By Bruce Berlet
HARTFORD, Conn. – Howard Baldwin and his Whalers Sports and Entertainment group have been working feverishly for months in an attempt to revitalize the local hockey market and get back into the NHL.
But one of the major rivals of Baldwin’s New England Whalers in the World Hockey Association and Hartford Whalers in the National Hockey League made a major statement Saturday night at the home of one of the NHL’s weakest links, the New York Islanders.
And another former WHA city, Winnipeg, Manitoba, has been making a strong statement for several years about its intentions to return to the world’s best hockey league.
Both cities show Hartford fans what is needed and what Baldwin & Co. are facing if the NHL is ever going to be a fixture again in the XL Center.
A fleet of 22 buses carrying about 1,100 of the 70,000-member “Nordiques Nation” showed up at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y., on Long Island Saturday to demonstrate the desire to have the NHL back in Quebec City. The Whalers, Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets and Edmonton Oilers were the WHA teams to merge with the NHL for the 1979-80 season, and fans in Quebec City and Winnipeg have gained a foothold to try to land financially struggling NHL franchises such as the Islanders, Phoenix Coyotes and Atlanta Thrashers, who scored four third-period goals to beat the Islanders 5-4 Saturday night.
“Nordiques Nation” held a boisterous pregame demonstration to show their passion for another NHL team and then filled parts of the upper deck behind both nets. Ironically, it was financial problems that forced their Nordiques to relocate to Colorado in 1995 and become the Avalanche, but Quebec City fans remain steadfast in their desire to keep the memories of their beloved team alive.
Sound familiar Hartford Whalers fans?
“Fifteen years ago our team was sent to Colorado, so we’re here to get them back,” Olivier Lettre of Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, told Newsday. “We’re just trying to show that we deserve a team. We’re trying to send a message to the league and to (commissioner) Gary Bettman.”
The rabid appearance of “Nordiques Nation” came as the Islanders continued to spiral downward. They rank 29th in attendance (10,710, 65.7 percent of capacity), ahead of only the Coyotes (10,282, 58.8 percent of capacity), and owner Charles Wang’s multi-million plan for a new arena, the Lighthouse Project, appears all but dead.
But not off of the fans were backing the former team from Quebec City. Two fans wearing Islanders and Whalers sweatshirts held up a sign saying, “Save The Whale, Not The Nordiques.” And one of the comments on the site noted the Nordiques fans weren’t the only relocated team awaiting another NHL franchise to return.
On the ice, the Islanders have lost 20 of 21 games, and a third-period goal by former Bridgeport Sound Tigers forward Blake Comeau ended a 0-for-46 streak on the power play spanning 12 games.
Before the game, Islanders general manager Garth Snow said there was “nothing new to report” in the team’s pursuit of a new facility to replace the antiquated Nassau Coliseum, which opened May 29, 1972.
“We’re here through 2015, and we’re going to honor the lease,” said Snow, a former goalie who ironically was drafted by the Nordiques in 1987.
“Nordiques Nation” members stressed they weren’t targeting only the Islanders. The Thrashers have less hockey tradition so they could be more susceptible to relocation.
“This is not meant to be anything bad about the Islanders, but we just want to show that we want a team in Quebec,” Caroline Matte, 35, of Quebec City, told Newsday.
“It was just the closest place we could find a game between two teams that are both struggling,” Lettre said.
The Islanders have drawn fewer than 10,000 fans four times this season and haven’t had a sellout of 16,234. Their average isn’t much higher than that of the Manitoba Moose, the Vancouver Canucks’ affiliate in Winnipeg, who are second in the AHL at 8,495 for 10 dates and expected to go much higher after the holidays. Hershey is No. 1 at 9,204 for 13 dates.
“As much as I think it was a great public relations thing to have all the people show up on Long Island, the most important thing is the market that we hope to play in,” said Baldwin, chairman and CEO of Whalers Sports and Entertainment. “I would prefer if our fans would come to the games we’re having here. The biggest statement we can make is exactly what we’ve been trying to get people to make, ‘Let’s fill our own building, then the rest will happen nicely.’ ”
Baldwin is aware what the Moose have been drawing in Winnipeg, but they have been doing it for several years while Whalers Sports and Entertainment didn’t take over the business operations of the former Hartford Wolf Pack until 21/2 weeks before the 2010-11 season started. Baldwin said he isn’t disappointed 13,089, the second-largest home crowd in franchise history, showed up for the debut of the Whale on Nov. 27 but the numbers have been 3,012, 5,060, 5,321 and 3,318 since. That’s still more than the Wolf Pack were averaging in their first 11 home games.
