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| NEWS ARCHIVES: 8-9-04 to 8-15-04 8-16-04 to 8-22-04 8-23-04 to 8-31-04 9-1-04 to 9-14-04 9-15-04 to 10-14-04 10-15-04 to 11-6-04 11-7-04 to 1-2-05 1-3-05 to 2-6-05 |
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| Ice Bats News |
| 2-7-05: The Ice Bats have returned to their winning ways as of late with decisive victories over the Aurora on January 30th and the Nighthawks on February 5th. Little to note outside of the fact that Mark Lanz suffered a rib/upper body injury during his first shift vs. the Aurora; his return status is as-of-yet undetrmined, hopefully we'll see him back on the ice soon. Box scores for the aforementioned games will be added to the Statistics page shortly. Next game is Sunday, February 13th at 6:00 PM when the Bats have a rematch with the TC Buzz. |
| 3-14-05: This news section has really taken a turn for the worse, having suffered from a lack of updates for over a month; however, the Bats' recent win over the Lakers seems newsworthy enough to justify adding a blurb here. The Bats finally got organized enough to deliver a concerted, all-out hockey effort and managed to eke out a win vs. the Lakers on Saturday despite outshooting the opposition 48-21. Goals came predominantly from the Bats' "big guns," but it was the all-around team defensive effort that kept the Ice Bats in what was very likely the final meeting of the season between the top teams in D2 West. Great game, everyone! Although the Ice Bats now lead the division by two points, the Lakers have one game in hand and won the season series against the Ice Bats 2-1, and therefore still control their own destiny. Unless the Lakers manage to drop one of their final four games against the Royals, Maroons, Buzz, or Wolf Pack, the Ice Bats will finish with the 2nd seed for the playoffs. |
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| PLAYOFF RECAP! 4-11-05: The 2004-2005 Ice Bats season culminated this past weekend in the AHA playoffs. D2 teams receiving playoff births included the Bruins, Revolt, Spartans, and Buccaneers from the Eastern division and the Lakers, Bats, Royals, and Wolf Pack on the west side. Two round-robin pools were organized and the Bats received the second seed in pool A along with the Bruins, Royals, and Buccaneers. After playing all other teams in the pool, the two squads with the best records face off for the playoff championship game. Here's a recap of the games.... Friday night, Ice Bats vs. Royals. History proved to be an accurate indication of the postseason, as the Bats never trailed in this one, winning 6 to 1. Bob Ranalla had two goals and Adam Heffron racked up two assists, and game one was in the bag. Jeff made 19 saves in the effort. Saturday morning, Ice Bats vs. Buccaneers. Despite receiving the #4 seed in the pool, the Bucs came to play on the olympic ice, bright and early at 9:00 AM. The first goal wasn't scored until the second period, as both teams seemed to need time to feel each other out and get used to the large surface. Fortunately, it was the Bats that struck first and the second period ended with the score 1-0. The final period proved to be something of an anomaly as seven goals were scored... the Bucs put one past Jeff to bring the score to 3-1, but four third period penalties squashed their chances at a comeback. Final score was Bats 5, Bucs 3; also of note is the humorous unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that captain Paul Hedlund was called for in the third period... for saying "nice slash" within earshot of the ref. All in all, the Bucs gave us a great game and went on to beat the Royals in their final game of the season. Saturday night, Ice Bats vs. Bruins. In defeating the Royals and Bucs, both the Ice Bats and Bruins were guaranteed an appearance in Sunday's championship game prior to facing off on Saturday night, which made for a mildly awkward game strategy. Do we attack? Do we conserve our energy? Most of the roster was in agreement that the best plan of action would be to stick to our normal game plan and try to win. Oddly enough, that plan didn't work out too well. The Bruins came out skating hard and before too long had worked their way to a 4-0 lead, scoring 2 shorthanded goals on the same 2 minute penalty kill. Bruins goalie Dykstra was sending a message that he wasn't going to be beat... and he wasn't, until defenseman Paul Muellner decided to flip the puck 15 feet in the air from the blue line. The knucklepuck then floated its way down and landed in net, and the comeback was on. The Bats made it 4-3 with a few minutes left in the 2nd, but that's as close as they'd come in this exhibition matchup. Bruins win, 7-4. Strombeck for the Bruins led all scorers with 2 goals and 2 assists in the contest and the Bats decided not to let him do that again in the championship game. For the whole enchilada: Sunday morning, Ice Bats vs. Bruins. 8:30 AM. Fourth game in 38 hours. Playoff championship on the line.... and despite some moronic breakdowns in team communication (two bench penalties for too many men on the ice and one "self-enforced" penalty), the Bats out-worked, out-muscled, out-shot, and ultimately out-scored the Bruins for a final score of 4-0. Shot differential was 41-18, Jeff was a brick wall, and Strombeck was double-teamed for most of the third period. What a weekend! See you in Chicago! |
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