By Bruce Berlet

Brendan Bell’s wife might not be enamored with his latest bit of facial hair, but he’s the early leader for best moustache on the Connecticut Whale during the always worthwhile Movember cause.

During Movember – the month formerly known as November – people worldwide sprout moustaches to raise money and awareness for men’s health issues, particularly prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men. It started in Australia in 2003 and then spread to South Africa and Europe, reaching American shores five years ago. In 2010 alone, more than 64,500 Mo brothers and sisters got on board in the United States, raising $7.5 million.

Bell, the veteran defenseman in his first season with the Whale after he signed a free-agent deal with the New York Rangers on Aug. 8, is participating in the fundraiser for the third straight year. While wife Monika doesn’t like the scraggly nature of her husband’s face, his Fu Manchu is drawing raves from all sides, and that was even before he scored his first two goals with the Whale. The first was a breakaway off a brilliant lead pass from Mats Zuccarello with 6.9 seconds left in overtime that beat the Bridgeport Sound Tigers 3-2 on Friday night, and the second started the Whale back from a two-goal, third-period deficit to a 3-2 shootout victory over Providence on Sunday.

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“Must not be any Italian guys on the team,” a smiling Bell said of the Fu Manchu look. “If you can’t laugh at yourself, I don’t know what you can do. But I know I’ve been doing it for at least three years because my wife hates it. She actually left for five or six days to visit her parents in Tampa, Fla., and then went home to Ottawa, partially because we were on the road (in St. John’s, Newfoundland) and then had a busy schedule at home but partially just because she doesn’t want to be a part of the moustache. She laughs at everything, but there’s no extra kisses going around at my place.”

Bell said he has participated in the program to raise awareness and be part of “a fun thing for the team.”

“It’s something to joke around about, but it does raise awareness for a pretty serious issue,” Bell said. “I began having my prostate looked at at 20 because I had a prostate and urinary issue that I didn’t want to have to look after later on in life. And my grandfather died young of some intestinal issue that they never really sorted out. It’s just something that I’m kind of aware of because I want to be aware of it. It’s an important issue that we just kind of brush under the rug because it’s something that you don’t really want to think about.”

Whale veteran center Kris Newbury is also in his third go-round with a moustache, though he also isn’t earning kudos at home.

“It’s a great charity, absolutely, but I don’t look good with it,” Newbury said with a smile. “It raises awareness, so I sacrifice for a month to look a little bit silly for a good cause.”

And what do Newbury’s three kids about it?

“They don’t like it,” he said, smiling again. “They don’t like kissing dad anymore.”

Most of the Whale players are participating for the cause. Once registered at www.movember.com, participants start Movember clean shaven. For the rest of the month, the men known as Mo Bros, groom, trim and wax their way into fine moustachery. Women who support the Mo Bros are Mo Sistas, and they raise funds by seeking sponsorship for their Mo-growing efforts.

Mo Bros are virtually walking, talking billboards for the 30 days of November, and through their actions and words, they raise awareness by prompting private and public conversation around the often ignored issue of men’s health. At the end of the month, Mo Bros and Mo Sistas celebrate their efforts by throwing their own Movember party or attending one of the infamous Gala Partés held around the world by Movember, for Movember.

The funds raised in the United States support treatment and prevention of cancers that affect men and are directed to programs run directly by Movember and its men’s health partners, the Prostate Cancer Foundation and LIVESTRONG, the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Together, the three channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programs in line with strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Since its humble beginnings in Melbourne Australia, Movember has grown to become a global movement, inspiring more than 1.1 million Mo Bros and Mo Sistas to participate with formal campaigns in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Finland, Spain, South Africa, Ireland and the Netherlands. In addition, Movember is aware of Mo Bros and Mo Sistas supporting the campaign and men’s health cause across the globe.

No matter the country or city, Movember will continue to work to change established habits and attitudes men have about their health, to educate men about the health risks they face and to act on that knowledge, thereby increasing the chances of early detection, diagnosis and effective treatment.

Those interested in participating can donate to an individual, a team or to the Movember cause itself. Funds raised benefit the Prostate Cancer Foundation, LIVESTRONG and the Movember Foundation. If you want to register, donate or get involved, Google Movember or call 310-450-3399. If you’ve got a few spare bucks in these difficult economic times, make a donation. It could help you or someone you love.

WHALE’S ANNUAL BOWL-A-THON IS SUNDAY

After hosting the Portland Pirates on Wednesday night and visiting Bridgeport and Springfield on Friday and Saturday nights, the Whale’s charity work will continue Sunday when they hold their annual Bowl-a-Thon to benefit Special Olympics Connecticut at the AMF Silver Lanes, 241 Silver Lane in East Hartford.

There will be shifts from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 2 to 3:30 p.m., with a team of four paired with one Whale player for a minimum donation of $200 for two games. There also will be chances to win prizes, including hockey memorabilia, restaurant gift cards, apparel and more.

To register, call 877-660-6667, visit www.soctbowlathon.com or enter at the door.

P-BRUINS RELEASE SOUTH WINDSOR NATIVE CLARK

The Providence Bruins released South Windsor native Chris Clark from his professional tryout agreement on Monday. Clark, a right wing, was scoreless in six games after signing a PTO on Nov. 3 after he participated in the Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins’ training camp on a tryout basis.

The 35-year-old Clark has played 607 NHL games with the Calgary Flames, Washington Capitals, where he was the captain, and Columbus Blue Jackets. He had five goals and 10 assists in 53 games with the Blue Jackets last season but wasn’t offered a new contract.

Clark helped the Saint John Flames win the Calder Cup in 2001 and the Calgary Flames reach the Stanley Cup finals in 2004. … Abbotsford Heat goalie Leland Irving was named Reebok/AHL Player of the Week after going 3-1-0 with a 1.47 goals-against average, 948 save percentage and two shutouts as the Heat claimed the Western Conference’s best record (13-5-1-0).

Irving made 34 saves on Tuesday night in a 4-0 victory San Antonio to begin the week and then lost 4-1 at Oklahoma City on Friday night. But Irving bounced back with 21 saves in a 4-2 victory in a rematch with the Barons on Saturday night and then stopped 34 shots in regulation and overtime and was 5-for-5 in a shootout in a 1-0 victory at Houston on Sunday night.

Irving, 23, who has started 18 of Abbotsford’s 19 games, backstopped every minute of the Heat’s seven-game road trip, in which they were 6-1-0-0 to take over first place in the West Division. He is in his fourth pro season after being selected by the Calgary Flames in the first round (26th overall) in 2006. At 13-5-0, the native of Swan Hills, Alberta, leads the AHL in wins, minutes played (1,022) and shutouts (3), while ranking fourth with a 1.94 GAA and 10th in save percentage at .927. Irving led the league in minutes (3,436) and shutouts (eight) last season and has a career record of 81-64-6 with 13 shutouts in 161 AHL appearances. … The Buffalo Sabres recalled up defenseman T.J. Brennan from the Rochester Americans after Tyler Myers had surgery to repair a broken wrist sustained in the second period of a 4-2 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes on Saturday night. Myers, 22, who won the Calder Trophy two seasons ago, will be out for at least a month after appearing to find his game with two goals against the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday after a slow start. He has two goals and four assists and is minus-4 in 19 games. … Construction of the rink for the 2012 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia that will feature the Rangers and Flyers on Jan. 2 began Monday morning. Approximately 61,000 square feet of decking will be installed by a crew from Toronto-based BaAM Productions, headed by project manager Chris Dowling. “This product is designed for military purposes,” Dowling told NHL.com. “It locks together with a cam fitting so it’s locked in horizontally and vertically, in both planes. So when the equipment drives over it, it has a rating of about 150,000 pounds per square foot. So it’s used for much heavier-duty purposes than what we’re using it for – for tanks, for cranes, for the whole deal. We use it for fork lifts, Zambonis, other equipment. It’s also used for pedestrian access. It’s easier to walk on than it is to walk on the field.” When completed, the decking will ring the ballpark’s warning track, come out under the temporary seating and broadcast positions that will be erected in center field and be the path the players walk from the dugouts to the rink. The only area that won’t be covered is where the actual rink will go. Dowling said at the request of the Phillies, a heavier-duty decking material will be installed to accommodate the Zamboni. That means there will be about 10,000 square feet of the heavier-duty decking, combined with about 51,000 square feet of the other type of decking. The Flyers also unveiled their jerseys for the event. They are available at shop.nhl.com, as well as the Wells Fargo Center. They will also be available on Tuesday at the NHL Powered by Reebok Store in New York City.

