Monday, February 22, 2010

Weekend Recap

I am alive, but apparently I missed a heck of a lot Bucks-wise while I was in bed drowning myself with orange juice.

I'm not sure where to begin, so let's start with the Robin Richards - Brett Clouthier rivalry that was apparently born after the Bucks' 6-5 win over the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees on Thursday.

Brian Sandalow has that story in his game story for the Bucks' 5-1 win over the Killer Bees on Saturday.

Here's an excerpt:

As the teams left the ice following a 6-5 Laredo win, Clouthier, in what he called a “pretty stupid move” shot a piece of corn at Richards, leading to a confrontation between the two. The confrontation led to another incident in the parking lot of the Laredo Entertainment Center near the Bees bus as Richards tried to meet with Clouthier and the Bees as they were leaving the arena.

Richards said what he did after Thursday’s game was “really immature of me.”

Interesting...

Clouthier and Richards then fought several times in Saturday's game, which you can read more about in Sandalow's game blog and Bryan Benway's press release.

Somehow, Richards wasn't able to steal the (negative) spotlight for the Bucks this weekend, as Kevin Desfosses did the honors with his meltdown after allowing five goals in relief of Pier-Olivier Pelletier in the Bucks' 9-4 loss to the Corpus Christi IceRays on Friday.

If you haven't seen the video, which apparently doesn't even show the whole ordeal, here it is:



That is courtesy of KRIS TV, Corpus Christi's NBC affiliate.

Greg Rajan has more on the incident in his game story and postgame blog, and you can read about the only positive to come from that game for the Bucks in Benway's press release.

All the controversy and craziness aside, the Bucks escaped the weekend with four of six possible standings points, improving to 25-17-9 (59 points).

Thanks to the Wichita Thunder's 1-0 win over the Texas Brahmas yesterday, the Brahmas stand at 28-18-5 (61 points), only two points ahead of the Bucks with a meeting between the two teams on tap this Saturday.

Those two are still fighting it out for third place in the Southern Conference, while the IceRays (23-21-7, 53 points) are holding onto the fifth spot, four points ahead of the Killer Bees (21-23-7, 49 points).

The team on top, the Odessa Jackalopes (38-10-4, 80 points) clinched a playoff spot over the weekend, and the Allen Americans (34-12-4, 72 points), who the Bucks will face on Thursday, are still safely ahead of the Brahmas and Bucks in second.

The Bucks practice tomorrow morning before departing for Allen at night, so I'll be there to check up on injuries, Coach Ruskowski's opinion on the weekend's events and how they're preparing for the final 13 games.

By the way, there will be a watch party for the one against Allen on Thursday for those of you interested.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Joy, welcome back! "Bones" mentioned "probable" roster moves this week. Obviously, Bucks need to upgrade the D' if they want to get past Corpus for starters. Any news on that subject?

Joy Lindsay said...

Not yet, but Coach Ruskowski has mentioned wanting to bring in (a) player(s) from Europe, so that could be close to happening at this point. I'll be sure to ask about it tomorrow.