The Wolves are in Rockford today so we get a rare IceHogs telecast in the Chicago market. I find it a little strange that NBCSC+ doesn't pick up a limited schedule of Hogs games. I know the Sabres put a handful of Rochester Americans games on their RSN, and I think NESN picks up a P-Broons game or two. I'm not asking for the entire schedule on TV here, that's more than a bit much, but considering that CSN+ carries such scintillating events as girls' high school basketball, exhibition rugby, and the World Series of Shut The Box, you'd think they could squeeze maybe one Rockford game a month in there so that Hawks fans can check in on the farm team and maybe even feel compelled to make the drive out there and enjoy what I feel is an underrated hockey experience.

My guess, though, is that McDonough is none too eager to promote the baby brother. A lot of work goes into managing the appearance of the Blackhawks, such that it's probably hard to show 4,000 slack-jawed yokels inside the Big Orange Box, banging on cowbells in support of a giant red pig (the cow/pig mixed metaphor has troubled me for years, almost as much as having said yokel banging said cowbell mere inches above my head, ruining a Scott Darling shutout). It's not a prestige organization, that's for sure.

Anyway, Hinostroza had the game-tying assist and game-winning shootout goal last night against Grand Rapids, he's at 16 in 16 and well overdue for a callup. Also worth checking in on Highmore, Raddysh, Luke Johnson, and a few others. They're only 4th in their division but that's better than they were last year.

_________________

Well, I enjoyed it. Hinostroza with the opening goal and shootout winner, watch him dance with Wolves:



Luke Johnson had two, one of which was a cheap deflection off a nice Fortin shot from a nice Snuggerud feed. Encouraging stuff going on in this one, but the Rockford crowd could have been a lot bigger for a weekend game against a down-the-road rival. Hinostroza in particular has earned a recall, and if that's at the expense of Bouma or Oesterle, so be it.

_________________

It could be at the expense of Sharp for all I care. #FreeVinnie

_________________
“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

i've been to my fair share of IceHogs games, and they're pretty entertaining. The cowbell thing gets old pretty quick but the team is good this year and kids really like the inbetween stuff.

_________________
Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

Another Hogs-Wolves game about to start on channel 50 if you want to catch Tanner Kero and some guys we'll need to trade for NHLers.

I'll be heading out to Rockford in early February to see them take on the Jets' farm team, who are currently tearing up the American league.

_________________

I’m at the game.

What am I watching for CH?

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Luke Johnson, Matt Highmore, and Matt Iacopelli are supposed to be the ones to watch. Hinostroza was point-per-game till he played himself off the team. Luc Snuggerud was hurt but if he's back he's supposed to be a defenseman to watch. Alex Fortin was an intriguing prospect when Bowman plucked him out of the Q but he's really been struggling and that might be over. Jurco, Martinsen, and Gustafsson are Quadruple-A guys, nothing much to see there. Jordin Tootoo is back, playing out a contract he shouldn't have been signed to in the first place. No idea who's goaltending with Glass up in Chicago, I think Berube is hurt.

_________________

Solid seats. Can’t beat free

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Great seats, hope the building fills up a little more for a Saturday night game with the Hawks prospects.

The Horizon isn't ideal for hockey with how shallow the seating bowls are. You want to be high but close, not low but far. The cheap seats aren't close to cheap enough.

_________________

That picture was from like a half hour ago. I’ll get a new one since game is bout to start

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

When I lived in suburban Boston in the 90s, I used to go to 4-5 Worcester IceCats (RIP) AHL games a year. A big old dump of an arena, but there was an outlet mall across the street so parking was plentiful and about $5, and if you went to a Sunday 5pm game you could usually park on the street for free. Tickets were something like $8 for the upper bowl.

I move back to Chicago, and immediately take my dad to a Wolves' game. I hated the Horizon. No legroom in the seats (and we were only a few rows off the bench), fireworks meant there was a smoke haze the entire game, and parking was almost as much as a ticket.

Haven't been back since, over 20 years. I'll go to an AHL or ECHL game if I'm in another city (the Las Vegas ECHL team used to play at the Orleans, which was a lot of fun), but I won't step foot in the Horizon.