WHALE FANS LOOK TO EVEN SERIES

Whale fans will look to get even in their seven-game series with Springfield Falcons fans in Game 2 at the MassMutual Center in Springfield on Dec. 3. Falcons fans notched a 10-6 victory on Oct. 23 at the XL Center in the inaugural game of the historic series originated by Seth Dussault of Easthampton, Mass. Matt Marychuk of Glastonbury created a Facebook page to see if there were any interested players, and he and Dussault managed the social media page as interest grew. They used the page to sign up fans to play and communicate between the players and managed to fill rosters for each fan team. The idea caught the attention of the Falcons and then Whale front office, leading to players of all ages and skill levels participating in the series.

For tickets to Game 2 at 4:30 p.m., email Damon Markiewicz at dmarkiewicz@falconsahl.com. For tickets to Game 3 at the XL Center on Dec. 4 at noon, contact Dussault at whalefalconsfangame@gmail.com. Information on all the games and the series is available at www.facebook.com/WhaleFalconsFanGame.

Tickets must be purchased at least 10 days before a game. A portion of ticket sales benefits Defending the Blue Line, an organization that helps children of military families play hockey. Game 1 raised $200, and ticket sales for Games 2 and 3 have already added $175. Other games are Jan. 7 in Hartford at 4 p.m., Jan. 8 in Springfield at 12:30 p.m., Feb. 10 in Springfield at 5 p.m. and March 17 in Hartford at 4 p.m. Tickets for those games will be available in the near future.

And mark Jan. 22, 2012 on your calendar. That’s when the Whale’s annual Tip-A-Player Dinner will be held from 4-7 p.m. at the XL Center. More information will be coming soon.

‘WHITE OUT FOR MANDI’ AT YALE ON DEC. 2

The Yale women’s ice hockey team is dedicating its game against Princeton at Ingalls Rink in New Haven on Dec. 2 to Mandi Schwartz, utilizing it as a fundraiser for the Mandi Schwartz Foundation. Senior forward and captain Alecz Hughes started the charity in memory of Schwartz, the Yale center who died in April after battling cancer for more than two years.

The goal is to pack Ingalls Rink, with everyone wearing white as a “White Out for Mandi” show of support. No admission will be charged, and donations for the foundation will be accepted at the door. The team is also lining up pledges from donors based on the attendance total, so every person who attends will count towards the final donation total. Special white t-shirts will be sold, and youth hockey teams are encouraged to come wearing white jerseys. The Bulldogs will honor Mandi in a special pregame ceremony.

The event also will help raise awareness of the need for marrow donors and umbilical cord blood donors. In an effort to save her life last year, Mandi had a stem cell transplant utilizing blood from two anonymous umbilical cord blood donations. Stem cells for patients with life-threatening illnesses like Mandi’s can also come from marrow donors. Yale hosts an annual Mandi Schwartz Marrow Donor Registration Drive every spring to help add potential donors to the Be The Match Registry. At least six matches for patients in need of transplants have been identified through the efforts. One of the matches was a Yale field hockey player Lexy Adams.

The Bulldogs hope to set an attendance record for a women’s game at Ingalls Rink. The current record is 1,539, set on Nov. 1, 2005, when Team USA played an exhibition game against the ECAC Hockey All-Stars. Last year’s “White Out for Mandi” drew 1,066, the most for a Yale women’s hockey game. The Ingalls Rink capacity is 3,500. … Former Rangers and Yale center Chris Higgins deflected in Dan Hamhuis’ shot 2:18 into overtime to give the Vancouver Canucks a 2-1 victory over the visiting Ottawa Senators on Sunday night. It made a winner of goalie Cory Schneider, who made 28 saves as he continues to be the Canucks’ No. 1 goalie after Roberto Luongo was sidelined by an undisclosed upper-body injury. It also was the 246th win for coach Alain Vigneault in Vancouver, tying him with Marc Crawford for the most in franchise history – in 99 fewer games. Higgins’ deflection made a loser of former Rangers backup goalie Alex Auld, a late replacement against his former team when Senators starter Craig Anderson’s neck stiffened up after the morning skate. He had entered the game winless in three starts with a 4.23 goals-against average and .823 save percentage.

BRACELETS TO BENEFIT LOKMOTIV FAMILIES

Whale wives and girlfriends will be selling bracelets to benefit the families of those lost in the tragic plane crash on Sept. 7 involving the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv team in the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia. “Love for Lokomotiv” bracelets will be available for purchase at Whale home games on Dec. 9 against Hershey and Dec. 10 against Providence.

In a united effort to show support for the grieving families for those lost in the Lokomotiv tragedy, hockey wives and girlfriends around the world are raising money for their dear friends. Show your support on Dec. 9 and 10 with the comfortable red silicone bracelet, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the foundation set up in honor of the lost team.

You can learn more about “Love for Lokomotiv” and find out how you can help at www.loveforlokomotiv.com.

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By Brian Ring

Providence, RI, November 20, 2011 – The Connecticut Whale recovered from a 2-0 third-period deficit to defeat the Providence Bruins 3-2 in a shootout Sunday at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center.

Carl Hagelin netted the shootout winner for the Whale, who won their second straight on the weekend after defeating the Bridgeport Sound Tigers Friday night in Hartford, and Brendan Bell and Jordan Owens scored in the third period.  Jamie Tardif had a pair of power-play goals for Providence.

“It was a good perseverant, come-from-behind win in the third,” said Whale head coach Ken Gernander. “The guys did a great job in the third and really gutted one out. “

Providence got on the scoreboard first at 3:18 of the opening period, as Tardif tipped Carter Camper’s shot from the point past Whale goaltender Cam Talbot (18 saves). Josh Hennessy also received an assist on the goal, which came on the Bruins’ first power-play opportunity of the afternoon.

For Tardif, the tally extended his goal-scoring streak to three straight games.

Tardif widened the Bruins’ lead to 2-0 with another early-period power-play goal, this time scoring at 1:27 of the second period. David Warsofsky’s shot deflected off of the stick of a Whale defender in the slot, and the puck landed right on the stick of Tardif, who had a mostly empty net when he scored his second of the game. Camper tallied his second assist of the night on the play.

After two periods, the Whale were outshooting their hosts by a 15-12 margin.  Connecticut had gone zero-for-six on the power-play though, while the Bruins scored twice with the extra-man in four attempts.

Bell finally got the Whale on the board at 9:18 of the third period, with his second goal in as many games. Bell gathered a rebound from Providence goaltender Anton Khudobin (33 saves) in the left circle, and promptly fired a high shot past the netminder’s stick side to cut the Bruins’ lead to 2-1. Stu Bickel gathered the lone assist on the goal.

The Whale sustained offensive pressure through the rest of the third period, finally tying the game at 18:03 of the final frame when Jordan Owens buried a rebound past Khudobin. Owens’ third goal of the season was assisted by Bell and Andreas Thuresson.

“I think one shift fed off another, we were creating good pressure in their own end for long extended shifts and the guys got hungrier as the period went along,” said Gernander.

Neither team could find the scoreboard again through the rest of regulation and overtime, and so the Whale and Bruins headed into the shootout.

The shootout took extra rounds, as both goaltenders were on their game, each team scoring once through the first five rounds of the tie-breaker. The sixth-round found the game on the stick of Hagelin, who skated in on Khudobin and scored on a backhand, to give the Whale (9-4-1-2, 21 pts.) the win and propel them to first place in the Northeast Division.

The Whale will return to action on Wednesday, when they host the Portland Pirates at XL Center on the day before Thanksgiving (7:00). Five-thousand fans will receive rally towels that night, sponsored by Xfinity.

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Connecticut Whale 3 (SO) at Providence Bruins 2
Sunday, November 20, 2011 – Dunkin’ Donuts Center

Connecticut 0 0 2 0 – 3
Providence 1 1 0 0 – 2

1st Period-1, Providence, Tardif 5 (Camper, Hennessy), 3:18 (PP). Penalties-Thuresson Ct (boarding), 1:34; McKelvie Ct (fighting), 4:03; Randell Pro (boarding, fighting), 4:03; Mitchell Ct (tripping), 19:37.

2nd Period-2, Providence, Tardif 6 (Warsofsky, Camper), 1:27 (PP). Penalties-Button Pro (slashing), 1:51; Parlett Ct (cross-checking), 5:21; Cohen Pro (holding), 7:57; Bartkowski Pro (holding), 9:47; Audy-Marchessault Ct (roughing), 10:11; Hamill Pro (roughing), 10:11; Newbury Ct (roughing), 12:30; Cunningham Pro (hooking), 15:14; Arniel Pro (slashing), 19:17.

