Ice Bears set to chase SPHL history

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – In its four years of existence, the Southern Professional Hockey League has never had a team repeat as playoff champions. The closest any franchise has come is the Knoxville Ice Bears winning twice in three seasons. As the league marks its milestone fifth season, the one question that is on the mind of Ice Bears’ fans and avoided in other cities is whether Knoxville can be the first back-to-back post season champ. “In this league’s short existence, its (winning back-to-back titles) obviously never been done and very rarely happens in any professional sport,” Knoxville Head Coach Scott Hillman said. “I don’t think we feel a whole lot of pressure to do it. It’s a long season. Would we like to? Absolutely but we’re going to stay focused on some short term goals, focus on getting to the playoffs first and going step by step through it.” First year coach Hillman caught lightning in a bottle a year ago as the Ice Bears controlled the top spot in the standings for pretty much the entire regular season. Following a tough opening round playoff series with Columbus, Knoxville completed the “Cup Coup” by sweeping the Jacksonville Barracudas in the finals. If the Ice Bears are going to need contributions from the goalies, defense and offense. The net minding appears to be in very capable hands of Kirk Irving and Andrew Gallant. Irving, the reigning playoff MVP, won 19 regular season games and posted a 3.01 goals against average. In the post-season, Irving went 6-1 while posting a sterling 2.45 goals against average to earn the accolades. Gallant, a graduate of Manhattanville College, posted a 14-6-2 record and a 3.24 goals against last season with the Arizona Sundogs in the CHL. “Kirk had a very strong camp. It‘s going to be a battle between these two guys (Irving and Gallant) all year long. I believe its going to take some time for one of them to emerge as the clear starter. I hope to kind of rotate these guys back and forth,” Hillman said. “Both of these guys have proven that they can play at this level or a higher level. Andrew was in Arizona last year for most of the year and in 2007 was the Division III player of the year so we feel confident that we have two goalies that we can roll in and out and keep both of them hopefully fresh and healthy.” On defense, Hillman once again sees a glass that is half full. On the one hand, Kevin Harris (10-25-35, plus 32), Brett Smith (3-6-9) and Matt Withers are all back for another season, bringing with them a championship’s worth of experience. They will see the bulk of the work on the ice as well as bringing along youngsters Phil Sbrocchi, Jared Siganuk and Sean Cryer. “Just like last year, it’s going to be a considerable learning curve for the unit as a whole. I enjoy that side of the game very much,” he said. “I hope that with my style that we can bring these guys hopefully quite a long way and help them learn the game and allow them to improve steadily toward the end of the year.” For several years, Knoxville’s calling card has been its offense and this season looks to be no different. When you have the league’s most prolific scorer and offensive talent in Kevin Swider (38-60-98, plus-26) and sniper Tim Vitek (20-32-52) on the top line, the goals can come quickly and very often. Hillman’s job was to find a player to fit into the final spot on the line and he found that player in Jon Foster, an important part of two national championships at the University of Denver and sporting over 140 games of pro experience. “Jon was real anxious to get here and get settled with those guys (Swider and Vitek). They played one pre-season game together and Jon had two goals so we like the chemistry that is developing with those guys,” Hillman said. “It’s a challenge to find just the right match but we’re confident that Jonny might be the best match we’ve found so far.” The Ice Bears have plenty of scorers throughout the rest of the lineup with players like assistant captain BJ Pelkey (22-19-41), Mike Carter (17-27-44) and Ryan Moore (7-7-14) returning. The additions of Chris Rebernik from Jacksonville, Derek Pallardy from Merrimack College, Mark VanVliet only add to the firepower. Then there’s JJ Wrobel who is expected to join the lineup in the near future. Add in “new” role player Caleb Moffat and Hillman has a what he believes is another championship squad. Hillman fully expects that the road to the repeat will be difficult because in his view, every team has been working to improve during the off-season. “I believe that the whole league in general is going to be even tighter than it was, even more parity with Jacksonville’s quality players dispersed throughout the league and one less team and a few less double-A professional teams out there,” he said. “I believe all those factors will act to increase the level of play in the SPHL even higher than it was last year. All of the coaches are preparing better rosters than they had last year.” But if Hillman is right about his team, the rest of the SPHL may just be looking up at history. Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com