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Archive for February, 2010

Gameday: USA vs Canada and Amerks vs B-Sens Today at BCA

February 28, 2010 - By

Short and sweet… USA vs Canada starting at 3pm on the scoreboard at Blue Cross Arena followed by the Amerks vs Senators starting at 6:30pm.  It’ll be a fun day of hockey in downtown Rochester.

The video quality may not be the best on the arena scoreboard but it’s the experience that will be fun.

The Heat win on Saturday gave them two points to jump ahead of the Amerks in the standings.  The Heat have the day off today so it’s a great opportunity for the Amerks to gain two much needed points.

See you at the arena at 3pm!

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Amerks Break Friday Night Curse; Gameday at Hamilton

February 27, 2010 - By

The Rochester Americans finally broke their Friday night curse with a home win against the Grand Rapids Griffins.  Their previous home win on a Friday night dated back to November 27th.  That’s about the time the season took a slump, slide, or you could even call it evening out.  A Friday night win gets a three game weekend kicked off with a sense of confidence instead of doubt.

The difference maker in Fridays game was Mike York.  It’s now obvious the team really missed him while he was out of the lineup (do the list of possible reasons even matter anymore?  I don’t think so).  Mike Duco scored a power play goal at 3:26 of the first period on the power play to give the Amerks an early 1-0 lead.  The goal was possible because York had faked a shot and instead sent the pass over to Duco who put it in the net.  After the game Duco said that he knew York saw him so he was expecting the pass.

Jordan Henry scored the third goal of the game for the Amerks at 10:51 of the second period on the power play that gave the Amerks a 3-1 lead.  [...]Read More

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Gameday: Amerks Host Griffins; Amerks News from this Week

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February 26, 2010 - By

The Amerks host the Grand Rapids Griffins tonight and it’s pretty simple, they need to win a Friday night home game!  The Amerks have not won a Friday night home game since November 27th when they barely held on to beat the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.  The only game on a Friday they have won was a 6-5 shootout win over the Hamilton Bulldogs on January 15th.

We’ve seen glimpses over the past two weeks of a team that can play a solid game and can find ways to win.  The goal scored by Mike York with a minute left on the clock last Sunday to tie the game and then the shootout win brought a level of excitement to the bench that has not been seen in a while.  Some things came up and I wasn’t able to write about the game but check out this excellent recap at Hockey O-Zone.

The easiest way to notice the fun level is by the rally caps that were put on by players on the bench.  Tyler Plante started it by flipping his cap (pictured) backwards and inside out.  Once the shootout started a handful [...]Read More

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Amerks to Lower Capacity at Blue Cross Arena

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February 25, 2010 - By

The Amerks have already started planning for the 2010/2011 season and one of the changes that will come is the closing of sections 211 – 217 which will lower capacity to around 7,668 seats, down from current capacity of  10,652.  This is a great move by the team that probably should have been done a long time ago to force people to sit in the center sections with the hopes of creating a better atmosphere to enjoy the games.

As it is now there can be over 1,000 people sitting in those sections for a Friday or Saturday night game with a lot of other areas left looking empty.  One thing to note is that with the new changes if a game does sell out those sections will not be opened up, the game will be considered a sell out.  There’s very few teams that can regularly sell over 10,000 seats for a game and a number of teams that also have sections of their buildings closed off.

When talking real paid attendance numbers it’s appearing as if this season could be one of the best in a number of years.  A lot of people not familiar with the topic [...]Read More

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Panthers Call Up Repik, Matthias, Calla and Beckford-Tseu

February 24, 2010 - By

The Florida Panthers are returning to practice today to prepare for their first game following the Olympic break and in order to do that they needed some players.

Bad news for the Amerks. Probably gone for the weekend and near future the Amerks have lost Michal Repik and Shawn Matthias. For some help on offense the Amerks may want to play Daniel Steiner but in order to do that they’ll have to sit Rory Fitzpatrick.

Chris Beckford-Tseu was also called up from the Florida Everblades to be a second goalie in practice. That’s horrible news for the Everblades since they are now without a goalie for their game on Friday. I’m assuming they’ll send him back to play this weekend.

Brady Calla was also called up to the Panthers to help fill their roster prior to the Olympic break. He has not been playing for the ‘Blades because technically he has been earning a paycheck with the Panthers.

That’s all for now, expect some exciting changes to the site in the next week or so!

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Nolan Says Panthers are Aware of Amerks Slump

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February 22, 2010 - By

There is no denying the Rochester Americans have been in a long slump and have barely been holding on to second place in the North Division for some time now.  Fans have read about and witnessed the poor play for themselves, heard excuses comments from the coaches and players, but have questioned whether or not anyone is going to do anything about it.

We know that Curt Styres, Lewis Staats, Ted Nolan, Jody Gage and everyone else in the office cares about the success of this franchise but what can they really do on their own?  Not all that much, which brings up the question was recently raised by Kevin Oklobzija, If the parent team doesn’t care, why should the players?

I asked Ted Nolan on Sunday afternoon if they have talked to the Florida Panthers about what has been going on (the slump and possible reasons for it) in Rochester and he gave a quick answer of yes.  He said they’ve been on the phone and talked a lot of what’s been going on.  He didn’t provide any other details about whether or not any changes or help will be provided, but [...]Read More

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Gameday: Amerks Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony; vs Pirates

February 21, 2010 - By

The Rochester Americans will hold their 23rd Hall of Fame induction ceremony this afternoon inducting Randy Cunneyworth, Jim Wiemer, and Kent Weisbeck.  It’ll be a good day hearing great stories from some of the greats in Amerks history.

