And That's All, Folks!

The end had to this Aeros season had to come sometime. And it came tonight.

The Aeros lost 5-2 to the Barons, losing the series 3-1. I don't think anybody should be really shocked by that result. The Barons were just that good, the Aeros just that depleted. Mike Brodeur was in goal again tonight and Matt Hackett was scratched.

We'll all probably come in later with a few thoughts on this season just gone by -- I'll try to throw up more tomorrow. But this has been a really tough season for the team. Brodeur was the seventh goalie to start between the pipes for the team this season. It's not because the goalies were bad, but because they were either called up to Minnesota, disappeared to Europe, or were injured.

The team didn't have the offense it did last season, and once Casey Wellman was traded in mid-season the team's ability to score hit about 10 on the difficult scale. As it was, with the injury situation in Minnesota, and with the way that team cratered, most any Aero with any skill found himself with the Wild at some point, making it near impossible to getting any continuity with the lineups, which probably doomed the team more than anything. And frankly, I think the absence of Jed Ortmeyer and Warren Peters, who were key guys both on the ice and the locker room for this team were heavy factors in how this season ended up.

So that's it. The Aeros won't be playing into June this season, but if it means anything, there's this: the Aeros were the only one of the final four Calder Cup teams to actually make the playoffs this season.

Happy New Year

I can't make it to today's game since I'm heading off to Dallas to cover the TicketCity Bowl tomorrow morning between the Houston Cougars and Penn State Nittany Lions for the mothership.  I'm sure that, if you're nice, Heather and/or Andrew will kindly post stories and notes following the game.

That said, I want to wish everybody a Happy New Year, and may 2012 be a better year than 2011.

Here's a little music video to get you going on this day, U2's "Beautiful Day."  While the band's "New Year's Day" has the appropriate title, "Beautiful Day" has the more appropriate tone and lyrics, I believe.

Apologies

I apologize for not getting anything posted from media day/meet-in-greet on Thursday. I've been really busy at the temp job and just haven't had time to transcribe the interviews.

A few quick thoughts.

John Torchetti seemed just as eager to get started with this season as Mike Yeo did last year. I liked what I heard from him, and I really loved his attitude. I also enjoyed meeting David Burke, the new team president. I liked some of the things he said, and he said the right things about dealing with the fans. Of course, we won't know how that works until the season gets underway.

I really, really, really, really liked the third jersey the team has. Primarily because it doesn't have that stupid bomber logo plastered on it. It just looked classy. Sorry, I didn't take my camera, so I don't have any photos.

Hopefully, if I get the time soon, I can get the interviews transcribed and get a post up.

Townhall and Game Info

We've been away for awhile, so I thought I should apologize. Andrew's busy doing that real job with the airline thing. I've been so busy on the current, probably soon to end temp job, that I even missed the tryouts for the Dynamics on Saturday, and you know how I am with the Dynamics. As for Ms. Conduct, who knows what all she's been up to, and I'm not sure I even want to know.

There's not much new on the team front. The assistant coaches still haven't been named, and there is still no schedule, though that should be coming in a few weeks. However, the team did announce last week the dates of five home games for the 2011-12 season.

Saturday, October 15:
Saturday, October 29;
Friday, November 18;
Friday, December 16;
Friday, January 20.

The Aeros also announced today that the team has hired a new team president, David Burke, who from 2007-11 was the Vice President of Ticket Sales for the Phoenix Coyotes. He's previously worked for the Dallas Stars, the Texas Motor Speedway, the New Orleans Hornets, and the Charlotte Bobcats. And he's going to oversee the day-to-day business operations of the franchise.

You should find this interesting because the press release from the team says that sometime in late August Burke and the team will be holding a townhall meeting with season tickets holders and other fans. So all of the complaints and gripes you've had, well instead of telling them to us, who can't do anything about them, now you'll have the chance to let someone with the team know about your problems. In person. He won't be able to hang up the phone. He won't be able to delete the email, he'll have to listen.

We'll send along the date when we get it. Until then, happy off-season.

Have A Little Faith, Baby

The Peoria game plan was simple tonight. Hit the Aeros. Hit the Aeros again. Keep hitting the Aeros until they gave in because they're a soft team. And Peoria did hit the Aeros tonight. And they kept hitting the Aeros. And the Aeros might not be the world's most physical team. They may rely on skill over brute force. But if the Aeros have shown anything over these last several months, it's that they'll take the pounding and win the game because while you're pounding them, they're playing smart, sticking to the system, and playing the game.

