Last night, the Hershey Bears won three trophies in what, hopefully, will be capped by a repeat Calder Cup win, pounding the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, 6-1, in Wilkes-Barre.
By virtue of the win, the Bears skated off with the F.G. (Teddy) Oke Trophy, presented by the AHL to the East Division champion, the Frank S. Mathers Trophy as Eastern Conference champion, and the MacGregor Kilpatrick Trophy (and is that a great name, or what?) as the AHL regular season points leader.
The Bears are at the top of their game as they prepare for the first round playoff series by finishing up their last two regular season games at Binghamton and at Philadelphia. Last night, they abused the Penguins in their own building to the tune of five goals in the first 16 minutes, chasing starting former Bear goaltender Nolan Schaefer (0-3-0 with Hershey this season...), to end the competitive portion of the evening quickly.
Against the other East Division playoff teams over the course of the season, the Bears stack up as follows:
vs. Albany: 7-1-0, 35GF/17GA
vs. Norfolk: 5-4-1, 38/33
vs. WBS: 6-4, 35-27
The Bears struggled against Norfolk in the second half, going 1-3-1 in the last five meetings. Against the Penguins, however, Hershey won five of the last six meetings, their only loss coming as the Penguins scored the tying and winning goals 13 seconds apart late in the Bears' third game in three nights.
With the reassignment of defenseman Mike Green and forwards Tomas Fleischmann, Eric Fehr and David Steckel to Hershey, the Bears appear ready to defend their title. One hopes that this will be a tale Chris Bourque will tell and re-tell in the years to come . . . "Listen, my children, and you shall hear...a wonderful tale of a special Bear year..."
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