BRUCE BERLET REPORTS – RYAN GORDON, A PART OF HARTFORD HOCKEY FOREVER 

BY: Bruce Berlet

Phyllis and Barry Gordon thoroughly enjoyed the fourth edition of the Hartford Wolf Pack/Connecticut Whale game to benefit the Ryan Gordon/Connecticut Whale Community Scholars Fund, constantly smiling and sharing tales with friends and supporters.

Donations were accepted at the door of the Koeppel Community Sports Center on the campus of Trinity College in Hartford in lieu of an admission charge, and the Wallingford couple again rooted hard for a Whale victory. It ended with a 3-1 loss to the more experienced Albany Devils, but it was fitting that former Hartford Wolf Pack left wing Chad Wiseman scored the first goal, converting his own rebound on a power play, and assisted on the last tally by Darcy Zajac.

Regardless of the outcome, Phyllis and Barry had a special underlying thought Tuesday night.

“If only Ryan could have been here,” Phyllis said. “He would just love that the Whale was back.”

Yes, Ryan Gordon loved the Wolf Pack, especially left wing/captain and now coach Ken Gernander, whom he befriended and often visited and talked to whenever possible.

“Ryan admired Ken tremendously,” Phyllis said. “And Ryan interviewed Ken for his school newspaper at Kingwood-Oxford (in West Hartford) when he was a sophomore and Ken was an assistant coach. Ryan was the first person to write about someone outside the school for sports.”

But Ryan REALLY loved the Hartford Whalers, especially right wing/captain Kevin Dineen, whose number11 is retired in the XL Center rafters just like Gernander’s No. 12. So it was understandable why mom and dad had some especially emotional flashbacks Tuesday night, the first time the local AHL franchise played the benefit game as the Connecticut Whale since Ryan died after a courageous bout with cancer on March 2, 2006. But before he passed just short of his 20^th birthday, Ryan had asked that the remainder of the money set aside for his college education be donated to three charities, including the Connecticut Whale Community Foundation.

“The first thing that this (game) means to us is that people remember Ryan,” Barry said. “It’s always a big deal to us that people remember Ryan. And this also means a lot because Ryan loved the game and the Whalers and Wolf Pack so much.”

Ryan started his love affair with hockey at 9 when he first attended a Whalers game with his father and “suddenly turned into an animal,” according to a reflective, smiling mother.

“We never saw Ryan get angry, he just wasn’t an angry kid,” Barry said, “and he went through a lot of stuff health-wise and what the doctors did to him that could have made him angry. But you never saw any of that. But he went to a hockey game, and if the guys started fighting, Ryan would be screaming, ‘Hit ’em. Kill the guy.’ It all came out of him at a hockey game.”

Phyllis called hockey “a great outlet” for Ryan, and a year later, his grandparents bought two season tickets to Whalers games for their final NHL season (1996-97) before owner Peter Karmanos bolted for North Carolina and turned the team into the Carolina Hurricanes. Phyllis or Barry shared one ticket and Ryan used the other and occassionally chatted with ESPN personality Chris Berman, whose seats were right in front of them.

“Ryan was the biggest Whalers fan you ever saw,” Barry proudly stated.

Ryan certainly proved it before, during and after the Whalers’ last game on April 13, 1997, a 2-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning in which Dineen appropriately scored the final and winning goal in franchise history.

Ryan went to the game with a large sheet on which he had inscribed “We Will Miss You” and all the players’ names and hung it over the railing. He was 11 but hardly looked it, and a reporter approached and interviewed him during the game.

“He was very little, looked like he was like 8, and was so smart and so verbal that he sounded like he was 18,” Phyllis said with a prideful chuckle. “He was quoted in the newspaper, and one of the fading out images on one of the TV stations was of Ryan with his big sheet that was hanging over the railing.”

