RiverBlades Weekly Notes

October 14, 2002 - ECHL (ECHL)
Arkansas RiverBlades News Release


Last week.... In front of 6429 fans, the second largest crowd in RiverBlades history, Arkansas and Louisiana hooked up for a high scoring showdown on Opening Night with the IceGators firing the final blast, winning 6-5 in a shootout.

The RiverBlades cored just 21 seconds into the game as Buddy Smith lit the lamp on a rebound to gets the season off to a blazing start. Two goals by Jason Bermingham gave Arkansas a 3-1 lead after the first period. Chris Taliercio of the Icegators scored twice in the second period to tie the game at 3. In the third the two teams traded goals, Cal Benazic scored a power play goal to make it 4-3 for the IceGators. Buddy Smith responded with Arkansas 2nd power play goal of the night to tie the game at 4. After Nathan Rempel gave Louisiana a 5-4 lead, new RiverBlade Terry Marchant tied the game at 5 as he banked the puck off an IceGators defenseman for the equalizer at the 11:59 mark of the third.. Neither team could score the rest of the way or in overtime. In the shootout Louisiana scored three times on a fatigued Jason Saal to pull out the victory. Saal was the top star of the game for Arkansas stopping 48 of 53 Icegators shots. Buddy Smith and Jason Bermingham each tallied four points with 2 goals and 2 assists apiece. The line of Smith, Bermingham, and Ernie Hartlieb was responsible for four of the five RiverBaldes goals.

Upcoming...The RiverBlades hit the road for the first time this week, as they will travel to meet two teams from the Southwest Division this weekend. On Friday Oct 18, the Blades will meet up with the undefeated Pensacola IcePilots at 7:05pm. Then on Saturday, Arkansas will travel north to face the winless Jackson Bandits also at 7:05pm. Both games can be heard live on the CSN Radio Network and through the Internet at WWW.RiverBlades.com.

The RiverBlades next home game will be on Tuesday Oct. 22 when they host the Jackson Bandits at 7:05pm at the Alltel Arena.



ECHL Stories from October 14, 2002


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