3rd Period-3, Connecticut, Bell 2 (Bickel), 9:18. 4, Connecticut, Owens 3 (Thuresson, Bell), 18:03. Penalties-No Penalties

OT Period- No Scoring. Penalties-No Penalties

Shootout – Connecticut 2 (Mitchell G, Audy-Marchessault NG, Bell NG, Thuresson NG, Bouchard NG, Hagelin G), Providence 1 (Hamill NG, Hennessy NG, Arniel G, Tardif NG, Camper NG, Sauve NG).
Shots on Goal-Connecticut 6-9-19-1-1-36. Providence 6-6-5-3-0-20.
Power Play Opportunities-Connecticut 0 / 6; Providence 2 / 4.
Goalies-Connecticut, Talbot 4-2-0 (20 shots-18 saves). Providence, Khudobin 7-8-0 (35 shots-33 saves).
A-4,721
Referees-Keith Kaval (40).
Linesmen-Bob Paquette (18)

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By Bruce Berlet

Aaron Voros knows all about the unemployment rate in the United States continuing to hover around nine percent.

Voros, who spent the last eight seasons in the AHL and NHL, was part of the jobless force as he sat around New York City, training on his own but without work prospects, not far from where his former team played in Madison Square Garden and where he and Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist and best friend/left wing Sean Avery own a restaurant.

Voros was kicking himself a bit for passing on a few opportunities, including in Russia and Switzerland, to escape the unemployment ranks this summer. Then he failed to get an invite to a NHL training camp, so he decided to call Rangers president and general manager Glen Sather on Monday night to ask for a chance to join the Connecticut Whale. Sather consulted with Rangers assistant GM/assistant coach/Whale GM Jim Schoenfeld, who thought the rugged left wing might help the parent club and/or its AHL affiliate. Voros was delighted to sign a 25-game professional tryout contract on Tuesday and begin practicing with the Whale on Wednesday, and might make his Whale debut Sunday afternoon at Providence.

“I’m very fortunate to get the opportunity, and now my only goal is to help this team win,” said Voros, an eighth-round pick of the New Jersey Devils in 2001. “After playing for four years in the NHL, it still burns in my heart to play there. The season started without me having a team, and then I was waiting it out before I said I have to get playing. I called Mr. Sather and asked if I could play with the Whale and contribute if I could crack their lineup. He gave me a chance, and that’s what I’m doing now, one day at a time. All I’m concerned with is cracking this lineup and helping them win. Nothing else matters to me right now, and I’m really excited to be here.”

The 30-year-old Voros is actually happy to be anywhere, after what transpired in the second game of his sophomore year at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, where he had a full athletic scholarship and was named to the Central Collegiate Hockey Association All-Rookie team as a freshman. Voros drove to the net and fell on his leg, which kind of buckled and caused severe pain. The next day, he went for an X-ray, and doctors discovered a lump behind his left knee half the size of a baseball. After a magnetic resonance imaging test, three doctors over the next six months diagnosed the problem as osteosarcoma, a type of malignant bone cancer.

Voros tried to play through his pain and the trauma of apparently having a malignant cancer, then the Devils fortunately stepped in and told him to get second and third opinions. Fortunately, Voros listened, and after three more biopsies, the tumor was deemed benign.

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“Obviously I was very thankful for that,” Voros said.

Voros then began flying to his hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia, and Seattle, Wash., to get tested and then have surgery around Christmas, a fitting time for a very religious individual. Doctors carved around his tumor, removed some of the femur and packed it with part of a cadaver.

“You go from on top of the world, thinking you might be a few months away from signing your first NHL contract, to being in a hospital bed with doctors telling you that in the next 48 hours you might have a life-or-death situation and that the best case scenario is you’re losing your leg from the hip down,” Voros said. “But it was more scary for my mom and dad and two little sisters, who definitely took it a lot tougher than me. At least when something happens to yourself, you’re kind of in the moment with the ups and downs. You don’t really notice them as they happen.

“The greatest experiences of your life you kind of take for granted as they’re happening, and the worst you kind of daze through them. I guess I felt kind of invincible at the time, and I guess that’s how I had to be. No matter what doctors told me, I always would ask how long before I could skate again, what types of procedures can we have to save as much of my leg as possible. I just had this mentality that I would make it no matter what, and God was very good to me.”

The surgeries were a success, but while Voros was recovering, he contracted a staph infection and had a Hickman line inserted into his heart. He had tubes attached to a pack that fed antibiotics into his system all day every day for eight weeks. He had to flush the tubes out daily with saline because the end of the tube by his heart would clot. He ended up having six operations and losing 50 pounds, dropping from 205 to 155.

But Voros worked overtime to regain the weight and his form so he could play his final collegiate season (2003-04), and then signed with the Devils.

“I was very blessed to have persevered with the help of a lot of people,” Voros said. “The people who are around me – my mom, my dad and God … I was very blessed.”

But hard work runs in the family, as his grandparents emigrated from Hungary in 1956 and settled in Vancouver after leaving during the Hungarian Revolution. In an interview in 2008, Voros said he is proud of his Hungarian roots and would love to represent Hungary on the international level if it were permissible.

“When the Rangers opened the season in Prague (Czech Republic) a few years ago, Hungary TV was there,” Voros recalled. “I had poked around about the opportunity to play for the national team because it would have obviously made my dad very proud. He didn’t get to see me play in the NHL because he passed away the summer before of a stroke.”

Still, after enjoying the minor miracle and some divine intervention, Voros played 21/2 seasons with the Devils’ top affiliate in Albany and then Lowell before being traded on March 1, 2007 to the Minnesota Wild for a seventh-round pick in 2008. After starting the 2007-08 season with the AHL’s Houston Aeros, Voros was called up and played his first NHL game against the Colorado Avalanche on Nov. 11, 2007. Five days later, he scored his first NHL goal against his hometown Vancouver Canucks and star goalie Roberto Luongo.

Voros had seven goals and seven assists in 55 games in his NHL rookie season and was the Wild’s nominee for the 2008 Bill Masterton Trophy, as the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to the game, by the Twin Cities chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association. While with the Wild, Voros usually played on the top line with current New York Rangers standout wing Marian Gaborik and Pavol Demitra, a 16-year NHL veteran who was among the 35 members of the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv team in the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia to die in a plane crash on Sept. 7.

“That was very tough,” Voros said of Demitra’s death. “We were good friends when we played in Minny and golfed a lot when I was there for one summer. He and I and Gabby hung out a bit, used to eat together, and then we kept in touch off and on through the years. His death is really terrible. What people say and what you’ve heard are true. You really won’t find a better guy or teammate. He’s the kind of guy that if you spend a little bit of time with him, he grasps you, he touches you. Everything about him was great. He was a great person, so his death is definitely heart-wrenching. But it was terrible for all those guys. It’s just unfortunate.”

Despite the strong friendship with Gaborik and Demitra, Voros signed a three-year, $3.3 million contract with the Rangers on July 1, 2008, fulfilling a childhood dream to play for the team he grew up rooting for 3,000 miles away in Vancouver.

“I was a huge Mark Messier fan and kind of mentored my game after him,” Voros said. “When he got traded to the Rangers when I was 10, I just stuck with wherever he went. I was borderline obsessed.”

Voros was especially obsessed in the spring of 1994, when Messier and close friend/fellow future Hall of Famer Brian Leetch, a native of Cheshire and playoff MVP, led the Rangers to the Stanley Cup, beating the Canucks in seven games to end a 54-year title drought.

“I think I was suspended from elementary school the day we (the Rangers) won the Cup for some sort of elementary school prank,” Voros said with a smile. “They sent me home early, so I had to delay my own personal Stanley Cup parade for the next day. But I was definitely an obnoxious Rangers fan in Vancouver.

“I didn’t go home this year during the Stanley Club finals (the Canucks lost in seven games to the Boston Bruins), but you would be hard pressed to find a city that was as passionate as Vancouver was in 1994. I know people there, and Vancouver is more ‘corporatey’ now. Back then, it was more blue-collar. The landscape of that city has definitely changed.”

When Voros’ first shot at free agency arrived, he jumped at the opportunity to sign with the Rangers.

“As you grow older, you kind of lose touch of your favorite team and more fill up your own career,” Voros said. “Your commitment and focus goes to that, and you kind of lose touch with what’s going on in other leagues. But my whole life I considered myself a diehard Rangers fan, and when the Rangers called during the first chance I had at free agency, it was definitely a no-brainer.”

