While we've been understandably paying more attention to the happenings in Minnesota (and Houston) -- and me with Phoenix -- there have been some more strange things going on up in Des Moines with the non-existent Chops.
As you might remember, Anaheim suddenly ended its affiliation with the Chops, and it came out that the owners of the Chops had failed to make agreed affiliation payments to the Ducks. It also came out that the owners of the Chops used the franchise as a collateral for a loan in 2008, which is a violation of AHL rules.
And this week, the owners informed Des Moines officials that they want to sell the AHL franchise -- possibly to Dallas -- move the team out of Des Moines, then replace the team with a CHL franchise. Des Moines officials (and the people who operate the arena) aren't too thrilled by this plan, and for now, they plan to hold the team owners to a contract signed two years ago which locks the owners into a 10-year non-relocation agreement forbidding the team from moving during the terms of the lease. If the team were to move, then the county would be entitled to liquidated damages, which are currently listed at about $12.5 million.
I'm interested in seeing how this plays out as, it's possible, the AHL could be locked into 28 teams for awhile because of this. This ownership group has burned through two NHL teams in two years, and with the financial shenanigans involving them and the Ducks, I can see other NHL teams being a little hesitant to get into business with them. And I can see the AHL being hesitant to continue doing business with these guys, though, since the guys own one of the 30 AHL franchises, there's not much the AHL can do about it. And with Tom Hicks' financial problems, you've got to wonder if he would be willing eat the $12.5 million in liquidated damages along with the cost of purchasing the team.
But frankly, I've got no idea of what's going to happen with this team. That's the hockey business though, I guess. Fun isn't it.
Showing posts with label Iowa Chops. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iowa Chops. Show all posts
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Aeros vs Iowa 4/2 -- Dingle Dangle The Aeros Lose 5-3 to Iowa
The Aeros have played some bad hockey this year. Way more than a team with their record and position in the standings should have played. And unfortunately, some of the really bad hockey is coming at the very end of the season, when they can least afford to play bad hockey.
Like tonight.
The Aeros easily handled Iowa on Tuesday night, getting the 6-2 win despite losing goalie Nolan Schaefer to injury early in the game. But tonight, while it’s easy to pin most of the blame on goalie Barry Brust, playing his first game in more than a month, the truth is that the entire team just stunk up Toyota Center, which is saying a lot considering that dogs were running about the place. And in the end, the 4407 people who attended the game left disappointed as the Aeros lost 5-3.
“We felt tonight was a critical game,” coach Kevin Constantine said after the game. But while they might have felt it, they sure didn’t show this on the ice.
Iowa took the early 1-0 lead when T.J. Trevelyan beat Barry Brust at 3:46 of the first. And the Aeros were lucky to get out of the first down just 1-0 as Iowa appeared to dominate that first period. The only time the Aeros showed any life was when Mitch Love went after Iowa’s Charlie Kronschnabel, but even the fight was a disappointment.
Then Iowa went up 2-0 at 8:41 of the second when Brennan Evans skipped the puck over Brust’s glove for the one goal that Brust said afterwards he wished he could really take back because he saw it all of the way, but got hit with the short-hop just before it got to him.
At 12:59 of the second, Corey Locke led a rush down the ice. He stopped just past the blue line and passed the puck to an onrushing Tomas Mojzis who buried the slap shot to make the score 2-1. Then at 17:37, Tony Hrkac scored his second goal since coming out of retirement to make it 2-2. And it looked like the Aeros might actually stand a chance.
Until the stupid took over.
Benoit Pouliot was hit with a high-sticking penalty at 18:36, and just 10 seconds later, Marco Rosa knocked the puck into the stands and got the delay of game penalty. Twenty seconds into the resulting 5x3 power play, Brian Salcido took advantage of Barry Brust being screened to put Iowa up 3-2.
Then things got really weird as, with time expired in the second period, and the team’s exiting the ice, Barry Brust decided to go at it with Iowa’s Brennan Evans, the result being that Brust got a two minute roughing penalty and Evans was nailed for four minutes for attempting to spear Danny Irmen.
The stupid continued as, at about the 5:00 mark of the third, Brust came way, way out to try and field the puck and nearly got burned for a goal. Still, Marco Rosa knotted the score at 6:25, and the Aeros appeared to be on their way to at least one point. Until the 13:28 mark when Ryan Dingle beat Brust to put Iowa up 4-3. And at 19:45, Iowa got the empty netter to make the final score 5-3.
“I didn’t feel too bad. I got some terrible bounces,” Brust said. “Too bad we couldn’t come out with the win, but we were close.”
But at this point of the season, with the playoffs still hanging in the balance, close isn’t good enough. Though truth be told, the Aeros didn’t deserve to win this game.