Hopefully the players and coaches will hear what’s said and take it as motivation into the game to prove that one day this years team will be considered one of the best.  It’ll be tough as the Amerks still try to find their way and the Pirates are looking to continue with their franchise record breaking winning streak.

I’m going to hold off from saying anything else and stay positive, it’s not easy to do.  We’ll see what happens today during the game.  If you feel like venting or reading about others vent you can check out this link (Amerks Management – WAKE UP!!) and this link (Has Anyone Seen Enough of these Clowns Yet?) which are posts on local message board RochesterSportsFan.com.

The on ice portion starts at 3:08 so the actual game won’t start until everything else is taken care of.  I mention that because in previous years people who have not cared [...]Read More

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Amerks Loss to Portland is like Groundhog Day

February 21, 2010 - By

It’s only fitting that as I find a movie to watch as I write about the Amerks fourth straight loss the movie Groundhog Day is on.  Can someone check the alarm clocks of the Amerks and make sure I’ve Got You Babe is not waking the players up every morning?  It sure does feel like we’re living the same games over and over, much like Bill Murray had to live the same day over and over.

The Rochester Americans get off to a good start, play with some confidence, hit some bodies, score some goals, fans are excited… and then everything changes.  The team loses it’s confidence.  The fans lose their excitement.  The other team wins.

Jamie Johnson must have been reading my mind because he said across the locker room to the media, “You guys can use the same comments I made last night and Tuesday.”

Benoit Groulx is still confident as he should be saying, “To me we can’t be more close than we are lately.  End up losing by one goal here, one goal there, bad mistake bad play here, so we’d like to believe that its coming.”

The game started out pretty [...]Read More

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Gameday: Amerks Look to Stop Pirates Winning Streak

February 20, 2010 - By

The last time the Rochester Americans and Portland Pirates faced off was on November 12th at HSBC Arena in Buffalo when the Pirates won 6-3 to end the Amerks bid for a franchise record 12th straight win.  The Amerks will have a chance to end the Pirates bid for their own franchise record as they go for their 11th straight win.

It’s safe to say that there is a lot on the line with this game and I think everyone knows why without me writing about it.

The Amerks lost 4-3 on Friday night against the Manitoba Moose but insist that if they play with the same effort they had they will be succesful.  It was a similar story line last Friday and Saturday and they did find a way to win, unfortunately it ended as quick as it started.

The players and coach say that if they keep up the effort they’ll start winning games regularly again.  I think fans would love to believe that but want to see the wins first, hopefully today is the start.

The Pirates were down 2-1 against the Albany River Rats but found a way to come back and [...]Read More

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Cory Schneider Leads Moose to Win over Amerks

February 20, 2010 - By

The last time the Rochester Americans won a home game on a Friday night was November 27th, with the loss to the Manitoba Moose on Friday they have since lost eight straight Friday night home games.  That game they won in November was the game that they were up 4-0 and the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins scored three in the third to make it a close game.

The difference maker in the game was Moose goaltender Cory Schneider who made 32 saves and only allowed three goals.  After the game Schneider said, “I knew they were going to come hard, my whole goal tonight was to come in here and steal a game and give my team a chance to win.”

Jeff Taffe talked about Schneider and goal tending saying, “He’s a great goaltender, as well as we played you’ve got to give him a lot of credit.  Good goaltenders win games like that.  We were the benefactor I think early in the year.  Our goalies were stealing games every night and just kind of hit a little rut right now.”

“He’s a confidence builder for everybody, he loves that too.  He loves when the game gets tight [...]Read More

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Gameday: Amerks vs Moose, Return of Mike York

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February 19, 2010 - By

There’s no doubt that the Amerks need all the help they can get on Friday night games. They have only won one out of six Friday night games in 2010, that one game was on the road in Hamilton. No one has an answer, but its something every player and coach wants to change.

Mike York will be playing tonight, he has not played since early December and has missed 33 games. Whatever the issues were are behind us, everyone is just hoping he can insert some life into a struggling team.

The Amerks are still trying to get their 2,000th franchise win, something that has eluded them for a couple weeks now. Once they do get that win the team has free tshirts they’ll be handing out. The shirts say February 2010 so the interns better hope it happens soon or they’ll be using markers to adjust every shirt.

The Moose are looking to gain more ground so we can expect them to play their best.

Puck drops at 7:05pm, see you there!

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Amerks Talk About Frustration after Tuesdays Loss

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February 17, 2010 - By

The quest for 2,000 franchise wins will have to wait for another night for the Rochester Americans as they added another loss to the standings on Tuesday night against the Manitoba Moose.

The Amerks had a 2-1 lead off of goals from Jeff Taffe and Shawn Matthias just over half way through the second period and then in an instant things took a turn for the worst.  In a span of three minutes and four seconds the Moose scored three goals and had a 4-2 lead and never looked back.

Mike Duco did score a power play goal late in the third period and just prior to that the puck had gone in and out of the net but the ref never saw it.  None of that would’ve made a difference, the game was over.  Everyone became frustrated and it appeared as if everyone quit playing.

A season that started with a record of 18-3 at one point has turned into a season of wondering if the Amerks will even be able to stay ahead in the standings to make the playoffs.  The turmoil on the ice has also spread into the stands.  If you were [...]Read More

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