Frozen Four, Graham Update, Bad Injury, Blog Record

Bruce Graham  and the Nottingham Panthers Win Challenge Cup, Bruce is in the middle in the back row with no hat

 - I had a chance to check in on how Bruce Graham is doing in the playoffs and he and his team are doing very well. The playoffs in Great Britain are a bit confusing as they are quite different than in North America. There are three different championships in the EIHL and Nottingham has already won two of them which are the League championship and the Challenge Cup championship. Bruce had 37 goals during the regular season which was second in the league and had 2 goals and 4 assists in the six game Challenge Cup. I asked Bruce for an explanation and here is what he had to say:
There are 3 titles during the season.  The main title is the league championship.  The challenge cup is a tournament that is basically spread throughout the season. Play-offs are a max of 4 games with the semi final and final game being a single game elimination.  It set up like professional soccer in England. The playoff championship takes place this weekend and Nottingham is favored to win. Nottingham's opponent on Saturday is the Cardiff Devils whose goalie is former Americans player Chris Whitley.

 - Don't know how many of you are following the Division one college hockey tournament in the US but the Frozen Four will take place April 11 -13 in Pittsburgh with a line up that does not include the traditional high profile schools. Here are the brackets:

                     National Semifinals                           National Finals
                              April 11                                          April 13

                        Quinnipiac
                        St. Cloud State

                        Yale
                        UMass Lowell
The Frozen Four features four teams that are seeking their first championship for only the second time since the first NCAA championship tournament in 1948. The only other time this happened was 1958. Additionally, of the four Frozen Four participants in 2013, only Yale has previously been in the tournament semifinals when they finished third in the 1952 tournament. I have to admit I am cheering for the Minnesota school (St. Cloud State) which is a small town (65,000) located 65 miles northwest of Minneapolis-St. Paul.

- Colby Pridham, Fort Worth Brahma forward cut open an artery in his leg in the first period of last nights game in Quad City. Reporter Eric McCarthy of the Journal Pioneer reports Pridham had planned to spend his off-day from play-off hockey in Quad City on Thursday finishing up a couple of assignments for his professors back at University of New Brunswick.
Instead, he was lying in a hospital bed and hoping a doctor’s letter would adequately explain why he couldn’t complete his projects on time.
Everything was going according to plan until game three of the Central Hockey League play-off game between his new team, the Fort Worth Texas Brahmas, and the Quad City Mallards.
Pridham, who joined the Brahmas on an amateur level tryout a week ago, had gotten off to a good start, assisting on the Brahmas’ game-winning goals in his first and second games with his new team. Things were going fine in his third game, too, until: “Just an errant skate got me in the right spot last night and slit me open pretty good.” The skate sliced through his thigh muscle just above his knee. With an estimated three months of rehab, there’s no hope of the 25 year-old Montrose native rejoining the Brahmas this play-off season.
“I had a partial break to the net, I guess, and I had the puck,” Pridham said in reliving the freak incident. “I had a pretty good scoring chance, tried to get a shot off and, as I got the shot off, the D-man slid across and kind of into me. I don’t know – I haven’t seen the replay – I don’t know if I fell into him or he got up high on me.”
Colby was in pretty good hands, though. One of the season ticketholders who happens to be an ER doctor came out of the stands to help until the medics got there to take him to the hospital. Colby is in the hospital recovering and reports he has had lots of visitors and well wishes. Glad to hear he is doing better. Colby even posted a picture of his leg on twitter with the caption, "View at your own risk, skates are sharp."

Colby Pridham Cut By Skate

- Had a question from blog reader Robert Eden  which says, Why are the letters in "AMERICANS" on the front of the jerseys this year so much smaller than last year? They appear noticeably cheaper and nearly homemade.The answer Robert is the manufacturer filled the order incorrectly and sent the lettering you see on the jerseys. By the time the correct lettering arrived it was too late in the season to swap out all of the old lettering for the new. Thanks for the question Robert and if any reader has a question and needs an answer please ask away.

- I want to end the post with a big thank you to all of you who read the blog.  March page views set an all time record with 13,155. It not only set the record it blew it away as the previous high month (February) was 7702. I am continually amazed at the number of Allen Americans fans not only in North Texas but all over Canada and the rest of the hockey world.

- Finally, to those of you that take the time to leave me comments I thank you for the words of encouragement, feedback, corrections and questions. So please keep the comments coming. A special thanks to david zeck, Doug H, Erik Govea, skmanning, Bennie, city, Turtle, Foo, Dixie, Eric Bess, Mary Betz, Bruce Hadley, Naulty, & Kenneth Flint for the recent comments.