After going home after the emotional goodbye to his favorite team, Ryan called the radio show of Chuck Kaiton, the Hockey Hall of Fame voice of the Whalers who still works for the Hurricanes. As fate would have it, Ryan turned out to be the last guest on the Whalers last postgame show.

“Chuck said he wanted to end it there because Ryan talked about how much the Whalers meant to him and how much they had done for him,” Phyllis recalled. “Ryan said how he had had a lot of problems and felt so good when he watched the Whalers.”

Yes, it was the perfect way to end a love affair between the Whalers and their fans.

And where Ryan is buried in Wallingford, his gravestone has crossing sticks of hockey and golf, his other love. Amazingly, Ryan is buried next to Dave Solomon, the longtime sports writer/columnist for the New Haven Register who died suddenly in a car crash on Aug. 6 as he returned from covering the University of Connecticut football team’s first practice.

Ryan’s love for the Whalers didn’t end when they left town. In 2006, Ryan was asked to go to a Hurricanes’ game in the Stanley Cup finals by John Riley, a scout for the Philadelphia Flyers and the former hockey coach at Kingswood-Oxford, where Ryan wrote for the school newspaper and was manager of the hockey team.

“Ryan came home one day, coach wants to bring me down to the game and Ryan says, ‘Can I go? Can I go?’ ” Phyllis recalled with a smile. “We said OK, even though we had never met John. Of course I called the school and said Ryan is safe to go.”

That was the season in which Ryan was a freshman at the University of Central Florida. He had to leave because of his illness, and the Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup about two months after he died.

“After they won, the Facebook messages were just amazing,” Phyllis said. “The people who knew Ryan at school were writing, ‘Oh my God, can you believe this? I wonder who was watching over them?’ ”

A golf tournament in Ryan’s honor to benefit Beth Israel Synagogue in Wallingford and Ryan’s Circle of Giving will be held for the 13^th time next June 14 at the Tradition Golf Club in Wallingford, where Ryan was employed for several years picking up balls on the driving range and then working in the pro shop. On a bridge from the 17^th to 18^th hole, Traditions general manager Clint McDermott put up a sign in honor of Ryan that says, “Just Another Bridge To Cross.”

“Hockey and golf were huge for Ryan,” Barry said.

“Ryan was really, really close with Clint, and the club put up the sign after Ryan died,” Phyllis said. “I do the golf tournament for our synagogue, and when Ryan died, they asked us if they could rename it after him. He was very active in the tournament and got (WTIC-Ch. 61 sports director) Rich Coppola and (WVIT-Ch. 30 newsman) Brian Shactman (now with CNBC) to come and play. He did what he could to help.”

Even under duress. The year before Ryan played for the last time, he had 10 vertebrae in his spine fused because he had bad case of sclerosis.

“The doctors said they didn’t know how he would play and if he would play,” Phyllis said. “But he didn’t miss a day of school and started playing again the following spring. By the time the tournament arrived, he was back (down) to a 10 handicap and won the putting contest that year.”

Ryan then went off to UCF but died the following March, an inspiration to the end.

The Gordons invited me to play in the tournament next year, and I said I’d be honored. I was fortunate to get to know Ryan because he wrote a story about my wife, Nancy, on teaching for the Kingwood-Oxford school paper. He also stopped by press row to say hi at every Wolf Pack game he attended and was always the picture of decorum with a wide smile on his face.

So I’d be honored to play with Ken Gernander and all of Ryan’s other friends in the charity golf event in his honor, just as I’m honored to attend the annual Wolf Pack/Whale game in his honor. Thanks for the memories and RIP, Ryan. Your folks should have no worries. You will ALWAYS be remembered.

WHALE ‘ALL RIGHT’ IN PRESEASON OPENER

The Whale was a bit lethargic in their opener as some of the young players, a few making their pro debuts, looked nervous at times. The Devils, meanwhile, had five players who had just arrived from New Jersey Devils training camp – Wiseman, Matt Kincaid, Matt Anderson, Steve Zalewski and Stephen Gionta, the younger brother of Montreal Canadiens captain Brian Gionta. It led to more disciplined play and a more cohesive power play that was 2-for-4, compared to 0-for-7 for the Whale.

