Tallahassee Tiger Sharks Player Updates May 2002

The CHL is currently investigating the Fort Worth Brahmas head coach Todd Lalonde for salary cap violations. Word also has that Tiger Shark Alumni Jason Clarke tipped the league off.

Clarke confessed to turning the Tiger Sharks into the ECHL for similar violations under general manager Joe Sloboda. That almost cost Tallahassee its team during the fifth season, but the league was lienent as the T-Sharks were first time violators. The organization was not so lucky on the second go round under Larry Kish in their seventh year.

The Brahmas fans have been making a concerted effort to get Lalonde ousted from the club however, so many seem to feel this is actually beneficial to them.

(Rumor has it that Clarke turned Lalonde in so that he could take over the head coaching position. The fans I have spoken with seem to feel this would NOT be a good move for the frachise. While they are all for getting rid of Lalonde, they do NOT want Clarke for a coach.)

Meanwhile, the Brahmas are holding their "Blacktop Brahmas" summer roller hockey clinic.

Blacktop Brahmas features a traveling Border Patrol rink that will make 32 stops throughout the Fort Worth area in June, July and August. Players and coaches from the Brahmas will instruct participants on different hockey skills such as skating, passing, shooting, and offensive and defensive strategy. The teams of participants will then scrimmage to close out the two-hour session. The Blacktop Brahmas clinics are open to children between the ages of six and sixteen and are free of charge.

Lalonde be on hand for the instructional portion of the clinic, and the coaching staff will include Clarke, who is the team's player assistant coach.

Idaho outshot Fresno 50-38, including 16-7 in the first overtime. But Kris Porter, the playoff MVP, chipped in a rebound in transition at 3:06 of the second OT for the championship.

“We came with a good effort, but we put our backs against the wall,” said former Tiger Shark center Dan Shermerhorn, who was part of the Steelheads team that lost in Game 7 of the finals last season. “We did it to ourselves, and we didn´t get a bounce tonight.”

The Steelheads lost all three of their home games in the series. They´re 0-6 at the B of A all-time in finals games.

A victory would have forced a winner-take-all Game 7 tonight at the B of A.

“Come Game 7, I think we would have won it,” Tallahassee alumni Matt Oates said.

Derek Paget still wonders.

Did he do the right thing? Is hockey important enough to lose time with his girlfriend, Wendi Lund, as she battles cancer? Will he regret it someday?

Yet, the Idaho Steelheads wing continues to impress with his play, his focus and his determination. He has five goals, 12 points and a plus-8 rating in the playoffs, all second- or third-best on the team. “When I step out on the ice, my mind just goes blank,” Paget said. “Your body, your skills, everything just takes over.” Paget and the Steelheads will need that kind of concentration tonight to keep their championship drive alive. The Fresno Falcons lead the best-of-seven Taylor Cup Championship Finals 3-2. They can finish off the Steelheads in Game 6 at 7 p.m. at the Bank of America Centre.

Three Idaho Steelheads veterans aren´t just on the cusp of a championship.

They´re also about to begin new lives.

Fourth-year Steelhead wing Cal Ingraham and second-year defensemen Eric Rud and Thom Cullen will play the final pro hockey games of their careers this weekend at the Bank of America Centre.

All three are retiring, all for very different reasons.

“It´s exciting, but it´s also sad in a way that this is it,” Cullen said.

He´s off to law school at the University of Miami, so long as his house sells by the end of summer. Rud is quitting a year before his contract expires because of a back injury. And Ingraham, the face of the franchise the past four years, is 31 years old and clearly not the same player who scored 50 goals in each of the past three seasons.

“I don´t know if I was quite as effective this year,” said Ingraham, who scored 23 goals during the regular season and has five in the playoffs. “Maybe it is the time as far as that goes. Hopefully, I have two more good games left in me.”

The Steelheads trail the Fresno Falcons 3-2 in the best-of-seven Taylor Cup Championship Finals.

Memphis RiverKings Press Release

As the Memphis RiverKings rolled to the Central Hockey League championship, they’ll be teaching kids this summer how to roll along in the hockey world.

