Has Everything Changed in the 2015 Calder Cup Finals?
By Jay Flemma, Special to Facewash Magazine
In the span of just ten minutes the entire Calder Cup Finals between the Manchester Monarchs and Utica Comets took on a new complexion.
It may even have turned on a dime.
When the puck dropped for Game 3, Monarchs led the Comets 2 games to 0, a nearly impossible state of affairs for the Comets given that the Monarchs, the league’s top team, haven’t lost at home since March 7, so even if Utica won all three games at the Aud, they’d still have to take one from Manchester in Manchester.
But the Hockey Gods, cruel and indiscriminate, leveled what could be a crippling blow to the Monarchs’ Calder Cup hopes. First, Brian O’Neill, the AHL’s leading scorer in the regular season, went out after being smeared like a floppy grape against the boards on a clean, but bone-crushing hit by Alex Friesen. He crumpled to the ice and had help skating off. Frisen was not disciplined for the hit, which was clean, just unlucky for O’Neill. Then no more than 10 minutes later Monarchs starting net-minder Jean-Francois Berube was skated off the ice with help after getting mangled awkwardly in the net after a rush and crash.
A missile crisis hush descended on the Monarchs’ bench. It was the only quiet spot in the hornet’s nest that was the Utica Aud on Wedneesday night. “Buzzin'” indeed, as team and fans like to say. The Comets smelled blood and made the Monarchs pay, winning 3-2 closing the gap to 2 games to 1 in the series.
As writer Hunter S. Thompson noted in his seminal work “Fear and Loathing at the Super Bowl,” there’s a cavernous difference between injuries and key injuries. Make no mistake: when you lose your top goalie, (who won 37 games this season) and the AHL’s leading regular season scorer, (a guy racking up points at a 1.21 clip per game), you have lost vital pieces.
Maybe that was the reason Monarchs head coach Mike Stothers had Bitter Beer Face his media center interview last night. He was downright abrasive with every answer, sneering and snarling acidly at the assembled reporters for having the temerity to do their job and do their job the right way.
The Observer-Dispatch’s John Piterresi, a 43-year man, as pleasant a fellow as ever joined the Royal Society, asked the question on the lips of the AHL world – Will Berube and O’Neill play Friday? Will they play again this season at all?
Strothers didn’t just refuse to answer…he rudely and dismissively refused to answer, calling reporters questions “asinine,” (they’re just asking the question on everyone’s lips), and saying we gave him a migraine.
Oh, you have a migraine, Coach? Does that mean you’re out for Game 4 too?
People don’t have a problem with him not answering a question. The issue is the scorn and derision that were unworthy of a man hoping to one day coach in the NHL.
It’s not what he said, it was the way he said it.
You can always tell the mettle of a man by the way he acts in his worst moments. This was an unimpressive tirade, beneath Strothers and beneath a man wearing the mantle of head coach. You never see Travis Green ever act that way. It was the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
Now let’s read between the lines. Worried men sing worried songs – that’s what all Stothers’s bluster was about. He is scared, as are the Monarchs. The Comets are definitely in their heads, partly because off the injuries, partly because the Comets are so deep that the loss of any one player wouldn’t cripple them, and partly because there’s no place in hockey like the Utica Aud. It was a rock concert from puck drop, and when Friesen rubbed out O’Neill, you’d have thought someone said the whole crowd just won free Maserati sports cars.
Then the Utica fans showed their class – they gave O’Neill a standing ovation as he left the ice. They did the same for Berube. Grace and dignity – and of course fervor. That’s what exemplifies Comets fans. They actually would be a great role model for Strothers.
“We’ll hit you, but we’ll never try to hurt you,” Darren Archibald once said, and goalie Jacob Markstrom echoed the sentiment in his post-game presser.
Still, the Comets must be licking their chops now – the Monarchs are on the ropes. Neither Berube nor O’Neill skated Friday morning. For the second time in as many days Manchester writer Andy Tonge reported seeing Berube wearing a boot on his foot. Many sources speculate both are done for the playoffs.
Meanwhile Darren Archibald skated from the Comets Wednesday for the first time since he was injured in the Chicago series.
Has everything changed? You bet it has. everyone knows it. Despite hockey’s ludicrous omerta regarding injuries, what reporter Jason Iacona calls the thing he hates most about the sport and what one 5-decade beat reporter from a major paper – a guy who covered Super Bowls, World Series, Stanley Cups, and National Championship football games – called, “flabbergasting – is this America or Russia?” you can see the fear in Strothers’s eyes, the terror in his voice.
They’re scared, and they’re on the run. And when hornets sense fear, that’s when hornets start buzzin’. That’s when they sting too. This series could easily return to Manchester 3-2 Comets. And by then even Coach Grumpy Cat…err…Mike Stothers may have come up with some new insults for the writers who’ll have every right to ask exactly how much the loss of Berube and O’Neill meant.
#buzzin – now it’s a catchphrase.
