mirasty managed to skate away and continue fighting.

Mirasty got away and was third man in on a scuffle between Lojek and not sure who else, at that point Tyler Plante took a stroll out and pulled him off. He later said he had no idea he was pulling Mirasty off and second guessed himself at that point (i would too)!

Mike Funk and Derick Brassard were doing some dancing around, they both fell to the ice in front of the Amerks bench where Funk decided to start laying some punches on the [...]Read More

Tags: ι ι ι ι ι Categories: Amerks, Video

Sabres/Amerks Divorce is Final

June 9, 2008 - By Keith Wozniak

The Portland Pirates have a press conference scheduled for Tuesday June 10th to introduce their new affiliation, that being with the Buffalo Sabres.

The Rochester Americans and Buffalo Sabres have been affiliated for the past 29 years. The past six months between the two teams has been like a bitter divorce battle. The ongoing saga had put fans against fans, and caused a major distraction that effected the 07/08 Amerks season.

Tags: Categories: Headlines, Sabres

Sabres Affiliation 'Days Away' from Being Over

June 3, 2008 - By Keith Wozniak

It has been known since December 2007 that the Buffalo Sabres affiliation with the Rochester Americans was near an end after 29 years. Now, Darcy Regier says an announcement is “days away.” The announcement is the Buffalo Sabres are signing an agreement with the Portland Pirates.

A number of people have questioned whether it was really over, but news of the past few days has made everything all but official.

The Portland Pirates were previously affiliated with the Anaheim Ducks. The Ducks have now reached an agreement to be the NHL affiliate of the Iowa Stars.

With that deal official, Regier said Monday he soon will reveal plans about his team’s future.

The Iowa Stars were previously affiliated with the Dallas Stars. A spokesman for the Dallas Stars, who ended their affiliation with the Iowa Stars after two seasons, said last week the team will assign its minor league players to two AHL teams next season. Those two teams being the Portland Pirates and Iowa Stars.

So the Buffalo Sabres will be back to sharing an affiliation with an AHL team.

All of this opens the door for the Florida Panthers to be the sole NHL parent team of the [...]Read More

Tags: ι ι ι Categories: Affiliation, Amerks, Headlines, Panthers, Sabres