From fan favorites to rivals

Published on October 26, 2005 under International Hockey League 2 (IHL 2)
Elmira Jackals News Release


Jamie Thompson has a pretty good idea what kind of holiday cheer he'll receive Dec. 23 when he returns to First Arena for the first time as a member of the Danbury Trashers.

"You know, I'm expecting boos," Thompson said by phone last week. "That's how hockey is. When you're somewhere, they love you. And when you're playing against the team you left, they're against you. And that's just hockey. And that's whoever it is."

Just 18 months ago, Thompson brought down the house at First Arena, scoring the most dramatic goal in Elmira's franchise history - a buzzer-beater to eliminate top-seeded Richmond in the first round of the 2004 playoffs.

But after requesting a trade last season, and then getting traded again this offseason, Thompson has become the latest Jackals fan favorite to join one of Elmira's biggest rivals.

The Trashers, who dubbed themselves "The Evil Empire" and led the United Hockey League with 2,776 penalty minutes last year, now feature Thompson, former Jackals enforcer Brad Wingfield, former Jackals defenseman Sergei Durdin and goalie Sylvain Daigle.

Danbury is entering its second UHL season after advancing to the second round of the playoffs as an expansion team last year. The Trashers and Jackals will meet 13 times this season, starting next Friday at Danbury.

"I loved playing in Elmira, and I loved playing in front of their crowd," Thompson said. "But I expect to get some heckles from the crowd, and that's normal. That's a true hockey fan right there."

Wingfield, no doubt, can relate.

"It started out as a big cheer, and everyone was happy," the veteran forward said recently of his first trip back to First Arena last October. "I think by the end of the first game I was getting stuff thrown at me and booed."

One of the most popular Jackals ever, Wingfield set a UHL record for most penalty minutes in a season when he racked up 576 with Elmira during the 2002-03 campaign. Durdin's rights were traded to Danbury on Oct. 4 for goalie Ryan McIntosh, who returns to Elmira after spending the 2003-04 season with the Jackals.

And Daigle? Fans here no doubt remember him as the goalie who, as a member of the Muskegon Fury, shut down Elmira in both the 2002 and 2004 Colonial Cup finals.

Nope, no subplots here.

"There's a lot of Danbury this, Danbury that," McIntosh said. "I mean they're going to have controversy no matter who they play. Everyone's going to be gunning for them.

"If you have an organization such as theirs, where they spend a lot more money than the other teams - in all aspects of it, in terms of equipment or locker room - people are going to be gunning for them. They're not going to want to let those guys do anything to them, in terms of roughness on the ice, in terms of the scoreboard. So, yeah, everyone's gunning for them. And that's what's going to make it hard for them."

On the comeback trail Wingfield admits that while lying in a hospital bed in Connecticut last December he wondered if he'd ever play again.

He broke his shin bone, his fibial bone and his ankle in a game against Kalamazoo on Dec. 1 - ending his year less than two months into the season.

"At that point, I wasn't thinking about doing anything except getting the pain taken care of," said Wingfield, who broke his other leg about five years before.

"It's the worst pain I've ever felt, and it's happened twice to me," Wingfield added. "Then, after you sit in the hospital for a couple days, you start to second guess yourself. 'Will I be able to come back? I'm a little bit older now, is this one worse than the first one?'

"The doctor didn't know if I'd be able to play again, and all that. But as soon as you start training, I knew that I'd be able to recover from it, especially since I've already done it once before."

Wingfield, who had a titanium rod inserted from just below his knee into his ankle, had "all the hardware" removed in early June and resumed skating in August. He says now that his conditioning is 100 percent, but that he's still working to get some of his quickness and timing back.

"I wouldn't want to end my career on a season like that," he said. "We had a good team season, but for me just to play the first quarter of the season, it'd be a tough way to retire and go out of hockey.

"I just want to try and have a good year here," he added. "Obviously, the ultimate goal is to win a championship. And I think that would set me at ease, and maybe I could move on with my life and try something else other than hockey."

'No hard feelings' Several factors appear to have played a part in the swift, surprising fallout last season between the Jackals and Thompson, who had endeared himself to fans the year before with his inspired play and clutch goals throughout Elmira's unexpected run to the 2004 finals.

Thompson and the team seemed to disagree on the severity of his injuries after Thompson missed time with knee, back and groin problems. Comments from multiple people hinted at Thompson's desire to catch on with a playoff team. And the day he was dealt to Quad City last March for Durdin and Alex Mathieu, Thompson told the Quad-City Times that "lack of communication and proper equipment" factored into his decision to request a trade.

Asked recently to elaborate on his comments, Thompson said his skates were ripping from the bottom and that other players were playing with skates that "shouldn't have been used." There was no consistency in the sticks either, he said, so that when a player broke one, his next would be completely different.

He said he feels fortunate he wasn't injured because of his skates and said he was disappointed with how he was portrayed after the trade.

"To come out of the whole situation to look like I was being a baby about anything that any player should get, that disappointed me," Thompson said. "But that's their business. They run it the way they want to, and I was just a part of their business."

Thompson added: "There are no hard feelings. That's just the way (Jackals team owner Mostafa Afr) chose to run his business. And I can't knock him because he's been at the top of the game four out of five years, so he's got to be doing something right. He's got a great facility. He's got great fans, and I'm sure he's going to have a competitive team this year."

Afr could not be reached for comment this week. But Trevor Burgess, who served as captain last year, said: "There was some definite problems last year with that kind of stuff - with equipment and getting things when you needed it. I don't know whose fault it was. But in the offseason, when it was discussed with our ownership, they had no idea that was happening. And they guaranteed that things like that wouldn't happen again."

In Danbury, Thompson is reunited with Paul Gillis, who coached him at the end of last season in Quad City, and he's closer to his hometown of Framingham, Mass.

The left wing is one of several big signings for the Trashers, who became something of a UHL fantasy team this summer after adding players like Thompson, Daigle and David Hymovitz, who led Richmond last year with 100 points.

"It's on paper," Thompson cautioned, "and last year we looked real good at the beginning of the season in Elmira and look what happened there.

"We can not take anything for granted," he added later. "If we want to be successful, the formula is the same for any team in the league. You've got to show up and you've got to play a full 60 minutes every single night, because the parity in this league is such that anybody can win on any given night."

Some nights, though, should certainly be more interesting than ot

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International Hockey League 2 Stories from October 26, 2005


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

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