Game... Blouses

Chris Rutsch/HWP photo

The Hartford Wolf Pack dug themselves a hole on Tuesday night, losing Game One of their Atlantic Division Finals series to the Portland Pirates, 6-2. The Wolf Pack could ill-afford to lose one of their home games in this series, due to a scheduling quirk (involving the lack of open dates at the Hartford Civic Center) that has the Pack playing the first two games of the best-of-seven series at home, followed by four straight road games in Portland.


We're Pirates, get used to it

The Pirates were getting chances often and early in this game, holding a 13-3 shot advantage at one point midway through the first period. Too many times in the early going, one of the Portland forwards was left to himself next to the net on the backside of the play, making the perfect target for a quick centering pass and an easy back door scoring opportunity.

Portland scored the first two goals of the game before the Wolf Pack got on the scoreboard, on an Alexandre Giroux tally 15:26 into the first period. Barely one minute later, one of the worst fouls I have ever seen occured, when Portland's Simon Ferguson blatantly attempted to injure goalie Chris Holt, drawing a mere 2-minute high-sticking minor. Ferguson was skating at full speed, following the puck behind the Hartford net. As he started to skate past Holt (who was merely standing in place with his hands by his sides), Ferguson jabbed the blade of his stick straight into Holt's chest, right above the "F" in "Wolf Pack". Ferguson's stick then slid up into Holt's throat, knocking the goalie's helmet off and sending Holt face-down to the ice. This was not an accidental glance off the shoulder, but was done with an obvious spearing motion straight to the chest, which hopefully Ferguson will be called into account for as the series progresses.


Marked man: #29, Simon "Turd" Ferguson

Almost as bad was a ridiculous goaltender interference call on Chad Wiseman, 8 minutes into the third period. Jani Hurme's goalie stick got caught up in Wiseman's legs just as Wiseman was putting a shot on goal, pulling Hurme to the side while Wiseman, Hurme, and the puck were all still in the crease. Colby Genoway then jammed the loose puck home, which would've made it 4-3. Instead, Wiseman's penalty negated Genoway's goal, and Portland scored on the ensuing power play to make the score 5-2. The game was pretty much over after that, with Darien, Ct., native Ryan Shannon scoring the final goal of the game on an empty netter with 1:08 left to play, giving Shannon a hat trick.


Colby Genoway's nullified goal (Chris Rutsch photo)

With the game out of hand, some rough stuff started down in the Portland end with 9.5 seconds left. Being on the opposite end of the rink, I didn't see exactly what started the whole thing, but at one point, Craig Weller was landing one huge shot after another on Geoff "Red" Peters, who seemed unwilling to punch back. Both players still had their gloves on, so as Weller swung away, he resembled a heavyweight boxer getting in a workout on the heavy bag. Chad Wiseman had to be restrained from starting a fight himself, and Chad could still be seen yapping at whichever Portland player it was that had ticked him off, even after he had been corralled and brought to the Hartford bench.


Weller vs. Peters (Chris Rutsch photo)

Game Two of the series will be held on Thursday night, in Hartford.