This week in the WHA2

March 5, 2004 - SPHL (SPHL) News Release

CELEBRATION, Fla. â The World Hockey Association 2 (WHA2) today announced the WHA2 Player of the Week is Alabama Slammers forward Doug Lawrence. In games last week, Lawrence had eight assists. Lawrence assisted on every goal scored in the Slammers 6-5 victory over Miami. The WHA2 Goaltender of the Week is Macon Trax Andy Kollar. In games last week, Kollar had one win, one shoot out loss and made 66 saves on 70 shots. Kollar has a 3.15 goals against average and a .905 save percentage.

The WHA2 announced that there will be a press conference at the Asheville Civic Center in Asheville, North Carolina on Tuesday, March 9 at 12:30pm to introduce the General Manager, Coach and staff of the WHA2 expansion Asheville Aces, set to take the ice for the 2004-2005 season. A fan meet and greet will be held at TGI Friday's later that night.

The WHA2 announced that the Miami Manatees will relocate to Central Florida. The Miami Manatees games scheduled for this upcoming weekend will be rescheduled. The entire revised home schedule for the Manatees will be released soon. To request a refund for season tickets, please email Jenn Green at jenn@wha2.com or mail your request to Jenn Green, WHA2, 901 Begonia Road, Celebration, Florida 34347.

The next WHA2 appearance at the ESPN Club for "SportsTalk Live!" will be Tuesday, March 16 at 7pm. The schedule for WHA2 featured guests for the month of March will be released next week. The ESPN Club is located on Disney's BoardWalk.

The WHA2 would like to remind fans of schedule changes for the second half of the season. All Sunday home games at the Lakeland Center will have a start time of 4:05pm. The Macon Trax have made some time changes to upcoming home games. The Saturday, March 27 game versus Orlando originally scheduled for 7:35pm has been moved up to 6:05pm. The Jacksonville Barracudas have changed the March 6 game versus the Alabama Slammers to March 31 at 7:05pm.

Alabama hosted the Lakeland Loggerheads last Thursday night at the Pelham Civic Complex. Slammers defenseman Bobby Quinnell scored a season high two goals and Doug Lawrence added a goal and three assists to lead the Slammers to a 5-2 win over the Loggerheads. The Slammers hit the road to play the first of two consecutive road games on Saturday night in Miami, Florida, and went to overtime winning 6-5. It was the second consecutive win for the Slammers, who moved into a tie with Miami for second place. Alabama then traveled to Macon to take on the Trax Sunday afternoon. Slammers forward Justin Schabes scored two goals for the second consecutive game to lead Alabama to an exciting 3-2 shootout victory. With the win, Alabama takes over sole possession of second place in the WHA2. On Thursday night the Slammers defeated first place Jacksonville by a score of 5-1. The victory is the fourth in a row for the Slammers (26-17-3-55 pts). This week, the Slammers return home for a pair of games at the Pelham Civic Complex. Alabama will look to make it five wins in a row when they take on the Lakeland Loggerheads on Friday night. The first 1,000 fans on Friday will receive a free giveaway, courtesy of Hooters. Tickets for March 4th and 5th, as well as all regular season Alabama Slammers games, are available online at www.slammershockey.com, at all TicketMaster outlets, or by calling Ticketmaster at (205) 715-6000.

The Jacksonville Barracudas wrapped up a six-game home stand picking up 10 of a possible 12 points and now have a commanding eight point lead over second place Alabama for the top spot in the WHA2. The Barracudas traveled to Pelham, Alabama on Thursday to face the Alabama Slammers and dropped a 4-1 decision. The Barracudas return home on Friday, to battle in-state rival Orlando. Face-off time on Friday is 7:05pm. The Barracudas game originally scheduled for Saturday, March 6th has been rescheduled to Wednesday, March 31st at 7:05pm due to a John Mayer concert scheduled at the Veteran's Memorial Arena. Randy Hevey is making a case for himself as the league MVP as he's ranked third in minutes played (1,667:08), first in wins (19), first in goals against average (2.92), and second in save percentage (.915). Jamie Miller is climbing the scoring charts. Miller leads the Barracudas in all scoring categories. He's seventh in the league in points (57), and sixth in the league in plus/minus (+19). Lyle Steenbergen has a six-game goal-scoring streak and is one game shy of the WHA2 record of seven games set by former Barracudas forward Greg LeColst. Mark Phenow is tied with former Barracudas Andrew Oke (called up to Roanoke of ECHL) in goals by a defenseman (9). He's a +18 with 28 points. The Barracudas go into this week's games with an eight point lead over second place Alabama, a 12 point lead over third place Miami, a 14 point lead over fourth place Orlando, and 19 point lead over fifth place Macon with only 13 games remaining in the WHA2 Inaugural season.

The Lakeland Loggerheads announced some schedule changes. The home game originally scheduled for Fri., Feb. 13th vs. Macon has been changed to Sun., Mar. 7th at 4:05pm. For the remainder of the season, all Sunday home games will now start at 4:05pm. This will affect the games on March 7th, March 21st, March 28th and April 4th. Sunday, March 7th vs. the Macon Trax at 4:05pm is "Sunday Funday". The first 100 kids receive a FREE Loggerheads water bottle. Plus there will be a post-game skate with the players and an autograph session with the Loggerettes Dance Team. The Loggerheads Booster Club has been collecting donations for the SPCA at all home games. They've been accepting blankets, toys, food, and other supplies from generous fans.

The Macon Trax traveled to Jacksonville last Thursday and battled hard against the Barracudas trying to hold on to their two game winning streak, but fell 3-0. Jacksonville Goalie Randy Hevey got his first career shutout with a 25 save performance. On Saturday, Andy Kollar had a big night with 39 saves to help the Trax beat the Orlando Seals 2-1. Kollar stood tall in the third period with 19 saves. On Sunday, even though the Trax usually win when leading after two periods of play, this time the Alabama Slammers escaped Macon with a 3-2 shootout victory. On Monday, for the second night in a row, the Trax were forced to play more than 60 minutes when they took on the Lakeland Loggerheads. Loggerheads tough man Curtis Sayler tied the game up with under a minute remaining in regulation and neither team scored in overtime. David Deeves saved the day for the Trax in the shootout. He skated into the zone and buried the shot past Lakeland goalie Tyler Murray giving Macon the 7-6 victory. Deeves had already scored two goals on the night. The Trax continued their trend at the TD Waterhouse Centre on Thursday night. The Trax have yet to lose in regulation in Orlando. The last two trips the Trax have claimed one goal victories over the Seals and the game Thursday night was no exception. Macon claimed a 5-4 victory over the Seals. The Trax overall are 4-0-1 when visiting the Seals. The Trax games versus the Miami Manatees originally scheduled for March 5 and March 8 in Miami will be rescheduled due to the Manatees move to Central Florida. On Sunday, March 7, Macon returns to a building they have had much success in. The Trax have yet to lose in regulation when visiting the Loggerheads. Every time Macon visits Lakeland, the Loggerheads put up a great battle. The last two trips to the Lakeland Center saw the Loggerheads win in overtime and lose in a shootout. "CHUGGIN' WITH THE TRAX" is changing to Tuesdays for the month of March. Join Adam Minnick, Tommy Stewart and Trax Players Tuesdays in March at the TOM HILL SR. APPLEBEE'S Grill & Bar Location. The show is live 6-7pm Mar. 2, 9, 16, 13, 30. It will be replayed on www.irn.fm from 9-10 pm the same night. Be there for the Mar. 11 Trax game home as the Trax have great promotions planned. It will be "CITY EMPLOYEE NIGHT"âIf you work for any city or county in the Middle Georgia Region bring you ID for $5 tickets. It will also be "GUNS âN' HOSES NIGHT"âThe Trax are honoring all the Firefighters and Police officers with a $5 ticket special. The Trax will also be looking for all the "Guns N Hoses" members to participate in the intermission fun. Come for "THIRSTY THURSDAY"âFor the first time the Trax are having a FAMILY THIRSTY THURSDAY. The usual special is 2-for-1 draft beer; ALSO all fountain soda will be 2-for-1 as well. The next day, March 12 will be "ARTIC CONSTRUCTION ST. PATRICK'S DAY BASH"âThe Trax will be wearing a special St. Patrick's Day jersey that will be auctioned off after the game. All fans can help us celebrate by wearing green to the game.

The Miami Manatees games scheduled for this weekend have been postponed due to the team's move to Central Florida. The entire revised home schedule for the Manatees will be released soon. To request a refund for season tickets, please email Jenn Green at jenn@wha2.com or mail your request to Jenn Green, WHA2, 901 Begonia Road, Celebration, Florida 34347.

The Orlando Seals hosted the Macon Trax on Thursday and dropped a 5-4 decision. Thursday night's game marked the return of Seals goaltender David Goverde. The Seals head to Jacksonville on Friday to take on the Barracudas at 7:05 p.m. The game can be heard over the internet at www.irn.fm. The Saturday game against Miami will be rescheduled due to the move of the Miami franchise to Central Florida. The Seals are looking to end a six game winless streak, after a 9-4 loss to Miami last Thursday, a 2-1 loss to Macon on Saturday, and a 5-4 loss to Macon on Thursday. The Seals game scheduled for Lakeland on Sunday was postponed due to unplayable ice conditions. No make up date has yet been set. Jamie Muswagon and Simon Duplessis both suffered concussions against Miami and their status for the games this weekend is yet to be determined. Mike Sanderson stretched his scoring streak to eight games against Miami (3G, 5A), and saw it end in the loss to Macon on Saturday. But, he was red hot again, scoring a hat trick in Thursday's loss to Macon. The Seals have waived goaltender Shad Higginbotham. Seals tickets are available at all Ticketmaster outlets and online at www.ticketmaster.com. Ticket information is available by calling the Seals at (407) 447-PUCK (7825).

The WHA2 has six member teams for the 2003 â 2004 season: the Alabama Slammers, Jacksonville Barracudas, Lakeland Loggerheads, Macon Trax, Miami Manatees, and Orlando Seals. Every game will be broadcast on www.irn.fm with video broadcast of select games available throughout the season.

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