The RiverKings will be hosting the Junior StreetKings Day Camp that will take place this summer at the new roller hockey rink located at the Hernando Civic Center on Robinson Gin Road. The clinic begins on Monday June 17th and will feature several members of the President’s Cup champion RiverKings.

Seven RiverKings will help youngsters hone their hockey skills on wheels. Campers will need their own in-line roller skates, helmet and hockey stick. The camp is open to kids 5-15, and will run Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

“This camp will provide a much needed summer activity for kids in the area,” Tiger Shark alumni Don Parsons said. “My teammates and I look forward to working with these young people.”

Parsons, who was the regular season and playoff most valuable player in the CHL is the camp director and one of the instructors. Joining the team captain in the camp will be RiverKings players Khalil Thomas, Mark Richards, Kevin Fricke, Don Martin, Jay Neal, and Ben Gorewich.

Campers will have the chance to get their picture taken with the President’s Cup trophy and all attendees will receive a ticket for the RiverKings’ home opener for the 2002-03 season. That night the RiverKings will unveil their championship banner.

For more information about the Junior StreetKings Day Camp call (901) 870-PUCK (7825) or email dparson1@midsouth.rr.com.

Here´s another incentive for the Idaho Steelheads to win the Taylor Cup. They might get to hear teammate Matt Oates play the guitar, and maybe even sing a song. They´d have joke fodder for months. Oates, the 6-foot-3 center from Evanston, Ill., nicknamed the "Big Rig," began taking guitar lessons last summer. He got serious about it when he arrived in Boise for the Steelheads´ season.

Tiger Sharks alumni Simon Tremblay leads the Greenville Grrrowl to a rendition of Queens "We are the Champions" at the Bi-Low Center party following Greenville's sweep to the Kelly Cup Championship. Photo by Jessica Bamford.

More: Click on an image to see the full size version.

More photos avalable at http://www.digitalfrost.com/frostbite/cupwin.html

The Greenville Grrrowl won their first-ever East Coast Hockey League Championship with a 5-2 win at Dayton on Friday completing a four-game sweep in the Kelly Cup Finals.

Making its first-ever finals appearance, Greenville becomes only the third team in history to record a sweep in the ECHL Finals. The Grrrowl, who has qualified for the postseason twice in its four-year history, joins Charlotte, who beat Jacksonville in four games to win the Riley Cup in 1996, and Hampton Roads, who swept Louisville in the 1992 Riley Cup Finals. The Riley Cup was awarded to the ECHL Champion from 1988-89 to 1995-96 when it was replaced by the Kelly Cup named for Patrick Kelly, one of the founding fathers on the ECHL. With a hockey career that spanned four decades as a player, coach and general manager, Kelly is the Commissioner Emeritus of the ECHL and the only Commissioner in league history.

Greenville's John Marks becomes the first coach in history to lead two different teams to the ECHL championship, having led Charlotte to the title in 1996. It is the fifth ECHL title for Grrrowl assistant coach Nick Vitucci who won four championships - Carolina (1989), Greensboro (1990), Toledo (1994) and Charlotte (1996) - and was the playoff MVP twice (1989 and 1996) in his 13 seasons as a player in the ECHL.

Tiger Sharks alumni Simon Tremblay appeared in 13 playoff games with the Grrowl, recording three goals and 7 assists for 10 points while logging 8 penalty minutes.

(05/27/02) Tiger Shark alumni Rob Laurie was in Lake Placid the weekend of May 25-28 to qualify for FIRS Team USA. The FIRS international roller hockey tournament will be held in Rochester, New York, from July 23 through August 1.

The FIRS tournament dates conflict with those of Team USA in the IIHF roller hockey tournament, so Rob is expected to only play at FIRS this year. His participation in NARCh is unclear, also due to conflicting dates.

The IIHF tourney is being held in Germany this year.

Charlie Yoder, who took the FIRS team to a Gold Medal last summer, will again coach the team.

Other players expected to make the FIRS team are Bill Lund, Eric Rice and Jami and C.J. Yoder.

NARCh is being held in Minneapolis, Minnesota with the pro-dates going from July 31 through August 4th.

(05/31/02) Idaho Steelheads (WCHL) -- Re-signed right wing Adam Copeland for the 2002-2003 season.

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