They play in Peoria tomorrow night, then play Lake Erie in Cleveland on Saturday night, before taking almost all of next week off before a final three game weekend series against the San Antonio Rampage.
More importantly, the loss dropped the Aeros from second place to third as, though the Aeros and Peoria both have 84 points, Peoria has a better win percentage. Rockford sits in fourth with 82 points, waiting for either the Aeros or Peoria to falter, and with the win, Iowa moved into fifth place with 79 points.
SOME MISCELLANEOUS GAME NOTES:
The Aeros are hurting for goalies. Nolan Schaefer is probably out for the rest of the regular season. Anton Khudobin is up with Minnesota for who knows how long. Barry Brust is recovering from an injury that has kept him out since the end of February, and today, the Aeros brought in an ECHL goalie, Rejean Beauchemin, who Constantine appears to be reluctant to play.
Playing Brust tonight wasn’t something Constantine would have done under normal circumstances, but tonight wasn’t normal. Brust “only got cleared to start practicing with the team on Sunday,” Constantine said. “In a perfect situation we probably would have liked to have gotten three or four or five good practices in. Khudobin’s gone, and Schaefer’s hurt. It was either play the kid we brought up or play Barry. He definitely looked a little bit rusty at the first, but that was to be expected based on being out for a month.”
As for the rest of this weekend’s games, Constantine’s not yet quite sure of what he’s going to do, though Brust will play at least once: “I’m not sure yet. We’ve got a guy up here. My guess is we wouldn’t play Barry all three games, but I don’t know yet. But I think it would be hard to come back and then all of sudden have to play three in three nights.”
Part of Constantine’s problem is that he doesn’t know what the Wild are planning to do with Anton Khudobin. Khudobin isn’t suiting up with the Wild. He’s just there in case Niklas Backstrom can’t suit up. But it was noted after the game that the Wild don’t play on Saturday night, so it’s possible they could loan Khudobin back to the Aeros for the game with Lake Erie.
It shouldn't be too hard for Constantine to get some answers to the question regarding Khudobin, however. Especially seeing as how the entire Minnesota Wild braintrust were in Houston tonight, including Wild/Aeros owner Craig Leipold, Wild general manager Doug Risebrough, and Wild assisistant GM/Aeros GM Tom Lynn.
As for Nolan Schaefer, he just aggravated his already existing injury on Tuesday night. “I would say there’s no way he can play this weekend,” Constantine said. “There’s an outside shot he can play next weekend. There’s a really, really good chance that he’ll be available for the playoffs. It’s kind of a seven to 10 day injury.”
Of course, if the Aeros keep playing this weekend like they did tonight, there might not be a playoffs for Schaefer to be available for.
*********************
There were some strange line combinations in the game. Matt Kassian was scratched tonight, and the Love/Ryznar line was joined by Morten Madsen for most of the game, but in the third period, desperate for some kind of offense, Love and Ryznar were broken up, resulting in a line of Love, Jesse Schultz, and Madsen and a line consisting of Ryznar, Robbie Earl, and Danny Irmen.
But nothing seemed to work.
*********************
The Aeros are still four points short of guaranteeing a playoff spot. Eighty-eight points is the magic number because the most points that Chicago, Iowa, and Quad City can amass are 87. But as I said above, if the Aeros keep playing like they did tonight, 88 points might be a difficult quest.
*********************
The three stars of the game were 3) Iowa’s Francis Wathier, 2) Marco Rosa, and 1) Iowa’s Ryan Dingle.
And this lead’s to our video of the night. Andrew was muttering words about losing his mind, so I originally thought of going with a video to reflect that. Then the Lady Dynamics danced to Britney Spears’s “Toxic,” so I thought I might try that. But then Ryan Dingle got the number one star, and the name Dingle just makes me think of Lieutenant Jim Dangle of the Reno Sheriff’s Department, so I thought I would go with some video of him instead.
Like tonight.
The Aeros easily handled Iowa on Tuesday night, getting the 6-2 win despite losing goalie Nolan Schaefer to injury early in the game. But tonight, while it’s easy to pin most of the blame on goalie Barry Brust, playing his first game in more than a month, the truth is that the entire team just stunk up Toyota Center, which is saying a lot considering that dogs were running about the place. And in the end, the 4407 people who attended the game left disappointed as the Aeros lost 5-3.
“We felt tonight was a critical game,” coach Kevin Constantine said after the game. But while they might have felt it, they sure didn’t show this on the ice.
Iowa took the early 1-0 lead when T.J. Trevelyan beat Barry Brust at 3:46 of the first. And the Aeros were lucky to get out of the first down just 1-0 as Iowa appeared to dominate that first period. The only time the Aeros showed any life was when Mitch Love went after Iowa’s Charlie Kronschnabel, but even the fight was a disappointment.