“It was all right in stretches and in spurts,” Gernander said. “I thought we had a real job, hard-working first period, but we haven’t worked a ton on special teams, and that was difference in tonight’s game. They had a few more experienced guys, but if you’re competing for a job, those are AHL players and that’s a pretty good measuring stick.”

Gernander liked the way Kale Kerbashian, Tommy Grant and tryout Matt Rush, a teammate of Rangers prospect Carl Hagelin on the University of Michigan team that reached the NCAA title game in April, cycled the puck before Kerbashian put a backhander through the legs of Kinkaid (30 saves) to tie it at 1 at 7:42 of the second period.

“We had some bursts of speed where guys got in for chances and had a couple of odd man rushes, but I’m not going to make too much of it,” Gernander said. “We’re evaluating players, and obviously there are things from a team perspective that we can do better. We gave up two power-play goals, and when we got in and forechecked we were pretty good in the offensive zone, but I thought we had some turnovers in the neutral zone where we were caught from behind or could have had quicker decision making or fleeter of foot in getting pucks from behind.”

The Whale went with basically the same team Wednesday night when they played the Springfield Falcons at the MassMutual Center. The only changes were Cam Talbot and Jerry Kuhn in goal for Chad Johnson (one goal allowed on 14 shots) and Jason Missiaen (two goals on 11 shots), and Kelsey Tessier and Brendan Connolly went in at forward, replacing Jonathan Audy-Marchessault and Jeff Prough.

Wings Andre Deveaux and Andreas Thuresson, assigned to the Whale by the Rangers on Monday night before the team headed to Europe for their final four preseason games, cleared waivers Wednesday and practiced with the team but didn’t play against the Falcons. It would have been a homecoming for the rugged Deveaux, was offseason free-agent signing after playing parts of three seasons with the Falcons, getting 11 goals, 15 assists and 353 penalty minutes in 140 games. Thuresson was acquired from the Nashville Predators for Brodie Dupont on July 2.

Deveaux and Thuresson will play in at least one of the Whale’s final two preseason games against the Worcester Sharks on Friday night at 7 at the TD Bank Sports Center on the campus of Quinnipiac University in Hamden ($5 admission benefits Gaylord Hospital in Wallingford) and Sunday at 2 p.m. at Champions Skating Center in Cromwell ($5 admission benefits Junior Wolf Pack youth hockey).

STAJCER IS LOGICAL CHOICE TO GO TO EUROPE

Jess Rubenstein, the astute analyst of college and junior hockey for The Prospect Park, offered a comprehensive piece on why the Rangers took rookie Scott Stajcer instead of Johnson or Talbot to Europe, starting with the pro experience that he’ll gain working alongside Henrik Lundqvist and Martin Biron and with Rangers goaltending coach Benoit Allaire though seeing little, if any, playing time.

Meanwhile, Johnson and Talbot will get plenty of ice time in the Whale’s four preseason games. Then there are the immediate and long-range ramifications for Stajcer, who doesn’t have a team to start for right now in the Ontario Hockey League since Owen Sound is going with 18-year-old Jordan Binnington, who excelled last season while Stajcer was out most of the season after hip surgery in November.

“By taking Stajcer with them to Europe, the Rangers are helping to boost Stajcer’s OHL trade value as Owen Sound, who holds Stajcer’s rights, already has a starting goalie,” Rubenstein wrote. “The ideal situation is where a team with ideas of a playoff run would prefer a goalie who has spent his time in a NHL camp over a 16-17-year-old rookie.

“Right now there are maybe four OHL teams who are still trying to decide if they are happy with what they have in goal. A strong showing in Europe could be the selling point that gets Stajcer on a good team with plenty of work.