Voros had 11 goals, 12 assists and 211 penalty minutes in 95 games with the Rangers before he and forward Ryan Hillier were dealt to the Anaheim Ducks for defenseman Steve Eminger on July 9, 2010. Voros was scoreless with 43 penalty minutes in 12 games with the Ducks before he sustained a broken orbital bone above his left eye in a fight with Canucks defenseman Kevin Bieksa on Dec. 8, 2010. Voros was placed on the Ducks’ injured reserve list until Feb. 11 and then was scoreless in two games with the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch, before being traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Feb. 15 for a conditional seventh-round pick in this year’s NHL draft. He had three goals, four assists and 61 PIM in 26 games with the Toronto Marlies but wasn’t re-signed in the offseason and eventually called Sather.

Voros’ ties to New York had already been enhanced in May, when he, Avery and Lundqvist opened their first restaurant in Manhattan called “Tiny’s & the Bar Upstairs”. It’s located at 135 West Broadway in the Tribeca district of southern Manhattan and has become a favorite among the local community. Later that month, Voros, Avery and future Rangers center Brad Richards, the plum of the offseason free-agent crop, vacationed together in Jamaica.

“After playing for the Rangers for a couple of years, I was able to form a lot of relationships and set a couple of roots down like anyone who falls in love with the area does,” Voros said. “I was very fortunate to have some good friends, and we are obviously still great friends, plus Sean is my best friend, so it was a good scenario. I live up here now, but the city is definitely a great place.”

As for his friendship with the enigmatic Avery, who plays a similar gritty style, Voros smiled and said, “I like to think we’re almost yin and yang. But we match well. He’s very bright and very calculated. He’s almost just misunderstood and has got his own resume.”

Like Whale forward Jordan Owens did, Voros would like to add to his resume and convert a PTO into an AHL contract. Then maybe he could return to the NHL, where he had 18 goals, 19 assists and 395 penalty minutes in 162 games with the Wild, Rangers and Ducks.

Whale coach Ken Gernander knew the kind of player that he was getting before Voros even arrived Wednesday.

“He’s got a bit of grit to his game, he’s got some size (6 feet 4, 210 pounds) and is obviously a capable player having played at the NHL level and having some veteran experience,” Gernander said. “There’s quite a package there, but he had just been waiting as a free agent and skating kind of on his own, so there’s a difference between conditioning and game shape. We’ll just kind of monitor him and see when we can get him in.”

After all that Voros has had to endure, he can wait another few days, if necessary, to start his latest comeback.

HARTFORD, November 19, 2011:  Connecticut Whale general manager Jim Schoenfeld announced today that the parent New York Rangers have reassigned defenseman Lee Baldwin to the Whale from its ECHL affiliate, the Greenville Road Warriors.

After being assigned to the Road Warriors November 3, Baldwin, a second-year pro, was scoreless and +1 in four ECHL games, with five penalty minutes and four shots on goal.  In three games this season with the Whale, Baldwin had no points, with a +2 and six shots on goal.

Baldwin was signed as a free agent by the Rangers March 22, 2010, out of the University of Alaska-Anchorage.

The Whale return to action tomorrow, Sunday, November 20, visiting the Providence Bruins for a 4:05 PM game.  All the CT Whale Rockin’ Hockey action can be heard live on “The Rock”, 106.9 FM, WCCC, as well as on-line at www.ctwhale.com.  The Whale’s next home game is coming up this Wednesday, November 23, as the Portland Pirates invade the XL Center for a 7:00 start.  Five-thousand fans at that game receive a Whale rally towel, courtesy of Xfinity.

Tickets to all 2011-12 Whale home games are on sale now at the Public Power Ticket Office at the XL Center, as well as on-line at www.ctwhale.com and through TicketMaster Charge-by-phone at 1-800-745-3000.

Save on your tickets, and get the best seats, with a ticket plan for the Whale’s 2011-12 AHL campaign, which are on sale now. For information on season seats and mini plans, visit www.ctwhale.com, or call the CT Whale ticket office at (860) 728-3366 to talk with an account executive today.

Follow Ian on Twitter @soxanddawgs. And be sure to like us on Facebook as well.

By Brian Ring

Hartford, CT, November 18, 2011 – Defenseman Brendan Bell’s breakaway goal with 6.8 seconds left in overtime gave the Connecticut Whale a 3-2 win over the Bridgeport Sound Tigers Friday night at the XL Center.

The win pushed the Whale (8-4-1-2) into first place in the Northeast Division with 19 points.

David Ullstrom had two goals for the Sound Tigers, while Bridgeport goaltender Kevin Poulin made 42 saves on the night.  Carl Hagelin and Francois also scored for Connecticut, and Tim Erixon had two assists.

“It was a good finish,” said Whale head coach Ken Gernander of the winning goal, on which Bell converted a lead pass from Mats Zuccarello. “It was a pretty big play by a couple pretty talented players and an exciting finish for the fans that made it out tonight.”

Poulin made a number of excellent stops, and kept the game scoreless in the first period with sprawling saves on Kris Newbury and Ryan Bourque at the 2:53 mark of the opening stanza.

Connecticut also killed off three Bridgeport power-plays in the period.

The Sound Tigers struck first at 6:10 of the second period, breaking through on the power-play on Newbury’s third minor of the night. Ullstrom put a shot from the circle past Whale goaltender Chad Johnson (15 saves), extending Ullstrom’s goal-scoring streak to seven straight games. Matt Donovan and Dylan Reese both assisted on the goal.

The Whale tied it at 13:21 of the second period, as Hagelin deflected an Erixon shot past Poulin for the equalizer. Jordan Owens also received an assist on the goal.

Bouchard gave Connecticut a 2-1 lead just a minute and a half later, scoring his first goal of the season after being acquired from the Hershey Bears last week. Bouchard’s shot from the right circle beat Poulin, after Bouchard took a pass from Jonathan Audy-Marchessault.

Despite a 29-9 shots deficit at one point in the third period, the Sound Tigers tied the game on Ullstrom’s second goal of the night at 13:10 of the frame, again on the power-play. His wide-angle shot found its way past Johnson, with the assist again going to defenseman Reese.

Poulin kept the game tied at two with a miraculous blocker save on Newbury just 30 seconds later.

The Whale finally broke through with the game-winner when Brendan Bell took a long stretch pass from Zuccarello. Bell broke in alone and made a nifty move on Poulin, tucking a backhand shot between the goaltenders’ legs. Erixon earned his second assist of the night on the play.

Despite Poulin’s big night in goal, Bell had a strategy as he skated in on the Bridgeport goaltender.

“If you can get him moving side to side, he’s got to open up his legs and there’s just so much room in between there, that’s something you learn with the big guys,” said Bell. “He’s fairly acrobatic and active for a big guy, so there’s got to be a big five-hole if you’re moving side to side.”

Connecticut will return to action on Sunday, when they face the Providence Bruins in their first head-to-head meeting of the season at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center (4:05). The Whale will return home on Wednesday night, when they host the Portland Pirates at the XL Center (7:00).

To continue reading, click on the read more button below if you’re on the home page.

Bridgeport Sound Tigers 2 at Connecticut Whale 3 (OT)
Friday, November 18, 2011 – XL Center Veterans Memorial Coliseum

Bridgeport 0 1 1 0 – 2
Connecticut 0 2 0 1 – 3

1st Period- No Scoring. Penalties-Newbury Ct (hooking), 0:24; Klementyev Bri (tripping), 5:11; Newbury Ct (hooking), 5:48; Bell Ct (interference), 8:42; Donovan Bri (holding), 18:17.

2nd Period-1, Bridgeport, Ullstrom 11 (Donovan, Reese), 6:10 (PP). 2, Connecticut, Hagelin 7 (Erixon, Owens), 13:21. 3, Connecticut, Bouchard 1 (Audy-Marchessault), 14:50. Penalties-Newbury Ct (elbowing), 5:00; Marcinko Bri (holding), 8:31.

3rd Period-4, Bridgeport, Ullstrom 12 (Reese), 13:10 (PP). Penalties-Reese Bri (hooking), 8:30; Parlett Ct (closing hand on puck), 12:44.

OT Period-5, Connecticut, Bell 1 (Zuccarello, Erixon), 4:53. Penalties-Parlett Ct (hooking), 1:52; Ullstrom Bri (high-sticking), 2:09.

Shots on Goal-Bridgeport 5-4-4-4-17. Connecticut 10-13-15-7-45.
Power Play Opportunities-Bridgeport 2 / 6; Connecticut 0 / 5.
Goalies-Bridgeport, Poulin 3-4-0 (45 shots-42 saves). Connecticut, Johnson 4-3-2 (17 shots-15 saves).
A-4,283
Referees-Jarrod Ragusin (42).
Linesmen-Luke Galvin (2), Paul Simeon (66).

By Bruce Berlet

It’s a classic case of the glass being half full or half empty.

