Welcome to the first edition of Federal Offense, my weekly recap of the FPHL, the Federal Prospects Hockey League.
A little insight into my hockey background. I grew up in the 80s in northern New Jersey a diehard Islanders fan. I moved to Georgia in the early 90s and was a Columbus Cottonmouths season ticket holder until I started working at the local sports radio station as a producer for Cottonmouths games. That job introduced me to my dear late friend, Pro Hockey News legend Don Money, who brought me into the PHN family as the Cottonmouths beat writer, which garnered many personal relationships that have extended into the FPHL with guys like Jerome Bechard, Scott Brand and Billy McCreary.
I now work in the Junior Hockey realm with the NAHL New Mexico Ice Wolves as an off ice official and I am the PA Announcer for the NA3HL New Mexico Ice Wolves. I also recently joined MPH Sports Management as a player representative.
The week opened up with a rare Wednesday night contest between the bitter rivals when the Carolina Thunderbirds visited the Columbus River Dragons. Ryan Hunter and Justin MacDonald lead the way with 2 goals and an assist each as Columbus easily dispatched the Thunderbirds 7-4.
The weekend saw the Danbury mount yet another 3rd period comeback Friday against the Binghamton Black Bears, something they’ve been making a habit of doing against their rival. Down 3-1 in the third, Danbury pulled off 3 goals in the final 10:02, netting the game winner with just 45 seconds left. Saturday though was a different story, as Gavin Yates and Tyson Kirby lead Binghamton with 2 goals each as Binghamton took the second game 6-2.
Meanwhile, the Elmira River Sharks played 3 against their in state rival Watertown Wolves. Elmira took the first two with a pair of 4-2 victories, highlighted Saturday night by a line brawl that saw Elmira defenseman Austin Pickford get two Physical Abuse of Officials Misconducts garnering a 10 game suspension. Watertown rebounded Sunday walking away with a convincing 6-3 victory led by a pair of goals from Chiwetin Blacksmith and Vladislav Padlov.
Friday saw the upset of the week when the Mississippi Sea Wolves knocked off the Carolina Thunderbirds 6-5 in a shoot out, despite a hat trick from Carolina’s Josh Koepplinger. Saturday was another close one, this time Carolina was able to hold on for the 4-2 win.
Easily the series of the week took place in Wytheville, VA between the visiting Columbus River Dragons and Blue Ridge Bobcats, where neither game was settled in regulation. Friday night took a shootout to find a winner as Columbus took the 4-3 win. Saturday night Blue Ridge was led by a pair of goals from Joel Frazee, but it wasn’t enough as Nolan Slachetka won it for Columbus 2:43 into OT.
Finally we had the battle of Michigan as the Port Huron Prowlers swept their rival Motor City Rockers.
My 100% unscientific and unofficial power rankings
11: Baton Rouge Zydeco
Baton Rouge has the week off, despite having a better record, I feel my reasoning will justify putting the struggling Zydeco in last.
10: Blue Ridge Bobcats
Despite Baton Rouge having the better record, Blue Ridge pushed the first place team to the limit in back to back games. This could be the spark the Bobcats need.
9: Watertown Wolves
Easy choice as they lost the weekend series to Elmira, but their rebound Sunday made it close.
8: Elmira River Sharks
See above, they won the weekend series against Watertown, but being shorthanded due to suspensions for the next month is going to make it tough.
7: Danbury Hat Tricks
I have a feeling Danbury could start slipping. They received shocking news that their enforcer and locker room leader Daniel Amesbury was suspended indefinitely. The defending Commissioner’s Cup Champions will need a major infusion to save their season.
6: Mississippi Sea Wolves
Knocking off Carolina Friday night was a huge win for the team, shorthanded with Head Coach Joe Pace suspended. Things are definitely looking up for Mississippi.
5: Motor City Rockers
This was a hard one, not really, because technically Motor City has a better record, but they did get swept by……..
4: Port Huron Prowlers
Yes, they get the edge by sweeping their in-state rivals. No brainer to give them the edge.
The top 3 in the league are head and shoulders above the rest of the league right now, but records aren’t everything, that’s why despite only being 1 point from the best record in the league
3: Binghamton Black Bears
Binghamton has been just too inconsistent this season and has blown too many late leads. They’re the easy front runners in the Empire Division, but the top 2 from the Continental have to be the favorites right now.
2: Carolina Thunderbirds
Carolina has beaten almost everybody, as has the top team. Had Carolina pulled off the win Wednesday, they could easily have the top spot.
1: Columbus River Dragons
Columbus not only has the best record in the FPHL, they’re also riding a 7 game winning streak. They easily earned the top spot in this week’s power rankings.
Use CodePHN15 Sit back rant awhile with Lee
Weekly rant
Last week started out with the league extending Daniel Amesbury’s 18 game suspension to an indefinite suspension. They still have not given an explanation. Well, I think the ECHL has quietly shown their opinions on the matter, as Amesbury has in fact signed with the Ft. Wayne Komets. The only requisite is he must complete his original 18 game suspension. He will be eligible to play on February 3rd. In other news, the league has proven that they will pick and choose which rules they enforce. Recently they issued a directive from the commissioner that stated
“Any team that has a player receive a suspension of two (2) games or more will have their eighteen-man game night roster reduced by one (1) player per occurrence until such time the suspension(s) expire. In addition to the roster reduction, the impacted team’s head coach will be suspended one (1) game for every two (2) games said player receives.”
That directive wasn’t vague, it was very clear, if a player gets a 10 game suspension, the coach gets 5. I guess that doesn’t apply when the league owns the team. As I mentioned above in the recap, Elmira River Sharks defenseman Austin Pickford was suspended 10 games, yet Head Coach Tyler Gjurich was not suspended. The league’s explanation?
“The coach of Elmira will not be suspended per the new directive as this is obviously not an issue of controlling the actions of his team late in a game.”
Huh? How can you blame a coach for something during the play, yet they say the abuse of officials happened on the bench, literally the one place the coach has control of his players. This is blatant favoritism and sets yet another dangerous precedent.
You must be logged in to post a comment.