“And if you want to get warm and fuzzy, then Stajcer deserved to go because his older brothers live in Europe and they are the ones who turned him into a goalie to begin with. They used to tie Stajcer up with pads when they were needing a goalie, so why not let a family reunion take place?”

Nice opportunity and story for Stajcer.

WHALE KICKOFF SATURDAY NIGHT IN WEST HARTFORD

The Whale will host their “Whale Blue & Green Block Party” season Face-off event Saturday from 6-9 p.m. at Blue Back Square in West Hartford. It will resemble a pep rally, with introductions of the Whale players and coaching staff, who will be signing autographs.

The Face-off Fan Experience will feature live music by Hartford hockey legendary national anthem singer Tony Harrington & Touch, food specials available from local restaurants, Whale merchandise showcasing the latest apparel, outdoor movies, “Pucky” joined by other mascot friends in the Autograph Zone, prizes and the introduction of the new Whale Slap Shot Cage sponsored by XFINITY, where fans can test their puck-shooting skills. Fans also can enter to win tickets to the home opener Oct. 15 against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers or a Connecticut Whale replica jersey.

Admission is free and be in the area of Blue Back Square known as “The Square” on Isham Rd. next to Barnes & Noble. … Whale season and individual game tickets are on sale. For information on season seats and all the Whale’s many ticketing options, visit www.ctwhale.com or call the Whale ticket office at 860-728-3366 to talk with an account executive. Individual tickets are on sale at Public Power ticket office at the XL Center. The Whale will play 90 percent of their 38 games at the XL Center on weekends and during vacation and holiday breaks. Tickets, starting at $14 for adults and $12 for youth, are available at the box office Monday through Friday from noon to 5 p.m. or online at www.ctwhale.com and through TicketMasters charge-by-phone at 1-800-745-3000. For information on season seats and mini-plans, call 860-728-3366 or visit www.ctwhale.com.

FAMILIAR PLACES IN DIFFERENT PLACES

In the “Where Are They Now?” Department, former Wolf Pack left wing/enforcer Devin DiDiomete, who battled hip problems the past few years, is in camp with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. The 23-year-old DiDiomete led the AHL with 31 fighting majors last season and finished third with 303 penalty minutes despite missing the last month with injuries. DiDiomete hopes his agitating ways will earn him a spot with the Penguins.

“It would be a good fit for me here,” DiDiomete told the Wilkes-Barre media after the first day of training camp. “Even after the first practice I can tell it’s a high ethic, intensity team. It starts in Pittsburgh and funnels down – this is a good, hard-working team with a good mix of toughness and skill.”

Though the Wolf Pack/Whale don’t often play the Penguins, DiDiomete has had some memorable battles with Penguins forwards Geoff Walker and Robert Bortuzzo. In the last game of his OHL career, DiDiomete attacked Bortuzzo, who had upended star Steven Stamkos after DiDiomete’s linemate elbowed Bortuzzo in the head.

It seemed a fitting end for DiDiomete to get ejected after standing up for a teammate.

“I did what I had to do,” DiDiomete said. “Hopefully he (Bortuzzo) doesn’t have too many hard feelings. I’m sure there’s some guys in here I probably said some bad things to over the last three seasons. Team’s hate playing against me. Hopefully there’s no hard feelings.”

DiDiomete might feel the same way in the first weekend of the season, as the Whale open with road games Oct. 7 against Adirondack and Oct. 8 against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

Meanwhile, former Wolf Pack defenseman Marvin Degon and goalie Jared DeMichiel of Farmington and Avon Old Farms are trying out with the Providence Bruins. Degon, a UMass grad who started his pro career with the Wolf Pack and played the last three seasons in Europe, already has an ECHL deal with Reading. DeMichiel, who led Rochester Institute of Technology to the 2010 Frozen Four, has signed with Kalamazoo.