_________________
"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

RIP to all those old northeastern AHL towns: Worcester, Manchester, Lowell, Cornwall, St. John's, Saint John, Albany, Portland, Glens Falls. I wish the AHL had remained a dumpy little bus league forever. Some of those buildings are straight out of Slap Shot.

_________________

Yeah, Worcester had just started when I moved out there. They had a lot of community involvement, making the younger players volunteer in the schools. They'd travel well to Springfield and Providence, and for the Sunday games the crowd was 80% kids - Dad taking two kids and two of their friends to the game so that Mom could get a few hours alone before the work week started.

The Wolves... at least in the late 90s they seemed like the fans who both hated Dollar Bill and were afraid to venture east of 294 or south of Irving Park because they might see a poor person.

_________________
"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Our old friend Brandon Pirri just scored one of the sadder goals I've seen in a while. That ECHL goalie faced down a perfectly pedestrian shot on goal and couldn't do a damn thing about it. Just trickled right by.

_________________

Yup. I LOLed.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

#8 on Rockford looks like a giant human being and plays like a bitch. Not a fan.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Mac Carruth?

EDiT: just punched his name into the Google machine, and it shows he’s now in some obscure European league or something. Guess he didn’t stick with the organ. I. Zation.

_________________
Not a mult.

The guy's name is Tompkins but the Wolves broadcasters -- despite media guides and clear looks at the guy's name written on his back -- are under the persistent misconception that his name is "Hopkins."

EDIT: apparently Carruth is in the Austrian league. You weren't kidding, that is obscure!

_________________

Went out to Rockford for the Moose-Hogs game last night. It was bobblehead night for some Rockford native who plays for the A's. First 2,500 in got one. I must have been #2,501 because the MetroCentre holds about 4,800, the place looked half-empty, and I didn't get no stinkin' bobblehead.

It was an evenly matched game between two teams that play to develop and still have the prospects to win, which is ideal. Bunch of old friends on the team: Hayden, Forsling, Clendening, and Svedberg, with Franson being a scratch, I guess. HUGE ovation for John Hayden, who was announced as a starter and had a lot of ice team but never got on the score sheet. ECHLer named Colin Delia was the Rockford goalie against Eric Comrie, who's apparently the Goalie Of The Future for Winnipeg, this after Connor Hellebuyck was Goalie Of The Future just three years ago. The teams traded goals, with the Hogs' tallies being a bit more garbage-goalier than the Moose's, and Delia having more than a couple "ahhh what do I doooooo, I'll just fling a limb out" moments, like the ones we've seen from Jeff Glass at the NHL level. A Manitoba defenseman was alone with his thoughts about four feet ahead of the blue line and shot a laser through traffic right to the back of the net to tie it at 2. Had to stand up and applaud for that one; it was the prettiest goal of the night by far.

The ugliest goal of the night came late in the third, after the Moose had taken a late lead on the power play. In a real-life appearance of Hockey Pessimist Curious Hair, as we were starting the third, I told the people I went with that the 2-2 score was bad news because a goalie as good as Comrie wasn't gonna give up a third. In a real-life appearance of Hockey Pessimist Curious Hair, I made a complete ass of myself with this observation, as Comrie was powerless to stop an ultra-slow-motion dribbler from rolling and tumbling over the goal line. He laid on the ice like he died after that one. I wanted to do the same. But then we went to bullshit three-on-three overtime, where Matt Iacopelli had a breakaway, was stopped by Comrie, which sprung a Nic Petan breakaway that wasn't stopped by Delia. But hey, hockey's never better than in person, especially when you have a great seat, which at the MetroCentre it's hard not to have, and the Winnipeg organization is finally building something special. Rockford's home slate this year was ridiculously frontloaded so there aren't too many games left, but if you can get to one from here on out, I recommend that you do, we have a lot of talent on this team and close views are affordable if Rockford's a reasonable drive for you.

That being said, I'd be remiss in not mentioning the people around me. In the row in front of ours was a family that could gently be described as "of carriage." They didn't fit in their seats and drew the ire of the family to their left, which had lost their daughter's seat to the other mother's...overflow. The mom tried to play it off like it was no big deal, that their daughter had a short attention span and they'd just watch most of the game from [the open concourse in the shoot-once end], but I doubt they really wanted to do that. In the third period, the husband returned with a box of baked goods which seemed to have no end. They just kept eating iced pastries, one after another! How many were there in that box? Behind me was a little girl who kicked the back of my chair from puck drop to sudden death, and her Ralphie-from-A-Christmas-Story-looking brother who would sing "Hollaback Girl" at stoppages, but only the "this shit is bananas" part. He later revealed himself to be a younger, fatter Curious Hair, as he would undergo existential crises whenever Rockford was tied or trailing: verbatim quotes include "we're doomed!," "we'll never redeem ourselves!," and "I'm having a complete mental breakdown!" Despite multiple corrections on my part, their mom was insistent that the Moose were an affiliate of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

So yeah, fun, support AHL hockey in Rockford or Rosemont. There's a Hogs@Wolves game tonight, go if you can!

_________________

_________________
Not a mult.

_________________
"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

I have to try to remember "...of carriage."

_________________
"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

The "family of carriage" story sounds like something right out of a Bernstein rant about the time in hell he spent in Rockford.

I was wondering how the Hogs have been doing. Not so well, as it turns out, which is to be expected when the farm team's crappy goaltending has been drafted into being the parent team's even crappier goaltending. They're hanging by a thread to a playoff position with I think nine to play. It'd be great to get some of the kids into higher-pressure game situations, but the Hawks either couldn't or wouldn't make Schmaltz and DeBrincat eligible for the Calder Cup, which would have added a fun dimension to that (think the '05 Philadelphia Phantoms that had Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, and Patrick Sharp playing together because of the lockout).

Also, I believe AHL playoff games (at least in Rockford) wind up being very easy to get tickets to because no one's really too concerned with them, so if you want to get literal front-row seats to watch Manitoba or Rosemont light up Gustav Forsling like a Christmas tree, you probably can!

_________________

Rockford indeed made the playoffs, they'll play the Wolves in an unusual series: most AHL best-of-fives have been 2-3 to hold travel to a bare minimum, but because Rockford and Rosemont are just down the tollway from each other, it'll be a 1-1-1-1-1. Hopefully the reinforcements from the Blackhawks (Hayden, Kampf, Ejdsell, maaaaybe Dylan Sikura?) help the Hogs get past the Wolves, who came on super-strong to pass the once-white-hot Moose and win the division. Rockford's success has been in the players they've sent up to the Hawks, not in the playoffs -- they won a championship in the U-Haul but I don't think they've ever made the second round as an AHL team. I guess I hope they change that this year, not much else to root for with the Hawks this spring.

The Wolves' home games in the series will be on The U Too but somehow they can't be arsed to send a TV crew to Rockford this time, usually among the few road locations they do reliably televise. Maybe there are only so many reruns of Hangin' with Mr. Cooper that the Wolves are allowed to preempt.

_________________

I went to see the Admirals and the Wild finish out their seasons last night. Not a bad game. Bollig scored for the Admirals and actually played solid game. He did alot of little things to help his team and he didn't do anything stupid when there were plenty of opportunities for him to do so. The Admirals hired All Time Low to play for the fans after the game. The 15 year old girl in me says it was a solid concert.

_________________
That's my purse! I don't know you!

We probably went over this last year, but which do you prefer for hockey, the Bradley Center or the Mecca? I feel like the Bucks evicting the Ads was a blessing in disguise.

_________________

Oh the Mecca for sure. Its such a perfect building for them. It was a sell out last night at 10k. I like how the concourse flows and how the upper levels dont have stairs but a ramp that just veers out of the first level. Ive been up top and down behind the bench and the views are solid everywhere. It feels so old school in there and its great. The bradley center was just weird...i always felt like i was in a hotel that had a court/rink in the center of it.

_________________
That's my purse! I don't know you!

I went to a lot of WCW and WWF (before they were doing enough business to run the Bradley Center) shows at the Mecca, but I haven't been back since. It feels like just the right size for both hockey and mid-major hoops, and it's mildly amusing that it'll outlive its replacement for years to come. I like those old mid-20th-century buildings that seem like they could withstand a nuclear bomb. The way things are going in the world, we might get confirmation on that.

_________________