Practice Notes, Other Series, Brampton & More

Had a chance to catch the tail end of practice today and nothing has changed on who is practicing. Berube was on the ice but Maiani and Pineault were not.  Berube took a puck to the face and left practice to get stitched up and posted the picture below on Twitter. Also, no new players have arrived. I know coach Martinson has said he will be looking to replace Bryce Aneloski who dislocated his elbow but no announcements have been made.

Mike Berube lost a battle with the puck at practice today

- Looked like conditioning day from the part of practice I observed with lots of stops and starts drills.

 - A spring blizzard moving through the northern plains and the state of South Dakota has forced the postponement of Game 6 of the Ray Miron Presidents’ Cup Opening Round series between the Rapid City Rush and the Missouri Mavericks.

The game was originally scheduled for tonight (Tuesday, April 9) with Game 7, if necessary, scheduled for Wednesday, April 10. But due to the treacherous road conditions, high winds, freezing temperatures and snow accumulations in Rapid City, each game has been pushed back one day.  Game 6 will now take place on Wednesday, April 10 and a potential Game 7 will take place on Thursday, April 11.  Both games will face-off at 6:35 PM MT at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center.

Missouri leads the best-of-7 series three games to two. The winner of the series will go on to face the Allen Americans in the Conference Semifinal round. Game 1 would be scheduled for Sunday, April 14.

- If you want to get some real insight into what is going on with the team attend one of the radio shows scheduled this week. Always an opportunity to ask questions. Here is the news release with the details. I plan on attending the session with coach Martinson. The Allen Americans will host two live shows this week leading up to game one at the Allen Event Center.
 Head Coach Steve Martinson will address Game 1 with a live show on Wednesday at 1:00 pm at Allen Americans  sponsor, La Finca Chiquita, located at 107 N Butler in Allen. Come by and have lunch with the coach and talk playoff hockey.
Thursday night join Jarret Lukin and Mike Berube at Americans sponsor, Renegade Cigars, located at 3613 Shire Blvd. in Richardson for a live playoff show on the back patio. Come meet Lukin and Berube and get an autograph as we gear up for Game 1 on Sunday.

- The second round home playoff schedule is not ideal from a marketing point of view with one Sunday and three weekday games. A real challenge for Mike Martin and the sales staff. Unfortunately the Allen Event Center was booked for the weekend. I know I am making extra effort to encourage friends and neighbors to attend all of the second round games as it will be some great hockey.

- Scheduling is a problem at other venues as well. Wichita is playing the first two home games of their second round series with Fort Worth tomorrow (Wednesday) and Thursday because a Professional Bull Riders (PBR) event has the Intrust Bank Arena tied up over the weekend. And there must be some issues in Fort Worth as they have not announced any dates for their home games in the series.

- I have looked at attendance figures several times and am always surprised we did not draw more fans during the past regular season. I looked up total attendance during the regular season for the Americans for all four years and here are the numbers.
2009-2010     125,760 (adjusted for 33 games)
2010-2011     131,548
2011-2012     143,089
2012-2013     137,186
 You can see from these figures this year was the first year attendance did not increase over the previous year. Hopefully this trend will be reversed next year.

- For those of you not following Brampton CHL hockey they are down to the final two names and will either be the Bampton Beast or Brampton Bandits. With all of the great hockey players from the area I wonder if they will have an advantage in recruiting players for their team who might want to play closer to home.

- I still can't figure out why when you go to the Brampton web site, hockeybrampton.com the header on the web site advertising Brampton hockey is an action picture of Anthony Maiani in an Americans uniform. Come On Man!!