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If the Providence Bruins can repeat as the American Hockey League's Calder Cup champions, it will be one of the strangest cup defenses in the league's long history.
Providence finished the regular season by losing its way to a better playoff spot. The Bruins were in fourth place, nine points ahead of Springfield in the New England Division, with 10 games to go. Providence went on an eight-game losing streak and was eventually passed by the Falcons on the season's last weekend. Because of the AHL's crossover playoff format, fourth-place Springfield wound up playing New England champion Hartford, which finished as the league's top team with 107 points.
Providence went to the Atlantic Division and played Quebec, which finished with 83 points.
Even though the Falcons knew that by finishing strongly, they'd have a tougher playoff road, coach Dave Farrish liked that his team played so well down the stretch.
"There was never any question of us tanking a game to get a better playoff position," Farrish said. "Ethically, that's not something I could do. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night."
Providence was hurt by injuries and callups to parent Boston down the stretch and had a lineup full of ECHL players up on tryout. The P-Bruins wound up using an AHL-record 70 different players. Still, the Bruins caused some eyebrows to be raised in the final few games when they suited up 38-year-old Andy Brickley, the former Boston color analyst, and when they went with only 14 skaters even though veteran defenseman Terry Hollinger, recovering from an injury, could have played in a pinch.
"Sometimes," Farrish said, "you have to be careful what you wish for, because you might get it."
The Bruins got a huge influx of talented players down from Boston when the Bruins' NHL season ended. Providence swept Quebec in three games in the first round of the playoffs. Springfield, on the prowl for an upset, won two of the first three games in its series with Hartford.
Notes from the IHL
Steve Maltais of the the Chicago Wolves finished as the league's leading scorer with 90 points. It was the first time since 1970-71 that the top scorer didn't have at least 100 points.
Cleveland's Jock Callander was honored by the Lumberjacks during the final weekend of the regular season and, on the last day, broke the record for most games played in a career. Callander got to 1,054, one more than goalie Glenn Ramsay. Cleveland is close to finalizing an affiliation agreement with the NHL's Minnesota Wild.
The Grand Rapids Griffins had never been more than 11 games above .500 until this season. They finished the year 29 games in the black.
In contrast, the Detroit Vipers had the largest one-year dropoff in history. Detroit went from 50-21-11 in 1998-99 to 22-52-8 this season.
The league's oldest franchise, the Michigan Wings of Kalamazoo, ceased operations when the regular season ended. The Wings lost their affiliation with the Dallas Stars and owner Ted Parfet decided to pull the plug after 26 years. Even though they failed to make the playoffs, the Wings got a big boost from replacing coach Bill McDonald with Jim Playfair. The Wings were 16-24-3 for McDonald and 17-13-9 under Playfair. It is possible Kalamazoo, which has a great facility, if a bit small by today's standards, will put a team in a lower league
Notes from the AHL
The league broke its attendance record for the eighth straight season, with the new Wilkes-Barre team being the single biggest story at the gate. The Penguins were never in contention, but still sold out 26 of their 40 home games. The 2001 All Star Classic will be played in Wilkes-Barre next season. On the final Friday night of the regular season, four of the nine games played drew crowds of better than 10,000 -- Wilkes-Barre sold out, and Lowell played to its third largest crowd ever.
While Hartford finished with the best record in the regular season, there were a couple of bumpy spots in the days before the playoffs began. Attendance was down about 1,000 a game from last year, prompting general manager Don Maloney to say, "Don't get me wrong. It's not like we're packing our bags. But we really have to do some searching as an organization. There are concerns, quite frankly."
Then, leading scorer Brad Smyth went public with his dissatisfaction at not playing in a single NHL game for the Rangers this year. He said, "Brad Smyth is the only player on the team who played in all 80 games for the Wolf Pack. I outscored, with 11 more goals, anybody on the Rangers or Wolf Pack. I want that as a quote from me, and I want that stated as a fact because I want to go play in the NHL somewhere."
Home ice advantage? Home teams were 10-14 in the first 24 games of the Calder Cup playoffs.
Hershey's Christian Matte finished as the leading scorer with 104 points. He was the only AHL player to hit triple figures. The last time just one AHL player broke 100 was 1986-87, when Hershey's Tim Tookey won the scoring title. Philadelphia's Mike Maneluk led the league with 47 goals. There has not been a 50-goal scorer in the AHL since Smyth had 68 in Carolina in 1995-96.
The Kentucky Thoroughblades won the Mid-Atlantic Division title even though defenseman Christian Gosselin led the league in most games played without scoring a goal, 68, and defenseman Robert Mulick played 52 games without registering even a point, which might be a league record.
Notes from around the minors
The Jacksonville Lizard Kings of the ECHL suspended operation at the end of the regular season. Ownership says it will re-activate the franchise when a new arena is built to replace the outmoded Coliseum, which is nearly 40 years old. A new rink could take as long as three years to build.
The Alexandria, La. Warthogs became the third WPHL franchise to fold this year when they closed down at the end of the season. Unlike Jacksonville, there are no plans to resurrect pro hockey there.
Bill Ballou covers professional hockey and baseball for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette in Worcester, Mass.
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