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Day After Game Report: 17 Games and #17 Continues His History Making Run March 7, 2025 | ||||
Posted by: Bob Howard Credit: Binghamton Hockey.net | ||||
March 2, 2025 - by Bob Howard - BinghamtonHockey.net
After last night’s game Coach said this to me about the home stretch and the 17 game win streak: “As far as the home stretch and winning streak, it’s great and I’m very proud of our regular season accomplishments. However, I think our group understands the ultimate goal is winning the cup and we ain’t celebrating anything yet. We just move on to the next day and focus on Blue Ridge this upcoming weekend.” The ultimate goal. This team since media day back in October of 2024 has talked about repeating. About how special their group is and to be honest it is one of the best groups of players on and off the ice that I have seen covering Binghamton Hockey in 20 years. They care about two things at the top, the fans and winning a second straight championship. This is what all fans in all pro sports, at any level want. The fans want to be seen, in Binghamton the players meet, sign autographs and take pictures at every home game. The players come out willingly no matter what is happening in their lives. The fans also have a Head Coach and a team that their goal isn’t to collect a check or collect stats but it’s to win a championship. Binghamton fans are lucky. But so are the Binghamton players and everyone in the organization. In 24 home games this season, the Black Bears fans have come out in full force. More so than in 20 years since the early Binghamton Senators days. The Black Bears fans have shown up for 6 sell-outs this season and an average 4,188 in 24 games at the Visions Veterans Memorial Arena. Most teams and players in the league don’t get this much love and support. Are there great fans all through out the FPHL, yes. Are there great fans all through out North America’s minor-pro hockey leagues, yes. But who can say in what city that a city loses it’s AHL affiliation, then in 4 short years has rejuvenated a fan base by winning over previous AHL fans and creating a new set of fans. I was personally close with the Manchester Monarchs of the AHL. I would travel and do color for their radio play-by-play broadcaster Ken Cail, who was one of my mentors. The Monarchs won the Calder Cup in 2015, it was an amazing year. They averaged 5,621 fans per game through 38 games. A good number. The team was then stripped from the fans and moved to Ontario, California. The Monarchs were then demoted to the ECHL, but at least it was NHL affiliated hockey right? No. The Monarchs immediately lost 1,000 fans per game and in four short years only averaged 2,458 and was folded. It broke my heart to see a city, an arena, a legacy and a fan base destroyed by the L.A. Kings. That’s where Binghamton didn’t fall that far. Yes after COVID and the New Jersey Devils left Binghamton, so did the AHL. But this isn’t Manchester, New Hampshire. This is the home of Slap Shot, this is the home of the Broome Dusters, the home of one of the best minor league logos, the Binghamton Whalers logo, this is the home of the 2011 the Calder Cup Champions Binghamton Senators, this is the home of Ken Holland, who played here and then became one of the best General Managers in the NHL history, this is the home of generations and generations of Binghamton Hockey fans and the home of the first and best nicknames ever given to a city by The Hockey News, Hockey Town, USA. Binghamton fans welcomed in the FPHL, slowly at first, just barely averaging over 3,000 fans the first season. But with hard work by players, front office staff and team owner Andreas Johansson the growth again in Binghamton has been nothing but extraordinary. And another man who needs to be talked about in this process is Tyson Kirkby. Tyson is a big part of why the FPHL and the Black Bears has grown to what is today. His leadership on the ice is the best I have seen in the fours that I have watched the FED. Tyson works hard, plays the game the right and has all the physical skill to accomplish everything that he has. Tyson owns at the moment the franchise lead in power play goals with 31, short-handed goals with 7, games played with 154, goals with 110, assists with 139 and points with 249. This season will go down as his best season as right now he has the league lead in points with 77, goals with 32 and is only a couple points away for assists with his 45 assists. He will topple his career high in all three categories by the end the season and likely will have a good shot at league MVP. Coach Sherwood said this to me about Tyson last night: “Tyson is the best player to come through the black bears in the most competitive years of the fed. We’re all so happy for him to take over as the franchise leader. It’s great to see that number spot taken over.” Last night the Black Bears won the 17th game against the Dashers by the score of 7-1. Connor McAnanama got his league lead 24th win. The Black Bears have three lines scoring at will and got goals last night from CJ Stubbs, Josh Fletcher, the captain Tyson Kirkby, Dakota Bohn, Jesse Anderson and 2 goals from Scott Ramaekers. The Don Father, Donald Olivieri also spoke last night with a fight vs. the Dashers Sean Doyle. No, no one, not even Don himself knows why he got the aggressor penalty. It looked like a text book, 2 for slashing on Doyle, then 5 for fighting for both players, but that’s not what went down. The referees were so confused last night, I am pretty sure they did not tie their own skates up last night. How many times did Jesse Anderson have to go out to the referees looking for an explanation. None of it made any sense. But if that’s the biggest complaint we have of last night, it is easy to move on. A little more competition this up coming weekend vs. the Blue Ridge Bobcats. The Bobcats recently took two from Athens and split with the Venom. We will have previews this week to get you ready for the 3 games in 3 nights in Wytheville, Virginia.
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