After breaking his stick in anger and storming off the ice at the end of today's second practice, Coach Ruskowski told me today that he's having trouble eating and sleeping lately. Seriously, if the players on the current roster want to stick around, they better come to play this weekend.
Adding to the bizarreness of everything, the vet guys effectively refused to speak me today, which certainly doesn't help me write a story about how the defense needs to improve.
That will still be the angle I'm taking as I write to introduce this weekend's games, as clearly defense has been the area most consistently lacking this season. In fact, it's been consistently inconsistent, and I don't think Ruskowski can take it much longer.
In the past 11 games, the Bucks have gone 3-5-3, but they've averaged nearly three goals per game. Additionally, the goaltenders have a combined .907 save percentage in that span. Thus, you can kind of bring everything back to the defense.
But anyway, I should change the subject before I blog my entire story, so I'd like to share this post on Puck Daddy that kind of made my day. Here goes:
The Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs and Corpus Christi IceRays compete in the Central Hockey League, a collection of independent teams whose franchises span from Arizona to Texas to Mississippi.
If either of these franchises sounds familiar, it's likely because they participated in one of the wildest brawls in the hockey world this season: goalies fighting, players leaving their bench to the join the fray, seven suspensions and nearly 300 penalty minutes in a game back on Dec. 26.
Travis Huntington is the Mudbugs' media guy, but he's also their radio play-by-play voice. "I couldn't believe this was happening," he recalled. "You're doing your best to describe everything that's happening at once, even though there are six different things happening on the ice at once."
There's finally a clip of this brawl available. It focuses a bit too much on the goalie fight, although it does capture how the massive brawl appeared to be ending before the violence flared up again at about the 1:55 mark. But Huntington's radio call is what makes the video an instant classic: It's at a Wrestlemania, "oh the humanity!" level of intensity, with unabashed Bossier-Shreveport homerism.
How can you not love an announcer who sees an IceRays player take an uppercut and exclaims "THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR RUNNING [goaltender] KEN CARROLL!"? The clip, with Huntington's call:
Too, too funny.
Travis, who will obviously be coming to the LEC tomorrow night, is probably going to be getting a few more e-mails in the near future than he usually does.
This fight had been a previous topic of conversation on Puck Daddy, and though it's possibly not the greatest way to get attention, I can't imagine the CHL minds the excess publicity. At least nobody bit anyone.
Back to more relevant things, Brian Sandalow shared some of his leftover quotes from Coach Ruskowski following the Bucks' 6-3 loss to the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees on Monday night, and they are pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Some excerpts:
"We took stupid, unnecessary penalties. We're just playing bad hockey. Stupid, bad hockey," Ruskowski said. "All the things I've taught them before, they've lost it. So we'll have to go back to two-a-days to get things right again."
"I don't know. On defense, the guys I depend on the most are letting me down the most. It's not the rookies. It's my veteran guys. They are letting me down," Ruskowski said. "My defense right now is just nonexistent. Nonexistent. They get beat wide, they get beat one-on-one. It's just horrendous."
Oops, I guess that kind of brings us back to the previous topic of the Bucks' defense. So let's change the subject again.
Brian (I guess I can refer to him by his first name since he calls me by mine.) also shared his weekly Southeast Division rankings and some updates on the status of two vets who are no longer Killer Bees. What is it with guys ditching CHL teams to go to the IHL? Bouchard returning to Muskegon is especially funny, all things considered.
Greg Rajan, meanwhile, posted some interesting information about the IceRays' history in futures trades, his midseason report card for the team and a new "Meet the IceRays" video with first-year head coach Sylvain Cloutier.
As I am typing this, he also shared the starting lineups for tonight's IceRays-Mudbugs game. Oh boy.
UPDATE: Guess everyone got what they expected:
Corpus Christi - T.J. Reynolds - (Fighting Major), 5 min, 0:02
Bossier-Shreveport - Brett Angel - (Fighting Major), 5 min, 0:02
Corpus Christi - Nicolas Bachand - (Fighting Major), 5 min, 1:16
Bossier-Shreveport - Mark Johnson - (Fighting Major), 5 min, 1:16
Corpus Christi - Nicolas Bachand - (Fighting Major), 5 min, 16:44
Bossier-Shreveport - JR Bria - (Fighting Major), 5 min, 16:44
Oh, and I had forgotten to mention, but everything has been finalized for next week's All-Star Game. Today, it was announced that Mississippi RiverKings forward Bobby Chaumont and Wichita Thunder forward Chris Greene have replaced respective teammates Louis Dumont and Jason Duda on the roster. Guess Ruskowski was right about them wanting this to be all about the young guys...
On Monday, the officials for the game were announced as referee Mark Lemelin and linesmen Jordan Crowell and Pat Smith, and yesterday, Oklahoma City trainer Wade Sundbye and Rocky Mountain Rage equipment manager Patrick Stevens were given the All-Star call for their respective duties.
Obviously, rookie center Darryl Smith's return to the CHL means he'll be playing in the game, as will netminder Sebastien Centomo (who will apparently be debuting a new goalie glove tomorrow night). I had wondered if his wife's impending due date would prevent him from attending, but they've apparently decided to induce her about a week later.
Here's what Smith had to say about being voted in as a starter:
"Especially to be voted in by coaches and members of the media, I think it's a tremendous honor. We've been working hard all year, and it's nice to be rewarded with extra things like this."
Bucks Vice President of Business Operations Nicole Kupaks and Executive VP Jennifer Beckelhymer will also attend the game on the team's behalf.
ANOTHER UPDATE: I guess things weren't completely complete for the All-Star Game, as Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs forward Travis Clayton and Oklahoma City Blazers defenseman Tyler Fleck were named the team's captains earlier today. And, since I'm already talking about All-Stars, I may as well share this commercial:
Yes, I am offended by the end. Especially considering he wasn't even an All-Star at the time. Just kidding...kind of. Don't worry; I can acknowledge that he is a talented player. But that doesn't mean I have to like him.
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