The Connecticut Whale has led in all 14 games they have played this season, including by two goals in five outings, but they’ve lost half of them while compiling a 7-4-1-2 record. That’s still good for a tie for second in the Northeast Division, one point behind the surging Albany Devils, despite playing 10 games on the road.

The Whale’s most agonizing losses have come to the team that they just played, the St. John’s IceCaps, and the one they host Friday night at the XL Center, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.

The Whale is 0-3 against the Atlantic Division-leading IceCaps (11-2-3-0), including 8-4 and 4-3 losses last Saturday and Sunday. The Whale is 7-3-1-2 since a season-opening loss at the Adirondack Phantoms, and the three regulation losses have come at the hands of the IceCaps, who have won six in a row, half against the Whale, and have points in eight straight games (6-0-2-0). The Whale are 4-2-1-1 (.500) when leading after two periods, compared to 7-1-0-0 for the IceCaps. The Whale gets one more shot at the IceCaps at the XL Center on Jan. 20.

Meanwhile, the Sound Tigers (8-6-1-0) have prevailed in the first two games of the GEICO Connecticut Cup series with the Whale, rallying from two-goal deficits to win 5-4 in a shootout on Oct. 15 in Hartford and 4-3 in overtime on Nov. 2 at Webster Bank Arena at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport, as Tim Wallace notched his only pro hat trick. The Sound Tigers won 4-3 at Springfield and Hershey last weekend to move into a second-place tie with the Whale and Adirondack.

While the Whale has been good enough to lead every opponent, everyone involved with the team hopes losing leads is a thing of the past.

To continue reading, click on the read more button below if you’re on the home page.

“If you want to talk about glass half-full, glass half-empty, you’re not going to win championships or get to the next level with half a glass no matter how you view it,” Whale head coach Ken Gernander said. “That’s the reality of things, and you can view it any way you want, but at the end of the day, you’re not going to be successful with only half a glass of anything.”

Gernander said he has often discussed the matter with his troops because a glance at the Eastern Conference standings shows there’s not much margin for error against anyone.

“There are 15 teams, and there are only three teams that are below .500,” Gernander said. “So there’s a lot of parity there, and that means they’re all good teams and they’re all going to be competitive games. Your opponent is going to create chances and score goals, but if you give them freebies, that’s really going to turn around and bite you.”

Like in St. John’s on Saturday night, when the Whale rallied from an early 2-0 deficit to take a 4-3 lead on rookie wing Carl Hagelin’s penalty shot at 6:33 of the second period and then promptly saw the tables turn.

“We held the lead going into the end of a disjointed second period and then had three straight turnovers that resulted in goals against,” Gernander said.

IceCaps captain Jason Jaffray scored with 1:06 left in the second period and Patrice Cormier tallied a minute later to put the IceCaps ahead to stay. Carl Klingberg then scored only 1:11 into the third period before Marco Rosa and Jaffray completed St. John’s comeback. The next day, the Whale again scored three times in the first period while taking 2-0 and 3-1 leads, the latter on Hagelin’s goal off defenseman Blake Parlett’s third assist after being a healthy scratch the previous two games. But veteran hometown hero Jason King scored twice to tie it, and Eric O’Dell got the winner with only 3:01 left, off an assist from former Wolf Pack wing Garth Murray, after a turnover in the neutral zone, leaving the Whale to endure an even longer flight home from Newfoundland.

“Whether it’s a young guy or veteran, who should know better, somebody should be communicating to a person,” Gernander said. “Even though pucks turn over, we should be in good enough support of the puck or the puck carrier that defensively we shouldn’t be as exposed. It’s not always just the turnover, but for sure if you take that out of the equation, then we can move on to the next problem or area of concern and fix or shore up that as well.”

After a travel day Monday, the Whale has worked to get out the cobwebs of their longest trip of the season and focused again on trying to curb the unwanted trend.

“We just keep making mental errors on system stuff, and when you do that, you let teams into the game,” said veteran center Kris Newbury, who is fifth on the team in scoring (10 points) despite missing five games while on recall to the Rangers. “It’s just a matter of getting of not letting it get away for five or 10 minutes in the third period. Teams are good enough to capitalize and tie the game up and eventually go ahead.

“We have to find a way to play the full 60 minutes, and we’ve had a good (four days) of practice with a hard, good, quick pace. We worked on a lot of defensive zone stuff and transition, so hopefully that will be corrected, a simple thing like not being in the right position during our forecheck in their end. They come out too easy and create too much speed in the neutral zone for a defenseman, so we just went back to the simple things and back to the drawing board, and hopefully it will be done.”

Gernander said the Whale won’t have another veteran presence in the lineup Friday night in former Rangers rugged left wing Aaron Voros, who signed a professional tryout contract with the team on Tuesday and began working out with the Whale on Wednesday.

“He needs a little more (practice) time,” Gernander said.

Voros had been looking for a job after not being re-signed by the Toronto Maple Leafs and then being unable to find a free-agent NHL contract to his liking. He put offers to go to Russia and Switzerland “on the back burner” in hopes of landing a job in North America, but none materialized. So Voros, who lives in New York after growing up a Rangers fan in Vancouver, British Columbia, called Blueshirts president and general manager Glen Sather on Monday night about trying out with the Whale and got approval to join the team from Rangers assistant GM/assistant coach/Whale GM Jim Schoenfeld on Tuesday. Schoenfeld said he thought it was a good situation for Rangers and Whale, so Voros made a beeline for Hartford.

Voros said his immediate goal is to help the Whale win, though his long-range objective is another shot at the NHL, where he had 18 goals, 19 assists and 395 penalty minutes in 162 games with the Minnesota Wild, Rangers and Anaheim Ducks.

“I’m very fortunate to get the opportunity and now my only goal is to help this team win,” said Voros, who could make his Whale debut at Providence on Sunday afternoon. “After playing for four years in the NHL, it still burns in my heart to play there. The season started without me having a team, and then I was waiting it out before I said I have to get playing. I called Mr. Sather and asked if I could play with the Whale and contribute if I could crack their lineup, and that’s what I’m doing now one day at a time. All I’m concerned with is cracking this lineup and helping them win. Nothing else matters to me right now, and I’m really excited to be here.”

Voros, 30, was an eighth-round pick of the New Jersey Devils in 2001 who is actually just happy to be still playing. In the second game of his sophomore year at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, he fell on his leg and suffered severe pain. The next day, he went for an X-ray, and doctors discovered a lump behind his left knee half the size of a baseball. After a magnetic resonance imaging test, three doctors over the next three months diagnosed it as osteosarcoma, a type of malignant bone cancer. But after three more biopsies, the tumor was deemed benign, and he had successful surgery, though he developed a staph infection in his leg and had a Hickman line inserted into his heart. In all, Voros had six operations and eventually dropped from 205 pounds to 155.

After working overtime to recover and finish his collegiate career, Voros played 21/2 seasons with the Devils’ top affiliate in Albany and then Lowell, before being traded on March 1, 2007 to the Minnesota Wild for a seventh-round pick in 2008. After starting the 2007-08 season with the Houston Aeros, Voros was called up and played his first NHL game against the Colorado Avalanche on Nov. 11, 2007. Five days later, he scored his first NHL goal against Roberto Luongo and his hometown Vancouver Canucks.

Voros had seven goals and seven assists in 55 games in his rookie season and was the Wild’s nominee for the 2008 Bill Masterton Trophy, as the player who exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to the game, by the Twin Cities chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association. On July 1, 2008, Voros signed a three-year, $3.3 million contract with the Rangers, fulfilling a childhood dream to play for the team he grew up rooting for 3,000 miles away in Vancouver, British Columbia. Voros had 11 goals, 12 assists and 211 penalty minutes in 95 games with the Rangers before he and forward Ryan Hillier were dealt to the Anaheim Ducks for defenseman Steve Eminger on July 9, 2010.

Voros, who is of Hungarian descent, was scoreless with 43 penalty minutes in 12 games with the Ducks before sustaining a broken orbital bone above his left eye in a fight with Vancouver Canucks defenseman Kevin Bieksa on Dec. 8, 2010. He was placed on the Ducks’ injured reserve list until Feb. 11, and then was scoreless in two games with the Syracuse Crunch before being traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Feb. 15 for a conditional seventh-round pick in this year’s NHL draft. He had three goals, four assists and 61 PIM in 26 games with the Maple Leafs but wasn’t re-signed in the offseason and had been skating on his own in New York when he called Sather.

In May, Voros, best friend/Rangers left wing Sean Avery and goalie Lundqvist opened their first restaurant in Manhattan called “Tiny’s & the Bar Upstairs.” It’s located at 135 West Broadway in the Tribeca district of southern Manhattan and has become a favorite among the Tribeca community. Later in the month, Voros, Avery and future Rangers center Brad Richards vacationed together in Jamaica.