Then Iowa went up 2-0 at 8:41 of the second when Brennan Evans skipped the puck over Brust’s glove for the one goal that Brust said afterwards he wished he could really take back because he saw it all of the way, but got hit with the short-hop just before it got to him.
At 12:59 of the second, Corey Locke led a rush down the ice. He stopped just past the blue line and passed the puck to an onrushing Tomas Mojzis who buried the slap shot to make the score 2-1. Then at 17:37, Tony Hrkac scored his second goal since coming out of retirement to make it 2-2. And it looked like the Aeros might actually stand a chance.
Until the stupid took over.
Benoit Pouliot was hit with a high-sticking penalty at 18:36, and just 10 seconds later, Marco Rosa knocked the puck into the stands and got the delay of game penalty. Twenty seconds into the resulting 5x3 power play, Brian Salcido took advantage of Barry Brust being screened to put Iowa up 3-2.
Then things got really weird as, with time expired in the second period, and the team’s exiting the ice, Barry Brust decided to go at it with Iowa’s Brennan Evans, the result being that Brust got a two minute roughing penalty and Evans was nailed for four minutes for attempting to spear Danny Irmen.
The stupid continued as, at about the 5:00 mark of the third, Brust came way, way out to try and field the puck and nearly got burned for a goal. Still, Marco Rosa knotted the score at 6:25, and the Aeros appeared to be on their way to at least one point. Until the 13:28 mark when Ryan Dingle beat Brust to put Iowa up 4-3. And at 19:45, Iowa got the empty netter to make the final score 5-3.
“I didn’t feel too bad. I got some terrible bounces,” Brust said. “Too bad we couldn’t come out with the win, but we were close.”
But at this point of the season, with the playoffs still hanging in the balance, close isn’t good enough. Though truth be told, the Aeros didn’t deserve to win this game.
They play in Peoria tomorrow night, then play Lake Erie in Cleveland on Saturday night, before taking almost all of next week off before a final three game weekend series against the San Antonio Rampage.
More importantly, the loss dropped the Aeros from second place to third as, though the Aeros and Peoria both have 84 points, Peoria has a better win percentage. Rockford sits in fourth with 82 points, waiting for either the Aeros or Peoria to falter, and with the win, Iowa moved into fifth place with 79 points.
SOME MISCELLANEOUS GAME NOTES:
The Aeros are hurting for goalies. Nolan Schaefer is probably out for the rest of the regular season. Anton Khudobin is up with Minnesota for who knows how long. Barry Brust is recovering from an injury that has kept him out since the end of February, and today, the Aeros brought in an ECHL goalie, Rejean Beauchemin, who Constantine appears to be reluctant to play.
Playing Brust tonight wasn’t something Constantine would have done under normal circumstances, but tonight wasn’t normal. Brust “only got cleared to start practicing with the team on Sunday,” Constantine said. “In a perfect situation we probably would have liked to have gotten three or four or five good practices in. Khudobin’s gone, and Schaefer’s hurt. It was either play the kid we brought up or play Barry. He definitely looked a little bit rusty at the first, but that was to be expected based on being out for a month.”
As for the rest of this weekend’s games, Constantine’s not yet quite sure of what he’s going to do, though Brust will play at least once: “I’m not sure yet. We’ve got a guy up here. My guess is we wouldn’t play Barry all three games, but I don’t know yet. But I think it would be hard to come back and then all of sudden have to play three in three nights.”
Part of Constantine’s problem is that he doesn’t know what the Wild are planning to do with Anton Khudobin. Khudobin isn’t suiting up with the Wild. He’s just there in case Niklas Backstrom can’t suit up. But it was noted after the game that the Wild don’t play on Saturday night, so it’s possible they could loan Khudobin back to the Aeros for the game with Lake Erie.
It shouldn't be too hard for Constantine to get some answers to the question regarding Khudobin, however. Especially seeing as how the entire Minnesota Wild braintrust were in Houston tonight, including Wild/Aeros owner Craig Leipold, Wild general manager Doug Risebrough, and Wild assisistant GM/Aeros GM Tom Lynn.
As for Nolan Schaefer, he just aggravated his already existing injury on Tuesday night. “I would say there’s no way he can play this weekend,” Constantine said. “There’s an outside shot he can play next weekend. There’s a really, really good chance that he’ll be available for the playoffs. It’s kind of a seven to 10 day injury.”
Of course, if the Aeros keep playing this weekend like they did tonight, there might not be a playoffs for Schaefer to be available for.