“The problem is most peoples’ mindset is that this is a light switch,” Baldwin said, “so all you do is disappointment people when you start saying, ‘Well, are you disappointed?’ What is there to be disappointed in? This market is badly in need of help. If it was just a light switch saying, ‘OK, we’re back, we’re going to do 13,000 people a game,’ you wouldn’t need us to do that.
“All I can tell you is that I think it’s going great. You go to the games, like last weekend, and people love it and are getting into it. It’s a whole culture that has to be turned around, this whole thinking that it’s all of a sudden going to happen just because we changed the uniform covers is a big, important part of it.
“I’m rooting like hell for those guys (Quebec and Winnipeg) because there are a lot of teams that need a lot of help. If we just keep building here and people keep coming and have fun … I was really excited about the opening, but I was just as excited about what I saw last weekend and the prior weekend where people are coming, and you hear them chant ‘Let’s Go Whale’ and see all the colors. It’s all there, but it’s just going to take time.”
That’s especially true when you’ve taken over a team with a season ticket base of about 400.
“Every game we’ve (basically) started from Ground Zero, so that’s what we’ve been up against,” Baldwin said. “It’s not easy, and we couldn’t be more optimistic or feeling more positive about it. Next year there’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll have 3,500 season ticket holders.”
Despite his enthusiasm, Baldwin did have a flashback Sunday when the roof collapsed at the Metrodome in Minneapolis, forcing the New York Giants-Minnesota Vikings game to be moved to Detroit on Monday night. But not even an act of God could prevent the end of Vikings quarterback Brett Favre’s record playing streak at 297 games. Without Favre to worry about, the Giants rolled, 21-3.
But Baldwin wasn’t thinking about the Giants, Vikings and Favre. His mind shot back to that morning in Edmonton on Jan. 18, 1978, when he and many of the Whalers family learned the Civic Center roof had collapsed, turning their worlds upside down until a new and enlarged facility reopened on Jan. 17, 1980.
“I immediately thought about the Civic Center roof collapse,” Baldwin said when asked about the Metrodome mishap. “I thought, ‘Gee, whiz, I’m surprised they haven’t put up a picture of the Civic Center’ because that was the last big roof collapse. I’ve seen the replays, and it’s pretty amazing. Thank God nobody was hurt.”
Like the Whalers 32 years ago, Baldwin & Co. hope the Whale can resurrect the local hockey market and bring the NHL back to the Insurance City.
WHALE-PHANTOMS REMATCH IN GLENS FALLS
The streaking Whale (12-11-2-4) has a rematch with the Phantoms (4-22-2-0) on Wednesday night at 7 at the Glens Falls (N.Y.) Civic Center.
The Whale twice rallied from one-goal deficits to beat the Phantoms on Sunday for their second victory over Adirondack this season, improving to 6-1-0-1 at the XL since going 1-5-2-0 in their first eight home games. The Whale has won four in a row for the first time this season, is 6-0-0-1 since being rebranded from the Wolf Pack, has an eight-game point streak (6-0-0-2) and is above .500 for the first time since they were 3-2-0-1 after a 5-1 loss to the Norfolk Admirals on Oct. 20. That was the start of a 1-9-2-1 slide that included a record-tying nine consecutive losses (0-7-0-2) and dropped the Whale into the Atlantic Division cellar.
But the Whale has completely righted the ship and moved into the fourth and final playoff spot in the division thanks to the acquisitions of Kolarik, Stu Bickel and Oren Eizenman, the return from injury of Weise, Kennedy and Brodie Dupont, continued and increased production and leadership from veterans Wade Redden, Jeremy Williams, Kris Newbury and Ryan Garlock, the maturation of rookie defensemen Tomas Kundratek, Ryan McDonagh, Pavel Valentenko and Jyri Niemi and gritty team play from Jared Nightingale, Justin Soryal and Devin DiDiomete.
“It’s good for us to be playing good hockey right now,” Gernander said. “But you can’t change your approach just because you hit a bad patch or win a few games in a row.”
Meanwhile, the Phantoms (4-22-2-0) have lost 12 of 13, including a franchise-record 10-game losing streak (0-9-1-0), since a 4-3 overtime victory over the Norfolk Admirals on Nov. 12. They’re 2-12-1-0 under former Wolf Pack coach John Paddock, who is the Flyers assistant general manager and replaced the fired Greg Gilbert on an interim basis on Nov. 8 when the Phantoms were 2-10-1-0. Former Wolf Pack captain Greg Moore has had an especially tough time with no goals, seven assists and a minus-19 rating in 28 games.
“They’re a lot better team than their record and they looked two weeks ago,” Whale goalie Chad Johnson said, alluding to a 3-0 victory over the Phantoms at the XL Center on Nov. 28.