Gernander knew the kind of player that he was getting when Voros arrived Wednesday.

“He should bring quite a bit,” Gernander said. “He’s got a bit of grit to his game, he’s got some size (6 feet 4, 210 pounds) and is obviously a capable player, having played at the NHL level and having some veteran experience. There’s quite a package there, but he had just been waiting as a free agent and skating kind of on his own, so there’s a difference between conditioning and game shape. We’ll just kind of monitor him and see when we can get him in.”

The St. John’s trip was part of the Whale opening the season with 15 of their first 22 games on the road. After they host the Sound Tigers, they play five of their next seven games away from the XL Center before closing 2011 with eight of 11 at home.

Feisty left wing Justin DiBenedetto leads a balanced Sound Tigers attack with 13 points (nine goals, four assists), followed by center David Ullstrom (10, 2) and left wings Wallace (4, 7) and rookie Casey Cizikas (3, 8). Ullstrom has a goal in six straight games, one off Jeff Tambellini’s team record. South Tigers first-year coach Brent Thompson, a former Wolf Pack defenseman who led Alaska to the ECHL title last season, has used three goalies – Mikko Koskinen (0-1-1-0, 2.82 goals-against average, .909 save percentage), rookie Anders Nilsson (5-2-0, 2.86, .908) and Kevin Poulin (3-3-0, 4.06, .874). But the logjam ended Tuesday when Koskinen, the veteran of the trio, was loaned to KalPa of the Finnish Elite League. The Islanders retain the rights to their second-round pick in 2009, who will be a restricted free agent after the season. Koskinen had played the least of the three this season after missing most of 2009-10 to a torn hip labrum, and a left wrist injury limited his effectiveness the second half of last season, the only time he was the Sound Tigers’ No. 1 goalie. In 41 games with Bridgeport, Koskinen was 13-24-1 with a 3.39 GAA and .893 save percentage. He also played in four games with the Islanders in February.

Thompson said Nilsson (34 saves) stole the win in Hershey, where the Sound Tigers had lost 11 straight, including three in the 2010 playoffs, since Nov. 3, 2007. But the Sound Tigers are now without right wing Nino Niederreiter and defenseman Calvin de Haan. Niederreiter completed a two-week conditioning stint from a groin injury and returned to the parent New York Islanders after getting goals in three straight games, giving the fifth overall pick in 2010 four points (three goals, one assist) in five games. He made his NHL season debut in a 4-2 loss Tuesday night to the Rangers, who won their seventh in a row. De Haan had an MRI on his shoulder, which was injured when he has hit by former Wolf Pack wing Dane Byers in the win over Springfield.

In celebration of Veterans Day, the Whale is offering military personnel a “buy-one-get-one-free” discount on lower-level tickets for the game against the Sound Tigers. Any military personnel who present a military/veteran ID at the Public Power Ticket Office at the XL Center will receive the special offer.

After a rare Saturday night off, the Whale play at Providence on Sunday at 4:05 p.m. Rookie right wing Carter Camper (4, 8) leads the P-Bruins (8-8-1-0) in scoring, followed by center Zach Hamill (6, 5) and right wing Kirk MacDonald (1, 7). Rugged left wing Lane MacDermid, son of former Whalers right wing Paul MacDermid, has two goals, four assists and a team-high 40 penalty minutes. Right wing Chris Clark, a South Windsor native who has 214 points in 607 NHL games with Calgary, Washington and Columbus, is scoreless in four games with the P-Bruins since signing a 25-game tryout contract. The Bruins have also used three goalies – Anton Khudobin (7-5-1-0, 2.74, .921, one shutout), Michael Hutchinson (0-3-0, 3.03, .897) and rookie Karel St. Laurent (1-0-0-0, 3.46, .907).

Seven of the Bruins’ last eight games have been decided by one goal, including one in overtime and another in a shootout, and the other was a 4-2 loss at Portland in which the Pirates scored an empty-net goal with one second left. This is the first of eight meetings between the longtime rivals, who are not in the same division for only the second time, the other being in the 2002-03 season when the Wolf Pack played in the East Division and the P-Bruins in the North Division.

STAAL GIVEN OK TO EXERCISE LIGHTLY

Rangers All-Star defenseman Marc Staal, who hasn’t skated since working out with the Whale in early October, has reportedly been given the green light to start light exercise.

Staal has been sidelined with post-concussion symptoms that stem from a hit he received from his brother, All-Star center Eric Staal, in a game against the Carolina Hurricanes on Feb. 22. The Rangers’ top defenseman and alternate captain has spent four weeks resting at his home in New York under the instruction of concussion specialist Dr. Robert Cantu, whom he first visited in Boston after skating with the Whale and again on Tuesday.

Staal, the Rangers’ first-round pick (12^th overall) in 2005, missed only five games last season but began to experience headaches in the summer following workouts. He has visited Dr. Cantu and had acupuncture treatments, and a cortisone injection, in the neck to try to accelerate his return to the ice.

Though everyone in the Ranger’s family hopes Staal returns sooner than later, the team is not offering any timetable on when the 24-year-old will be back.

WHALE BOWL-A-THON NOV. 27

The Whale’s annual Bowl-a-Thon to benefit Special Olympics Connecticut is Nov. 27 at the AMF Silver Lanes in East Hartford.

There will be shifts at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., with a team of four paired with one Whale player for a minimum donation of $200 for two games. There also will be chances to win prizes, including hockey memorabilia, restaurant gift cards, apparel and more.

To register, call 877-660-6667 or visit www.soctbowlathon.com or www.ctwhale.com.

WHALE FANS LOOK TO EVEN SERIES

Whale fans will look to get even in their seven-game series with Springfield Falcons fans in Game 2 at the MassMutual Center in Springfield on Dec. 3. Falcons fans notched a 10-6 victory on Oct. 23 at the XL Center in the inaugural game of the historic series originated by Seth Dussault of Easthampton, Mass. Matt Marychuk of Glastonbury created a Facebook page to see if there were any interested players, and he and Dussault managed the social media page as interest grew. They used the page to sign up fans to play and communicate between the players and managed to fill rosters for each fan team. The idea caught the attention of the Falcons’ and then Whale front office, leading to players of all ages and skill levels participating in the series.

For tickets to Game 2 at 4:30 p.m., email Damon Markiewicz at dmarkiewicz@falconsahl.com. For tickets to Game 3 at the XL Center on Dec. 4 at noon, contact Dussault at whalefalconsfangame@gmail.com. Information on all the games and the series is available at www.facebook.com/WhaleFalconsFanGame.

Tickets must be purchased at least 10 days before a game. A portion of ticket sales benefits Defending the Blue Line, an organization that helps children of military families play hockey. Game 1 raised $200, and ticket sales for Games 2 and 3 have already added $175. Other games are Jan. 7 in Hartford at 4 p.m., Jan. 8 in Springfield at 12:30 p.m., Feb. 10 in Springfield at 5 p.m. and March 17 in Hartford at 4 p.m. Tickets for those games will be available in the near future.

And mark Jan. 22, 2012 on your calendar. That’s when the Whale’s annual Tip-A-Player Dinner will be held from 4-7 p.m. at the XL Center. More information will be coming soon.

Follow Ian on Twitter @soxanddawgs. And be sure to like us on Facebook as well.

HARTFORD, November 16, 2011:  Connecticut Whale general manager Jim Schoenfeld announced today that the Whale has signed forward Aaron Voros to a Professional Tryout (PTO) agreement.

Voros, a 6-4, 210-pound eighth-year pro, skated in 12 NHL games with the Anaheim Ducks last season, going scoreless with 43 penalty minutes.  The 30-year-old Vancouver, B.C. native also played two AHL games with the Syracuse Crunch (no points, five penalty minutes) and appeared in 26 AHL contests with the Toronto Marlies (3-4-7, 61 PIM).

Prior to last season, Voros spent two years with the Whale’s parent club, the New York Rangers, logging a total of 95 games, with 11 goals and 12 assists for 23 points, plus 211 PIM.

Originally an eighth-round selection (229^th overall) by the New Jersey Devils in the 2001 NHL Draft, Voros has seen action in a total of 162 NHL games in his career, with the Devils, Rangers, Ducks and Minnesota Wild.  His NHL career numbers are 18 goals, 19 assists, 37 points and 395 PIM.   In 251 career AHL games with the Crunch, Marlies, Albany River Rats, Lowell Devils and Houston Aeros, the former University of Alaska-Fairbanks Nanook has amassed totals of 47 goals and 51 assists for 98 points, along with 695 penalty minutes.