*********************
There were some strange line combinations in the game. Matt Kassian was scratched tonight, and the Love/Ryznar line was joined by Morten Madsen for most of the game, but in the third period, desperate for some kind of offense, Love and Ryznar were broken up, resulting in a line of Love, Jesse Schultz, and Madsen and a line consisting of Ryznar, Robbie Earl, and Danny Irmen.
But nothing seemed to work.
*********************
The Aeros are still four points short of guaranteeing a playoff spot. Eighty-eight points is the magic number because the most points that Chicago, Iowa, and Quad City can amass are 87. But as I said above, if the Aeros keep playing like they did tonight, 88 points might be a difficult quest.
*********************
The three stars of the game were 3) Iowa’s Francis Wathier, 2) Marco Rosa, and 1) Iowa’s Ryan Dingle.
And this lead’s to our video of the night. Andrew was muttering words about losing his mind, so I originally thought of going with a video to reflect that. Then the Lady Dynamics danced to Britney Spears’s “Toxic,” so I thought I might try that. But then Ryan Dingle got the number one star, and the name Dingle just makes me think of Lieutenant Jim Dangle of the Reno Sheriff’s Department, so I thought I would go with some video of him instead.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
View from the Press Box - Iowa, 4/2/09
Barry Brust was just cleared to practice last Sunday, and was basically forced to start playing Thursday night against the Chops. He was rusty, and it showed in a 5-3 loss to the Chops. With as porous as the Iowa defense is, I thought the Aeros were going to out-gun the Chops, but the Aeros did not get a big save when they needed one.
I think the most disappointing part of the game tonight is how much the Aeros worked for their goals and how little the Chops had to for their five scores. Barry is healthy, he says he feels good, so I have no problem with what appears to be the team's decision to start him tonight against Peoria.
Even though Barry was not great tonight, he is not the reason the team lost the game. I think Thursday's game came down to the five-on-three goal the Chops scored at the end of the second period. The Aeros have used the delay of game horseshit rule to their advantage many times, but it bit them tonight and Brian Salcido made them pay when he beat a screened Brust with 54 seconds left in the middle stanza. Barry was screened, and he never saw the puck on that play.
The Aeros tied it, sure, as Rosa made amends early in the third, but instead of taking a lead there, it was just the tying score because Rosa accidentally threw the puck in the stands leading to the Chops third goal.
There are a lot of maybes and what ifs when it comes to the Aeros goaltending situation this weekend, but I don't like the way this one is shaping up. The Aeros needed the win tonight because facing them now is a trip to Peoria and then a long bus right through the night to get to Cleveland for the Lake Erie game Saturday. We'll see how it all pans out
The three stars of the game were Dingle, Rosa and Francis Wathier ... Salcido actually gets my vote for the No. 3 star, because his goal was, what I felt, the difference in the game.
John will post more later tonight and I will try to update the Down the Stretch chart before lights out. If not, I will get to that in the morning.
--Aeroscribe
I think the most disappointing part of the game tonight is how much the Aeros worked for their goals and how little the Chops had to for their five scores. Barry is healthy, he says he feels good, so I have no problem with what appears to be the team's decision to start him tonight against Peoria.
Even though Barry was not great tonight, he is not the reason the team lost the game. I think Thursday's game came down to the five-on-three goal the Chops scored at the end of the second period. The Aeros have used the delay of game horseshit rule to their advantage many times, but it bit them tonight and Brian Salcido made them pay when he beat a screened Brust with 54 seconds left in the middle stanza. Barry was screened, and he never saw the puck on that play.
The Aeros tied it, sure, as Rosa made amends early in the third, but instead of taking a lead there, it was just the tying score because Rosa accidentally threw the puck in the stands leading to the Chops third goal.
There are a lot of maybes and what ifs when it comes to the Aeros goaltending situation this weekend, but I don't like the way this one is shaping up. The Aeros needed the win tonight because facing them now is a trip to Peoria and then a long bus right through the night to get to Cleveland for the Lake Erie game Saturday. We'll see how it all pans out
The three stars of the game were Dingle, Rosa and Francis Wathier ... Salcido actually gets my vote for the No. 3 star, because his goal was, what I felt, the difference in the game.
John will post more later tonight and I will try to update the Down the Stretch chart before lights out. If not, I will get to that in the morning.
--Aeroscribe
Monday, March 30, 2009
Fired for using the F-bomb ...
Mr. Tom Entwhistle? You sir are on notice.
Tom is the backup PA Announcer for the Aeros when Steve is too busy working Houston Dynamo games, going on vacation or is at home sick with bacterial throat infection. I did a quick search, and I could not find an instance where Tom was fired for anything for using the F-bomb 14 times in 15 minutes.
Tom, you need to do something to get famous like the backup announcer in Iowa did this week. Great read either way ...
--Aeroscribe
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