Despite the horrid record and second-lowest attendance in the 30-team AHL (3,201 for 11 dates to 2,700 for Albany for 15 dates), the Phantoms owners expect the team to turn it around and return for a third season. In a meeting with the editorial board of The Post-Star in Glens Falls last Thursday, Rob and James Brooks said they hadn’t given much thought to not staying for the 2011-12 season.
“We’re in no way looking at discontinuing this relationship,” Rob Brooks said. “We really feel strongly about it. It’s not in our minds not to.”
Rob said the chance of returning is 90 percent or better, and he and James said the Phantoms are headed in the right direction under Paddock.
“(The team) is not where we believed we should be right now,” Rob Brooks said. “We’re not happy with it. Nobody’s happy with it. Jim, myself, the Flyers organization. Every single day, we’re working to turn this around. … Our record is bad, but we don’t believe we have a terrible team. We believe we have a team we have to tweak a little bit. We don’t know how we’re not winning”
Well, you can start with an inability to score or stop the puck.
“That’s not a healthy situation,” Paddock said in one of the all-time understatements.
The Phantoms have a league-low 58 goals in 28 games, and injured goalie Johan Backlund has a .876 save percentage and rookie Nic Riopel is at .856 after starting the season with the ECHL’s Greenville Road Warriors, whose affiliation is shared by the Rangers and Flyers. Anything under .900 is considered subpar.
After the Phantoms game, the Whale returns to the XL Center on Friday night for its final home game before Christmas against the Worcester Sharks (15-8-1-4), who are 5-1-0-1 in their last seven games and five points ahead of the Whale. It’s a Guida’s Family “Value Night.” Family value packages start as low as $48 and include three tickets, three hot dogs or pizza slices, three sodas and a Wolf Pack souvenir. Guida’s Family Value Night packs are available at the XL Center box office and online at www.ctwhale.com. The first 1,000 fans will receive a free poster of Dupont. Fans can meet Santa in the XL Center atrium from 6-7 p.m. during which time carolers also will be entertaining. … Howard Baldwin Jr., the newly appointed president and chief operating officer of Whalers Sports and Entertainment, has a new Twitter account that is accessible to Whale fans at howardbaldwinjr. … Former Wolf Pack assistant coach Nick Fotiu, one of the biggest fan favorites on the Rangers and New England and Hartford Whalers as the team enforcer, will be signing autographs in the XL Center atrium Dec. 29 from 6-7 p.m. before the Whale plays the Portland Pirates and coach Kevin Dineen, the last captain of the Whalers. … Fans can give the gift of Whale hockey during the holiday season. The Whale Hockey Pack of six dark green undated flex tickets and one Heritage Connecticut Whale hat is $122, a savings of $38. Six yellow undated flex tickets and one hat are $74, a savings of $14. Holiday packages are available through Jan. 3 at the Fan Center behind Section 101 in the XL Center or by calling 860-728-3366 or visiting www.ctwhaleshop.com. … The Whale has moved the starting time of their Jan. 1 game against Providence from 7 p.m. to 5 p.m. so it doesn’t conflict with the University of Connecticut football team playing Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, which starts at 8:30.
SOUND TIGERS STEAL A POINT IN WORCESTER
If the Sound Tigers make the playoffs by a point in April, they might look back to Sunday in Worcester, Mass., and say a big thank you to God.
The Sound Tigers took a 2-0 lead on two Michael Healey goals and then didn’t get a shot for about 29 minutes, including none – zero, nada – in the second period, finishing with seven through two periods.
Then after the Sharks took a 3-2 lead, Jeremy Colliton won a faceoff and Josh Bailey scored a shorthanded goal with eight seconds left and goalie Nathan Lawson on the bench for an extra attacker.
“A lot of things took place that were completely out of our control,” Sound Tigers coach Pat Bingham told the Connecticut Post. “(The players) overcame that in the third period.”