The Whale are back on home ice at the XL Center this Friday night, November 18, taking on the Bridgeport Sound Tigers in a GEICO Connecticut Cup game at 7:00 PM.  In celebration of Veterans Day, the Whale is proud to offer a buy-one-get-one-free discount on Lower Level tickets for this game to any military personnel who present a military/veteran ID at the Public Power Ticket Office at the XL Center.

Tickets to all 2011-12 Whale home games are on sale now at the Public Power Ticket Office at the XL Center, as well as on-line at www.ctwhale.com and through TicketMaster Charge-by-phone at 1-800-745-3000.

Save on your tickets, and get the best seats, with a ticket plan for the Whale’s 2011-12 AHL campaign, which are on sale now. For information on season seats and mini plans, visit www.ctwhale.com, or call the CT Whale ticket office at (860) 728-3366 to talk with an account executive today.

Follow Ian on Twitter @soxanddawgs. And be sure to like us on Facebook as well.

HARTFORD, November 15, 2011:  Whalers Sports & Entertainment (WSE) chairman and CEO Howard Baldwin today unveiled his ambitious “New England Sports & Entertainment (NESE)” plans to use hockey to revitalize downtown Hartford.  Baldwin detailed the plans at the Metro Hartford Alliance’s “Rising Star Breakfast” at the Bushnell.

The centerpiece of Baldwin’s proposals is an outline for transforming the XL Center into an NHL-ready facility and the pledge to pursue the purchase of an NHL franchise.

“An independent economic study has indicated that a refurbished XL Center would create as many as 1,500 new jobs per year, and economic activity would be boosted by an average of between $48.3 million and $61 per year” Baldwin said.  “And new state net revenues would total between $7.3 million and $8.6 million per year.

“With that in mind, our goal is to work with the City of Hartford, the State of Connecticut and the corporate community to restore the XL Center to its rightful place as a sports and entertainment destination.”

Also speaking at the event was Robert Mead, Senior Vice-President of Marketing, Product and Communication of Aetna, which sponsored the gathering and commissioned the economic study.

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Having already taken steps to revitalize hockey in Hartford through the Whaler Reunion event in the summer of 2010, and the re-branding of the city’s AHL franchise to the Connecticut Whale, NESE now proposes to use a strategic public-private partnership to take the next step.

The NESE plan is for a major overhaul of the XL Center’s mechanical systems and concessions, arena seating and luxury-level seating.  In concert with the coliseum renovation, the Trumbull streetscape adjacent to the arena will be transformed into a walkable dining and entertainment mecca.  That would involve the pursuit of a Hard Rock Café or Planet Hollywood, and the opening of an IMAX theater and food court.  Also sought for the dining options would be a new Geno Auriemma’s “Fast Break” pub and restaurant.

The newly-redesigned XL Center would also feature a visible TV media center at the corner of Church and Trumbull Streets, and state-of-the-art broadcast facilities throughout the building.

Pre-design estimates for the cost of the arena and streetscape upgrades total $105 million, for which state and city funding, as well as access to economic development grants and/or loans, will be sought.

“Change is underway in Hartford, with many important players and participants,” said Baldwin.  “Together we can bring 35 more years of hockey and entertainment to downtown Hartford and to the State of Connecticut.”

A video presentation that accompanied Baldwin’s speech can be viewed via the following link:

http://youtu.be/IFkjlYgU4OQ.

Images/renderings of the arena and streetscape plans can be found at:

http://www.ctwhale.com/default.asp?ctwhale=59&objId=1704

Follow Ian on Twitter @soxanddawgs. And be sure to like us on Facebook as well.

St. John’s, Newfoundland, November 13, 2011 – Eric O’Dell’s goal with 3:01 left in the third period gave the St. John’s IceCaps a 4-3 win over the Connecticut Whale Sunday afternoon at Mile One Centre, and a sweep of a two-game series between the two teams.

St. John’s had knocked off the Whale by an 8-4 the night before on Mile On Centre Ice.

O’Dell buried a centering pass from former Hartford Wolf Pack Garth Murray on the winning goal, after Murray won a puck battle with Wade Redden in the corner of the Whale zone to goaltender Chad Johnson’s left.

Jason King also had two goals for the victorious IceCaps, and defenseman Kyle Bushee had a goal and an assist.  John Mitchell, Tommy Grant and Carl Hagelin scored the Whale’s goals, all in the first period, and Blake Parlett had three assists.

The Whale had leads of 2-0 and 3-1 in the first, but St. John’s would score the last three goals of the game.

“We played more of a full game today (than the previous night), I thought,” Parlett said.  “We had the lead again today, but we just kept giving it (goals) to them.  I thought we did a good job for most of today of playing in their zone, and we just had a couple of breakdowns in our zone that led to their goals.”

After the Whale and IceCaps combined for six goals in the first period of Saturday night’s game, the two sides put five on the board in the first on Sunday.

The Whale got the first two, starting at 7:14, when Mitchell increased his Whale team-leading goal total to seven with his third in the two games in Newfoundland.  With two seconds left on a Whale power play, Mitchell snapped a shot from the right side of the slot past IceCaps goaltender Peter Mannino, who was making his first appearance since returning from a recall stint with the Winnipeg Jets.

Grant made it a 2-0 lead for the Whale at 12:20, with his second goal of his rookie season.  After St. John’s’ Marco Rosa turned the puck over to Parlett in neutral ice, Grant took Parlett’s pass and fired a shot off right wing past Mannino on the stick side.

St. John’s got on the board on a power play 2:20 later, with Bushee scoring only four seconds before Stu Bickel was to step out of the penalty box after serving a hooking minor.  Johnson (23 saves) stopped a shot from the left side by Spencer Machacek, but the rebound came right to Bushee at the right side of the goalmouth, and Bushee had most of the net to shoot at for his first AHL goal of the year.

Connecticut answered that one only 38 seconds later at 15:18, with Hagelin’s sixth goal of the season and third in the last three games.  The Swedish-born rookie paid a price for the goal, as Parlett’s shot from the right-wing side hit Hagelin in the face before getting by Mannino.  Hagelin had to leave the game for repairs but would return for the second period.

Mannino would shut the door on the Whale for the rest of the game after Hagelin’s goal, making a total of 35 saves in the game, and King started St. John’s’ comeback during a four-on-four situation, with his first goal of the game 49.2 seconds before intermission.  King beat his check down the left side, and Rosa found him with a cross-slot feed for a shot past Johnson’s stick side.

“We had a pretty successful first period,” Parlett said.  “We had a power-play goal there, and then we just struggled a bit on the power play (finishing 1/7) for the rest of the game.  I still thought we did a good job moving the puck around, but we just didn’t have the right bounce today late in the game.”

King’s second goal tied the game at three at 3:19 of the second period, as King took a feed from Aaron Gagnon and put a shot past Johnson’s catching glove and into the top corner.  That tie lasted until O’Dell’s late goal in the third, and Mannino held the Whale off on a power play opportunity, resulting from a cross-checking penalty to Zach Redmond, shortly after the IceCaps took the lead.

The Whale are now 0-3-0-0 on the year against the IceCaps, who lead the AHL with 25 points (11-2-3-0) and have won six straight.  The Whale are now 7-4-1-2 on the year, and 1-3-1-0 in their last five games.

The Whale are now off until this Friday night, November 18, when they return to the XL Center for a GEICO Connecticut Cup game against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers at 7:00.  In celebration of Veterans Day, the Whale is proud to offer a buy-one-get-one-free discount on Lower Level tickets for that game to any military personnel who present a military/veteran ID at the Public Power Ticket Office at the XL Center.

To continue reading, click on the read more button below if you’re on the home page.

 

Connecticut Whale 3 at St. John’s IceCaps 4
Sunday, November 13, 2011 – Mile One Centre

Connecticut 3 0 0 – 3
St. John’s 2 1 1 – 4

1st Period-1, Connecticut, Mitchell 7 (Erixon, Parlett), 7:14 (PP). 2, Connecticut, Grant 2 (Parlett), 12:20. 3, St. John’s, Bushee 1 (Machacek, Redmond), 14:40 (PP). 4, Connecticut, Hagelin 6 (Parlett, Valentenko), 15:18. 5, St. John’s, King 6 (Rosa), 19:10. Penalties-Redden Ct (hooking), 2:03; Nightingale Ct (roughing), 2:40; King Stj (roughing), 2:40; Murray Stj (cross-checking), 5:16; Bickel Ct (tripping), 12:44; Bickel Ct (roughing), 17:40; Ramsey Stj (roughing), 17:40.