They're doing things the right way. And that led to the Aeros getting the tough 3-2 OT win tonight.

It's also the game the Aeros were expecting.

"It was exactly what we expected it to be, a real tight checking, close game," head coach Mike Yeo said. "Hard fought by both teams. I thought Peoria gave us what we could handle tonight. They played a great game. They were physical, and they were aggressive. They had some good chances, and I thought [Hackett] had to play great for us in order to give us that chance to win the game."

We watch the Aeros a lot, so we know that this team is more than just Patrick O'Sullivan and Robbie Earl and Jon DiSalvatore. We know that Warren Peters and Jed Ortmeyer and Jared Palmer and Carson McMillan will grind away and grind away. And when you're not looking, when you're focused on the glamour guys, pow, they attack.

It's easy to forget about the depth that this team has. The third line consists of Jed Ortmeyer, Warren Peters, and Colton Gillies. Think about that.

"It’s roles," Yeo says. "It’s doing different jobs. Sully does his job on the power play to equalize there and sets up Chad Rau and Rauser buries it. But you need guys – I thought the penalty killers did a great job despite the fact they got the one goal tonight. I thought our penalty killing was great in key times for us.

"And then you’ve got guys like Carson McMillan and Jarod Palmer who are playing on the fourth line, but they were kind of bouncing around tonight. Palms goes out and scores right after they score and really gets the momentum back in our favor. And those hurt for that team. I know it hurts when you’re on the other side. And then both of those guys contribute and do a good job of creating a turnover in the neutral zone and find a way to get her in the net."

We like to talk about the jump the team made with the arrival of Patrick O'Sullivan and Jed Ortmeyer. And there's a lot to that. O'Sullivan's arrival especially, with his ability to score almost at will, opened things for Jon Disalvatore and took some pressure off of some of the other guys to be the go-to guy. But it was also at about that this time that Robbie Earl went to Mike Yeo and asked what he could to do to make the team better. And Casey Wellman got healthy.

And then there is the Ortmeyer factor. A factor which is also shared by Warren Peters and DiSalvatore. They're veteran guys who have been around, and they know what it takes for a team to win. We've been told by several guys just how much it means to see the effort that Ortmeyer goes through to just to be able to play every night. And then the guys see DiSalvatore and Peters willingly planting themselves in front of the goalie game after game, shift after shift, doing the dirty work that makes it that much easier for their teammates to get better chances at scoring.

And there's this. We always hear about the guys who are supposed to the NHL stars and can't make it and get sent back to the minors and who go into sulky malcontent mode. Patrick O'Sullivan did not do this. He's gone out there and played hard and worked every shift.

As such, the Aeros now find themselves up 2-0 in the series. They're not in the clear yet, though. I doubt Peoria's going to give up. And there are now three games in three nights for the Aeros to play next week in Peoria. But while we all complain about the number of three-in-threes the Aeros played this season, you can't help but wonder if that's going to be to the Aeros advantage next week.

But we're just going to have to wait until next week to find out, I guess.

Now on a humorous note...One of our more frequent commenters, I'm talking to you B2Bomber, jokingly jumped on the "negative waves" that Andrew was sending about the team, and he was using a movie reference. I caught it, Andrew didn't.

For those of you who didn't catch B2B's reference, he quoted a character named Oddball bitching about the "negative waves" that Moriarty was spreading. This comes from a vastly underrated Clint Eastwood movie of the late-1960s called "Kelly's Heroes," and the character of Oddball is played by Donald Sutherland. I did a Youtube search, and came up with this clip. So, enough with the negative waves about the Aeros already. Have a little faith, baby. Have a little faith.

They Shoot, They Score

With all of the call ups to Minnesota, and with Bakersfield in the playoffs, the Aeros are a bit shy of players, so yesterday, the team held an open tryout in hopes of getting some bodies for Sunday's game. So Heather decided to give it a shot...

Actually, the team had a media day event out at SLICE, and our T3I assignment editor Andrew, asked that I take some photos of Heather taking some shots from the players and coaches. I'll have a serious story re the playoffs up in just a minute, but here's Heather suiting up and taking shots from Andrew, some of the players, and Mike Yeo.

Enjoy.