Sharks goalie Alex Stalock robbed Trent Campbell with a desperation glove save in overtime to send it to a shootout in which Worcester’s T.J. Trevelyan, a Whale nemesis, had the only goal. But the “stolen point” could loom large for the Sound Tigers down the road in the tightly bunched Atlantic Division. … Wilkes-Barre/Scranton forward Eric Tangradi was named Reebok/AHL Player of the Week after getting five goals and two assists in three victories for the league-leading Penguins. Tangradi had a hand seven of the Penguins’ 11 goals, beginning with his first career hat trick and career-best four points in a 5-1 victory over the Toronto Marlies. The second-round pick of the Anaheim Ducks in 2007 has 10 goals and five assists in 21 games with the Penguins and one goal and one assist in his first nine NHL games. The Whale nominated wing Mats Zuccarello, who had two goals and two assists in two wins, and the Sound Tigers nominated Bailey. … Former Wolf Pack defenseman Lawrence Nycholat had a goal and an assist in the Charlotte Checkers’ 5-3 victory over the Hershey Bears on Sunday, ending the defending Calder Cup champion’s season-high, four-game winning streak. … Rookie forward Olivier Fortier had one goal and one assist in the Hamilton Bulldogs’ first 21 games. But in a 5-1 victory over Toronto Marlies on Sunday, Fortier had his first AHL hat trick and an assist as the Bulldogs maintained first place in the North Division. It earned Fortier a Player of the Week nomination. Former New Canaan High and Taft School-Watertown standout Max Pacioretty scored his league-leading 17th goal for the Bulldogs. … Dov Grumet-Morris of the Greenville Road Warriors was named Reebok Hockey ECHL Goaltender of the Week for the second consecutive time after going 2-0-1 with a 1.62 goals-against average and .928 save percentage. Grumet-Morris joins Dany Sabourin (Oct. 25-31 and Nov. 1-7, 2004) and Tyrone Garner (Feb. 12-18 and Feb. 19-25, 2001) as the only goaltenders to win the award in successive weeks since it was introduced for the 1997-98 season. Grumet-Morris is 10-2-1 with a 1.99 goals-against average and .931 save percentage in 13 appearances this season. He is second in the ECHL in win and goals-against average and third in save percentage. In two games with the Whale earlier in the season, he was 0-1-0-0 with a 1.32 GAA and .935 save percentage.
DUBINSKY FIGHTS OVECHKIN, HAS GORDIE HOWE HAT TRICK
Former Wolf Pack center Brandon Dubinsky recorded a “Gordie Howe Hat Trick” in the New York Rangers’ 7-0 rout of the Washington Capitals on Sunday night.
Dubinsky scored the Rangers’ fourth goal on assists from former Wolf Pack players Dan Girardi and Artem Anisimov, set up former Wolf Pack linemate Ryan Callahan for his first of two goals on the Rangers’ only two shots in the third period and came to the defense of Girardi after he was hip-checked by Capitals’ superstar Alex Ovechkin. Dubinsky fought and avenged Ovechkin’s shot on his buddy, scoring a takedown on Ovechkin after the two had words after the first period.
“He (Ovechkin) plays hard,” Dubinsky told reporters after the game. “He’s definitely a superstar who plays hard each and every night, and he’s a leader of that team. I expected (the fight). I didn’t really expect him to drop his gloves as fast as he did, but he works hard and he’s a competitor.”
Rangers coach John Tortorella concurred, saying, “I think he’s one of the honest stars in the league because he’s willing to hit and take hits.”
That was a shot at Pittsburgh Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby, whom Dubinsky ripped for what the Rangers believed was a slew-foot on Callahan in the teams’ last meeting last week. The Penguins visit Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night, when Drury will finally had to his season playing time of only 9 minutes, 11 seconds. While it’s not official whom Drury will replace, Tortorella said who it won’t be.
“It’s not gonna be the kids,” Tortorella said. “No kids are coming out. I’m not concerned about that. … This is our captain coming in right now, Chris Drury. I think everyone wants him in. Someone’s gonna have to suffer. Someone’s gonna have to sit out. It’s not gonna be a kid, though.”
Meanwhile, Dubinsky and Callahan have been reunited on a line with another former Wolf Pack, center Artem Anisimov, who also scored in the demolition of the Capitals. Former Wolf Pack defenseman Marc Staal had a shorthanded goal and an assist, and Girardi got a second assist on Callahan’s first goal. Dubinsky and Callahan each were plus-4, and Anisimov, Staal, Michal Rozsival and Michael Del Zotto were plus-3. Henrik Lundqvist rebounded from a rare bad game in a 3-1 loss in Columbus on Saturday night to make 29 saves for his fifth shutout of the season as the Caps lost their sixth in a row.
“They got stale, even Cally,” Tortorella said of breaking up the three former Wolf Pack players, who were back together for the third game and dominated Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Semin. “He was around the puck (Saturday) more than he was for the last couple weeks.
“He’s going to be on the ice regardless because he does so many things away from the puck. But this was good for his confidence because he’s been a little snake-bitten, and Duby the same way. Artie has played two really good games after struggling. He played head-up on Backstrom and did a very good job.
“They are maturing. They are not always going to be dead-on, but they are figuring out how to get themselves out of it quickly.”
Amazingly, the Rangers are 8-0-0-0 in the second half of back-to-back games and have allowed only six goals, which matched the number of points the suddenly sagging Jets scored Sunday in a 10-6 loss to the Miami Dolphins.
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