2nd Period-6, St. John’s, King 7 (Gagnon, Bushee), 3:19. Penalties-Ramsey Stj (tripping), 0:19; Murray Stj (hooking), 5:43; Newbury Ct (slashing), 7:13; Erixon Ct (high-sticking), 10:25; Bushee Stj (cross-checking), 15:04.

3rd Period-7, St. John’s, O’Dell 2 (Murray, Wiebe), 16:59. Penalties-Parlett Ct (interference), 0:48; Redmond Stj (slashing), 4:43; Audy-Marchessault Ct (tripping), 5:20; Bickel Ct (cross-checking), 7:26; Redmond Stj (cross-checking), 17:45; Mannino Stj (interference), 19:56.

Shots on Goal-Connecticut 12-13-13-38. St. John’s 12-4-11-27.
Power Play Opportunities-Connecticut 1 / 7; St. John’s 1 / 7.
Goalies-Connecticut, Johnson 3-3-2 (27 shots-23 saves). St. John’s, Mannino 3-2-0 (38 shots-35 saves).
A-6,287
Referees-Jean Hebert (43).
Linesmen-Joe Maynard (15), Todd Horwood (56).

St. John’s, Newfoundland, November 12, 2011 – Jason Jaffray scored a hat trick, and Carl Klingberg added a goal and two assists, to lead the St. John’s IceCaps to an 8-4 victory over the Connecticut Whale Saturday night at Mile One Centre.

Jason DeSantis and Marco Rosa also had a goal and an assist each for St. John’s, and Spencer Machacek had three assists.  John Mitchell scored a pair of goals for the Whale.

The Whale led the game 4-3 in the second period, before a collision between the IceCaps’ Patrice Cormier and the Whale’s Brendan Bell shattered a pane of plexiglass in the Connecticut zone with 4:41 left.  The teams were sent to their locker rooms at that point for the second intermission, and the last 4:41 of the period was played prior to the start of the third period.  That seemed to take away all of the Whale’s momentum, as the IceCaps scored twice before the end of the second and tacked on three more goals in the third period.

The eight goals-against were a season high for Connecticut.

“We didn’t have good coverage,” Whale head coach Ken Gernander said.  “We didn’t finish checks, so now (St. John’s) players are free to move their puck and jump back into the play and become part of the second flow.  Passes were being made in behind our forecheckers because we didn’t finish checks.

“When we had the one-goal lead, it was three quick turnovers, bang-bang-bang, in our defensive zone, that allows them offensive opportunities as well.”

The two teams combined for six goals and 32 shots (18 by St. John’s, 14 by Connecticut) in a wild first period.

The offensive flow started only 1:14 in, as Jaffray, the IceCaps’ captain, victimized Whale starting goaltender Cam Talbot with a high shot to the stick side.

St. John’s made it a 2-0 game at 9:19, with DeSantis getting his third goal of the season, on a bad-angle shot from near the right-wing boards that beat Talbot over his glove-side arm.

Mitchell brought the Whale back quickly, though, with a burst of two goals in 2:08 starting at 10:35, only 1:16 after DeSantis’ tally.

Mitchell’s first goal came on a rebound, after St. John’s netminder Ed Pasquale (26) made a fine save on Carl Hagelin.  Then on a Whale power play at 12:43, Mitchell pounced on Kris Newbury’s rebound and fired a shot between Pasquale’s legs that the goalie got a piece of but could not stop, tying the score at two.

The scoring continued at 16:20, as Zach Redmond gave the IceCaps back the lead, and chased Talbot from the game, with his first pro goal.  That came on a sharp-angle shot from the right side that squeaked through Talbot’s pads.

Chad Johnson relieved Talbot, who gave up three goals on 15 shots, and the Whale quickly tied the game again with their second power-play goal in two chances.  This time, it was Tim Erixon beating Pasquale on a shot from the right point, for Erixon’s first pro tally.

The Whale grabbed their only lead of the game 6:33 into the second frame, on a penalty-shot goal by Hagelin, who was hooked on his way past the St. John’s defense.  On his first career pro penalty shot, and the Whale’s first of the season, Hagelin put a backhand shot up under the crossbar behind Pasquale.

That lead lasted until the glass-breaking, but after the early break, the IceCaps got goals from Jaffray and Cormier 61 seconds apart to take the lead for good.

Jaffray notched his second of the game at 18:54, taking a pass from Rosa on the right-wing side and cutting in front to put a forehand shot past Johnson.  Then with only 5.1 seconds left in the period, Cormier put St. John’s up 5-4, after the Whale’s Tommy Grant tried to drop the puck around behind his own net to the Whale defense, only to have Shawn Weller intercept and find Cormier with a centering pass.

After the teams switched ends to start the third, it took Klingberg only 1:11 to widen the IceCaps’ lead to two goals, after Arturs Kulda’s point shot deflected to Klingberg’s stick in the slot and he buried it past Johnson.

Rosa made it 7-4 at 13:38, just one second after Grant stepped out of the penalty box after serving a hooking penalty, deflecting a shot from the right point by DeSantis past Johnson.  Jaffray then completed his hat trick at 19:34 on a power play, converting a centering feed from Klingberg, after Newbury had taken a slashing minor only six seconds earlier.

The loss dropped the Whale to 7-3-1-2 on the season, and St. John’s improved its record to an AHL-best 10-2-3-0 for 23 points.

It was the Whale’s first visit to Newfoundland in nearly nine years, since a 3-1 Hartford Wolf Pack victory over the St. John’s Maple Leafs at Mile One Centre December 1, 2002.  The IceCaps have now scored a total of 14 goals in two games this year against the Whale, as they took a 6-3 decision from Connecticut last Friday at the XL Center.

“They’re a good team, they’re a first-place team,” Gernander said of the IceCaps, “and they’re going to create their own offense, they’re going to get their own chances, they’re going to create their own energy.  But you can’t give them freebies, they’re going to have to work and earn it.  But when you have turnovers, like we had tonight, those are quick scoring opportunities.  And if you’re going to give opportunities, and not play your best game, against a first-place team, you’re going to pay the price.”

The Whale and IceCaps battle again Sunday afternoon at Mile One Centre, with faceoff at 2:30 Eastern Time.  All the CT Whale Rockin’ Hockey action can be heard live on “The Rock”, 106.9 FM, WCCC, as well as on-line at www.ctwhale.com.

The Whale return home to the XL Center this Friday night, November 18, for a GEICO Connecticut Cup game against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers at 7:00.  In celebration of Veterans Day, the Whale is proud to offer a buy-one-get-one-free discount on Lower Level tickets for that game to any military personnel who present a military/veteran ID at the Public Power Ticket Office at the XL Center.

To continue reading, click on the read more button below if you’re on the home page.

Connecticut Whale 4 at St. John’s IceCaps 8
Saturday, November 12, 2011 – Mile One Centre

Connecticut 3 1 0 – 4
St. John’s 3 2 3 – 8

1st Period-1, St. John’s, Jaffray 5 (Machacek, Marto), 1:14. 2, St. John’s, DeSantis 3 (Gagnon), 9:19. 3, Connecticut, Mitchell 5 (Hagelin, Valentenko), 10:35. 4, Connecticut, Mitchell 6 (Newbury, Erixon), 12:43 (PP). 5, St. John’s, Redmond 1 (King, Klingberg), 16:20. 6, Connecticut, Erixon 1 (Bell), 17:57 (PP). Penalties-Mitchell Ct (high-sticking), 3:54; Owens Ct (roughing), 11:55; Chiarot Stj (roughing, roughing), 11:55; Kulda Stj (interference), 17:35.

2nd Period-7, Connecticut, Hagelin 5 6:33 (TXT_PS). 8, St. John’s, Jaffray 6 (Rosa, Machacek), 18:54. 9, St. John’s, Cormier 3 (Weller), 19:55. Penalties-Bouchard Ct (tripping), 10:16.

3rd Period-10, St. John’s, Klingberg 8 (Kulda), 1:11. 11, St. John’s, Rosa 4 (Weller, DeSantis), 13:38. 12, St. John’s, Jaffray 7 (Klingberg, Machacek), 19:34 (PP). Penalties-Grant Ct (hooking), 11:37; Newbury Ct (slashing), 19:29.

Shots on Goal-Connecticut 14-7-9-30. St. John’s 18-14-9-41.
Power Play Opportunities-Connecticut 2 / 2; St. John’s 1 / 4.
Goalies-Connecticut, Talbot 4-2-0 (15 shots-12 saves); Johnson 3-2-2 (26 shots-21 saves). St. John’s, Pasquale 6-0-0 (30 shots-26 saves).
A-6,503
Referees-Jean Hebert (43).
Linesmen-Jim Vail (34), Todd Horwood (56).