I have decided for the duration of Bridgeport's playoffs NYIFC will re-open to full time daily blogging using our old format with game one against the Hershey Bears on Wednesday including all AHL newspaper coverage for both clubs.
NYIFC will not link to Newsday coverage in a single blog entry until it is completely free and accessible to all of our fans regardless if a writer is sent to Harbor Yard and will I only use the professional print media (Ct Post) and AHL.com along with box-scores. Hershey's primary paper RSS is now linked to media sidebar on left side of page.
NYIFC prospect blog has several rss feeds, twitter updates from teams along with ways to watch/listen to games in addition to this.
NYIFC Comments:
Bridgeport is changing divisions for the playoffs (going back to division they played in last season) and going up against a team that many consider the best in a generation in Hershey (Washington Capitals affiliate) with an incredible record so it may well be a very short series as Tim Leone of the Patroit News is predicting along with a Calder Cup repeat for the Bears. Head coach Mark French is concerned about Nate Lawson and Scott Munroe & the Sound Tigers 11-5-1-0 finish for an opponent which had the same point total as the Bears a year ago in the same divison.
To the best of my knowledge an upset will be a task of monumental proportion nor will Bridgeport even have Josh Bailey and for now apparently Dustin Kohn. Bridgeport posted a negative goal differential of 201-220 but will face a team 60-17-3 with 342-198 goal disparity.
Hershey beat Bridgeport 9-2 earlier at Giant Center 2/27 and beat them again at Harbor Yard badly 6-3 on March 2nd.
I remembered both those games. Sound Tigers coach Jack Capuano had to use both his goaltenders in both games and that 6-3 game at home was 6-1 before two late Sound Tiger goals, Hershey had fifty shots in the 9-2 game which is very unusual for a team that scores nine times because it usually means some bad goals on first shots.
Andrew MacDonald was returned to Bridgeport Monday along with Dylan Reese, Michael Haley, Kohn and Joel Rechlicz here. Brendan Witt's father in-law is ill and left the team this weekend after not missing a single game since he was sent to Bridgeport earlier so his knee has responded fine despite several three games/three days situations.
The twitter box many have seen all season here will not be back until after the Sound Tigers playoffs conclude but the NYIFC updates will post on twitter and there will be some Islander related twitter entries plus twitter updates are all over NYIFC anyway at the top and on the sidebars.
The secondary NYIFC blog will not carry these written updates.
Our sidebar feeds have been updated to include newspaper links to Hershey's primary coverage for the latest including Tim Leone's twitter feed here. The Ct Post does not have an RSS feed for Bridgeport games but Mr Fornabaio's twitter and blog rss are on our active sidebar.
This also means some New York Islander blog entries will be returning here for a short time as the season is wrapped up, however there is little to add on the bouncing ping pong balls Tuesday beyond fifth (70 odd percent), first (less than eight percent) or sixth. (whatever else percent)
New York cannot move to second, third or fourth. It's first, fifth or sixth.
I have not decided if this will go as far as the World Championships that will include Scott Gordon as team USA head coach but much of this depends on how the Sound Tigers do.
What I can guarantee is this is not a full-time permanent return to our old NYIFC format which I have no interest in doing. This is just a nice way of thanking all the folks who have followed here and on twitter all season with a little extra hockey and making up for the playoffs that were not covered here last season when things were closing down.
New York Islander Fan Central Twitter Page
