By Michael Walsh
When the wind chills reached 7 degrees at 9 p.m. on Saturday night, there were maybe a couple of thousand fans left in the stands at Rentschler Field.
Those remaining fans, high in spirit of both the alcoholic and fanfare kind, were witness to a truly back and forth battle between the Connecticut Whale and Providence Bruins outdoors in East Hartford. The Whale and Bruins appropriately took the chilly proceedings to the limit, as the Bruins defeated the Whale 5-4 in a shootout.
Bruins goalie Michael Hutchinson denied Whale leading goal scorer Jeremy Williams in the fifth round of the shootout, capping off what was a perfect shootout for Hutchinson. All it took for the Bruins was a goal from Maxime Sauve, a thorn in the Whale’s side all season, in the fourth round of the shootout to finally send the frigid fans off to find their cars in the muddy Rentschler Field lots.
The Whale Bowl was supposed to be the defining event of Howard Baldwin’s first year of Whale management, and in many ways it still was, but the weather had other plans when it came to turnout. It was a good day of hockey for those who showed up, as the AHL game was preceded by an alumni and celebrity game featuring former New England and Hartford Whalers and Boston Bruins, in addition to celebrities, most notably the Hanson Brothers of the film Slap Shot.
The 28,000 plus supposed sold tickets turned to 15,000 estimated scanned tickets. An attendance of 21,673 was announced, a figure that didn’t never seemed to be reached throughout the entire day. Did the Whale break the AHL attendance record set at least year’s outdoor game at the New York State Fairgrounds? That’s up to your interpretation.
Fortunately, the game was a good one for those who decided to brave the weather. It was a true up and down contest. The Whale opened the scoring in the first period as Tim Kennedy intercepted a Bruins pass and put one past Hutchinson to give the fans something to cheer for midway through the first period.
The Whale would extend their lead with 22 seconds left in the first with nice play from the fourth line. Pinned against the boards, Kelsey Tessier made a nice back pass to Devin DiDiomete who connected with Jyri Niemi for the tw0-goal lead. Niemi, who normally plays defense, scored the goal as a winger.
Providence opened the second period with a goal of its own, as Sauve, who would later score the only shootout goal, scored his fifth goal in as many games against the Whale. Providence would strike two more times in the period catapulting them in front of the Whale 3-2.
While the Bruins had changed the tone of the game in the first half of the second period, the Whale stormed back for two goals from likely and unlikely sources.
Williams scored his 25th goal of the season on a power play. Williams, playing the point, put the puck on net with Dale Weise screening Hutchinson. The puck deflected off a Bruin and sneaked by Hutchinson to even the game at 3.
Jared Nightingale would be the unlikely and last source of offense for the Whale. Coming up the right side, Nightingale took a shot at an awkward angle that somehow found daylight between Hutchinson and the goal post.
The third period would differ greatly from the first two. While play was still a constant back and forth, only one goal was scored, and it was a game-tying goal from Bruin forward Jamie Arniel. The goal came immediately after the teams switched sides midway through the third period to even the amount of time goalies faced the wind.
No one could create any offense in overtime, which featured rare three on three hockey and a power play for the Whale. Conditions, including blistering winds and snowy ice, were clearly making it tougher on the players.
No Whale player could net a shootout goal. Kennedy, Weise, Kris Newbury, Tessier and Williams were all denied by Hutchinson. Whale goalie Dov Grumet-Morris matched Hutchinson up until the fourth round when Sauve’s goal ended the evening for the fans and players who braved Saturday night’s cold.
Slideshow:
