FROM THE CREASE with Bruce Berlet
By Bruce Berlet As the pressure mounts as the playoffs approach, players and teams can buckle or get stronger late in games. The latter has been the Connecticut Whale’s MO the past few weeks. Despite still having five players injured and two on recall to…
WHALE WEEKLY: March 21-27, 2011
The Whale (36-26-2-6, 80 pts.) improved to a season-best ten games over .500 by sweeping last week’s action with a perfect three-game slate. The Whale defeated the Manchester Monarchs, 1-0, on the road Friday night, before returning to the XL Center for…
FROM THE CREASE with Bruce Berlet
By Bruce Berlet Their similarities are almost eerie. Both grew up learning to skate and play hockey in Ontario, Canada. Both played for winning teams in Triple-A and the Ontario Hockey League. Both played for three OHL teams and stayed with the same…
VARSITY AND JV BOTH WIN
VERSUS Saturday hosted one of those rare nights where both the NHL and their AHL affiliates would squared off on the same day. The AHL Connecticut Whale did their part with a 4-2 victory, their fifth in seven tries, against the Worcester Sharks. After…
FROM THE CREASE with Bruce Berlet
By Bruce Berlet Bruce Landon has known Howard Baldwin for nearly four decades. When Landon wasn’t tending goal for Baldwin’s New England Whalers for parts of their first five seasons in the World Hockey Association, he was playing mostly in Springfield,…
FROM THE CREASE with Bruce Berlet
By Bruce Berlet It was a doubly good Tuesday for Connecticut Whale center Francis Lemieux. Lemieux was released from his second professional tryout contract and signed to an AHL deal before being among the 22 players on the Whale’s Clear Day list.…
FROM THE CREASE with Bruce Berlet
By Bruce Berlet It has been arguably the most topsy-turvy season in the 14 years of the Hartford Wolf Pack/Connecticut Whale franchise. Man-games lost to injuries and call-ups are at an all-time high, causing disruptions to continuity and chemistry. But…
FROM THE CREASE with Bruce Berlet
By Bruce Berlet HARTFORD, CT – Ken Gernander had been all through the routine nearly 13 years ago, but that didn’t make it any easier. In fact, in some ways, it was harder. Gernander missed the first two games in his four-year Hartford Wolf…
BRUTAL
VERSUS Top to bottom the Whale’s visit to Charlotte for the first time against the team that for 17 years was their ECHL affiliate ended as badly as it started as the visit resulted in a, hard-to-watch, 5-1 loss in front of 4,511 at the Time-Warner Cable…
FROM THE CREASE with Bruce Berlet
By Bruce Berlet It’s never a good time to lose a lead after two periods, but Connecticut Whale picked one of the worst Saturday night. Despite an error-prone opening 10 minutes of the second period that helped the Providence Bruins to three goals and a…