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AHL Hershey Bears

Bears take game seven

by Jason S. Rufner
June 1, 2006 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Hershey Bears


Game Seven. Winner goes on. Loser goes home.

Add overtime, for good measure. Sweet recipe.

That was fun.

I just got back from seeing the Hershey Bears' Eric Fehr clang a 20-foot slapshot past the glove side of the Portland Pirates' Jani Hurme, the puck pinballing around the cage before rattling in, then out. Even before the referee's forward-extended right arm gave official credence to the tally, the nearly full, newly posh building erupted with a paroxysm of mirth and relief which was not only loud but sustained, the start of a several-minute ovation to their team whose sticks and gloves now littered the ice as the uncontrollable emotion flowed, the joy of getting to play another day.

Just east of Harrisburg and with easy routes from Reading, York and Lancaster, the town of Hershey owes its existence to all things cacao. Milton S. Hershey, the man responsible for milk chocolate's immense American popularity, was an entrepeneur in the vein of Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie: His goal was to produce a high-quality product by providing his employees with a high-quality life. His philanthropy within the town that bears his surname includes a school for orphaned children, a medical center, botanical gardens, a world-class amusement park, a museum, innumerable cultural opportunities, and a professional hockey club.

Initially known as the Hershey Bars, the sobriquet was changed to the more intimidating Bears in 1936 when the squad was a dominating force in the Eastern Amateur Hockey League. Hershey has had an entry in the American Hockey League for 61 of the circuit's 70 seasons, and the rafters of the Giant Center, like those of HersheyPark Arena before it, support banners reflecting an impressively consistent tradition of excellence: Eight championships, including at least one during each decade since the 1940s, and 18 appearances in the Calder Cup Finals.

Make that 19.

I hadn't been up to see the Hershey Bears since they had moved into their shiny new facility planted on the other side of the roller coaster from their venerable old place, HersheyPark Arena, born in 1936 when buttocks were evidently not nearly as ample. And this being the first season of the club's affiliation with my local NHL team, the Washington Capitals, all season I had been meaning to get up to Central Pennsylvania to see those players who had been dotting Washington's roster on occasion: Colin Forbes, Kris Beech, Graham Mink, Tomas Fleischmann, as well as the heir apparent to the Caps' redoubtable netminder Olaf Kolzig, Maxime Daigneault. The regular season passed into the play-offs, and I still hadn't made the time; the games ticked by (with Hershey sweeping aside Norfolk and Wilkes-Barre behind the capable backstopping of Frederic "Fred-dy, Fred-dy" Cassivi), and yet I still hadn't journeyed up US 15 to catch one for myself.

In the Eastern Conference finals with the Portland Pirates, ironically the Caps' previous AHL ally, the Bears seemed to be breezing yet again. Winners of the first two, they lost the third in two overtimes before winning in yet another blow-out. The Pirates, now affiliates of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks and not short on prospects themselves, had to come from behind to gain all three of their victories -- even had to come from behind in the series just to force a seventh game in Hershey, almost a full week after the sixth, due to lack of arena availability. It was this Game Seven, on a soupy Tuesday night, that I got into the truck and drove up there, windows down; it might be my last chance before attention turns entirely to baseball.

The two teams traded goals for a 3-3 first intermission score, the first four tallies coming on power plays. In the second period, the defenses strengthened, as the only score came on a late short-handed breakaway by Portland's Dustin Penner, who, like Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, was in his first game back after Anaheim's unsuccessful Stanley Cup try against the Edmonton Oilers. The third period was more of the same, with neither team able to generate the pretty set plays of the first period. I had the distinct impression that if Hershey were to have a chance to hang their first banner of this decade, the tying goal would have to be of the dirty variety, flooding the net in front of the suddenly stalwart Hurme.

With time dwindling to precious few minutes, Graham Mink got just such a dirty goal, getting his stick around and down in front of the net to whisk home a rebounded slapshot, and the building roared with new life, a vigor that had been quelled earlier in the period when Forbes missed a wonderful opportunity to knot the game on a penalty shot. The entire series was now just two minutes long. The next goal would decide who would face the Milwaukee Admirals for the 2006 Calder Cup, and who would get a jump on summer workouts and tee-times.

Though indubitably the third intermission included not only strategy and encouragement but also energy bars and drinks, the play to begin overtime was unkempt and rushed. The Bears threw a few shots at the net which Hurme deflected easily; the Pirates missed an open corner behind Cassivi which had the shooter's shoulders noticeably slumping. A few pucks were bobbled on the clean ice sheet, but no capitalization resulted. Then Fehr gained the zone down the left side and fired a shot from the circle which happened to miss enough of Hurme's glove and catch enough of Hurme's net to send a shockwave through 8300 souls, bringing a climatic end to the roller coaster of the game and the series, and assuring that the season would not end tonight.

I felt for the Portland players, a couple of them flopping face-down on the ice, most of them unable to watch their celebrating colleagues in the white uniforms, their season irretrievably over. For Penner, Getzlaf and Perry, it was the second time in a week that they had suffered so. Losing is never easy. It never should be. Once upon a time, I was a member of an All-Star Little League team that was within an inning of going to South Williamsport as the Mid-Atlantic representative. We lost that game in a painful manner, made all the more painful by what was at stake. Boys of all ages cry when such pain is felt, especially when it is sudden and sure, like the opponent's winning run crossing the plate, or the opponent's winning goal crossing the line. You can have all the character-building in the world; losing stinks.

I emerged into the heavy nighttime air, sheets of lightning flashing to the northwest, belying the dull circles of stars directly overhead. This is hockey in the springtime, when the sweatshirts needed in the rink come off upon returning to the 80 degree humidity of the parking lot, but this also is hockey in the play-offs, when a series or a season can come down to the capricious bounce of a puck, when the narrowest of margins can mean the difference between the bitterness of defeat and the sweetness of milk chocolate.

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