Neil Clark and Jon Mirasty dropped the gloves at the first game of the 08/09 season at Blue Cross Arena. The anticipated match up for opening night had been between heavyweight Steve MacIntyre and Jon Mirasty, but the Edmonton Oilers ruined that when they claimed “Big Mac” off of waivers on the first day of Amerks training camp.
Posts Tagged ‘Syracuse Crunch’
Amerks Opening Night Festivities
The start of the 2008/09 Rochester Americans season is finally upon us!! The organization has new ownership, a new sole affiliation, new players, new fans, new web site.. let’s play some hockey. Here’s some additional notes for opening night, along with events at the arena.
When asked about Fridays opener after practice on Thursday morning, head coach Benoit Groulx commented, “Yes, I’m very excited. We have a good group. The kids are working really hard. We’ll see tomorrow if it’s paying off.”
Keaton Ellerby has an “upper body injury,” but whatever that injury may be, it doesn’t impact his skating one bit. After practice on Thursday morning he was doing sprints for about 15-20 minutes with Cipolla. On the way off the ice Keaton jokingly commented to a 4yr old watching, “don’t play hockey, never play hockey.” We still think Cipolla could suit up for the team if needed. He replied, “yea, behind the bench.”
As of Thursday afternoon Shawn Matthias was on his way to Rochester to join the team. Matthias made headlines last season when the Panthers called him up from juniors and he had an immediate impact on the team. He should be exciting to [...]Read More
Amerks Fall To Crunch 5-2 In Preseason Matchup
The Amerks lost to the Syracuse Crunch tonight 5-2 in their first preseason game.
Everyone knew they could look forward to a few fights tonight and I’m sure a lot of people wanted to see (or hear about) Ryan James Hand take on Jon “Nasty” Mirasty. But, who was ready for the four fights that took place? After last season, one fight would have been a treat.
Hand of course dropped the gloves first, only 3:19 into the game. But, it wasn’t with Mirasty. It was with Mike Sgroi who is a real heavyweight. This bodes well for Hand showing he isn’t afraid to take on people a bit bigger than himself.
Hand never did get to take on Mirasty. In fact, Mirasty didn’t fight anyone tonight. Ryan didn’t mind though saying, “I’m not really upset [about not fighting Mirasty], I have a lot of respect for him. I’ll get my chance.”
The second fight of the game was between James DeLory of the Amerks and Trevor Hendrikx of the Crunch. Kevin O said this one was pretty much another draw.
The third and fourth fights involved Neil Clark who played for the Grand Rapids Griffins last season. First he tossed down [...]Read More
Amerks and Crunch End of Season Brawl
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.
(This fight had happened on April 11, 2008 even though this article was posted in June 2008)
It was disappointing 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 [...]Read More