Will the 1000th Win Come on Wednesday, Steve Martinson's 999 Wins and Other Records, Phil Fox Selected as NAHL Coach, Minnesota High School Hockey Tournament and More

After a day off yesterday it will be back to practice for the Allen Americans today as they prepare to take on the Kansas City Mavericks and be part of hockey history in earning coach Steve Martinson his 1000th victory. It won't be an easy task tomorrow night because the Mavericks have dominated the Americans this season winning seven of eight games they have played. If there is a silver lining in a record of 1-7 against Kansas City it is the lone Americans win came the last time the teams played in Allen (January 2).


- I was asked yesterday how many of Martinson's wins have been with Allen. The answer is 272. Martinson has coached five teams in his 23 years in coaching. Here are the number of wins by team:

San Diego Gulls:    1995-2004 - 434 wins
Rockford IceHogs: 2004-2007 - 142 wins
Elmira Jackals:       2007-2010 - 117 wins
Chicago Express:    2011-2012 - 34  wins
Allen Americans:    2012-2019 - 272 wins


- Martinson has won 10 championships. He won five championships in San Diego, one in Rockford and four in Allen. This season will be just the second time in 23 seasons that a Martinson coached team has not made the playoffs. The other was in 2011-12 when he was coaching the Chicago Express (ECHL).


- The ECHL recall/reassignment deadline is tomorrow and the trade deadline is Thursday. Here is a primer written by Matt Harding on these two events with historical data on what has happened on trade deadline day. https://thesinbin.net/2019-echl-trade-deadline-primer-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-ask/


- The two main junior hockey leagues in the US are the Tier I Untied States Hockey League (USHL) and Tier II North American Hockey League (NAHL). The NAHL is the oldest junior hockey league in the US and will start its 44th season this fall. Of all freshmen players that played Division I hockey this season 32% played in the NAHL. A new NAHL franchise was just approved for Albuquerque, New Mexico which will be known as the New Mexico Ice Wolves. Phil Fox, who played with Allen in 2013-14 was just named as the coach of this new team. Phil knew from an early age he wanted to be a hockey coach and even playing professional hockey was a means to an end. It has been fun tracking his coaching career and this is another step in that progression. Here is the press release announcing Phil's selection: http://www.nahl.com/news/story.cfm?id=26324


- The Minnesota boys High School hockey tournament takes place starting tomorrow. The four day tournament which is two classes (small schools & big schools) with eight teams in each class playing a single elimination tournament. Attendance will be well over 100,000 with the record being 135,618 which is about what Allen will draw this entire season. The championship brackets average as many as 18,000 per game. Here is a video of two middle school friends that have attended every tournament for 50 years. One of them is Scott Martinson, no relation to Steve Martinson.

- Here are some stats that may surprise you:

Rapid City has scored 138 goals this season which is 35 fewer goals than any other team in the Mountain Division and 56 goals fewer than the division leader in goals scored (Utah 194).

Allen has allowed 221 goals which is 17 more than Wichita which is the next highest in the Mountain Division and 61 goals more than the division leader in goals allowed (Idaho 160).

Wichita is ranked #24 in the ECHL in points (53) but has the league's top power play percentage at 22.6%.

Allen has the worst record in the ECHL but has given up the second fewest shorthanded goals with four. Two of those four shorthanded goals came in back to back games against Tulsa on Friday and Saturday.

The ECHL team with the fewest road wins is Kansas City. Despite their 7-14-2-1 road record they will most likely make the playoffs because they have 22 wins at home with a record of 22-9-1-0.

The Tulsa Oilers have out shot their opponents in 52 of 60 games this season. Allen has out shot their opponents in just 16 of their 61 games.


DID YOU KNOW: You can't end on a more positive note than Steve Martinson's record in Allen. He has 10 championships in his 23 years as a coach including four in seven years at the helm in Allen. His regular season record in his first six seasons in Allen was 251-124-24-21. That computes to a winning percentage of .651. He has coached in 17 playoff series with the Americans and has a record  of 15-2. He is 5-1 is seven game playoff series including 2-0 in seven game championship finals. Over his entire career Martinson has averaged 44 regular season wins per season.