Sound Tigers were turning a corner
Stick It To Cancer weekend was coming for the Bridgeport Sound Tigers in mid-March. A celebration of girls hockey was set for the next weekend, then one more morning game with thousands of screaming schoolkids. Autism Awareness Night and Fan Appreciation Day would’ve rounded out the home schedule a few weeks later.
But schools are closed. Arenas are, too. And while the toll of this coronavirus pandemic grows by many metrics, a few promotions and eight games at Webster Bank Arena are far from its biggest impact.
There was still a chance to close out an underwhelming Sound Tigers season with something to carry into 2020-21. Now, it’s uncertain just what 2020-21 will look like. The AHL officially canceled the rest of the 2019-20 season on Monday.
Ending the season, which was suspended on March 12, had become a bit of a foregone conclusion with public-health restrictions still in place around the continent, but the finality still hit this weekend.
“It’s obviously very disappointing,” Bridgeport coach Brent Thompson said. “It’s disappointing especially with the way we were playing the last bit of the season, winning three of the last four, playing solid hockey and building in the right direction.
“At the same time, you understand the situation, the safety of the country, really.”
When the season ended, Bridgeport was 23-33-5-2, all but certain to miss the Calder Cup Playoffs for the seventh time in 10 years and to stretch its league record to 17 years without a playoff-series victory.
Chalk it up, perhaps, to inexperience and injury as much as anything.
“I thought we evolved,” Thompson said. “Unfortunately, it took longer than we wanted to understand the systems, to buy into the team concept.
“I thought the team worked extremely hard. There was a lot of individual development. Through adversity, you find out a person’s true character, and none of the kids quit.”
Kieffer Bellows turned it on at Thanksgiving and finished with 22 goals in 52 AHL games, making his New York Islanders debut in the middle. Oliver Wahlstrom and Simon Holmstrom began the year as teenagers — Holmstrom is still 18 for another 10 days — and developed their games.
In a league where teenagers are rare, Bridgeport had four at one point or another, including defenseman Bode Wilde, who brings us to the “injury” side, where the man-games-lost numbers were so wild they were hard to tabulate.
Take out every game lost by a player injured while in the ECHL or in NHL camp (Wilde, for one), and the Sound Tigers lost at minimum 332 man-games to injury and illness. Add them back in along with everyone who probably would’ve been here, and the number could jump as high as 484.
The best accounting is probably 362, which ties 2005-06 and trails only 2010-11 (380 man-games) as the Sound Tigers’ worst injury seasons out of 19. And those were 80-game seasons; this one ended at 63.
Top goalie Christopher Gibson missed a month and a half; potential top forward Tanner Fritz and potential top defenseman Mitch Vande Sompel essentially missed the season. Players had to step into bigger roles than expected.
“What I’m most proud about was the group of guys and the way we were able to compete up until that last game,” said veteran forward Colin McDonald, who’s hoping to return next year. “Fortunately or unfortunately, I’ve been a part of teams like that where things have gone south pretty quick. That wasn’t the case here.
“Tommer (Thompson) ... held everybody accountable. Because it’s the minors, guys are playing for a lot more than just a championship. I thought the guys were very professional about it, whether it was a contract, a certain goal plateau, a certain points plateau, a call-up, whatever they needed for motivation. Guys did a good job staying the course.”
In 30 home games, the Sound Tigers averaged a crowd of 3,537, ranking 27th in the 31-team AHL. They lost out on some good late-season promotional crowds.
A few key front-office positions turned over the past couple of years, with the departures of some long-time employees. Team president Michael Picker retired just before the season began. Brent Rossi took over as president of business operations.
Rossi’s first season in Bridgeport ended, on-ice at least, not long after the team announced a new season-ticket plan for next season in which $500 bought just about any seat for all 38 games, with a $750 price tier adding perks. He said he wants to focus on the fan experience next season.
Corporate sponsorship is another key piece of an AHL team’s well-being, meanwhile, and it’s a tough time.
“This is way before I got here, but our staff has done such a great job creating some real long-lasting relationships with our sponsors,” Rossi said. “We’ve been in touch constantly, mainly about how they’re getting through this.
“We want to help them as much as they help us.”
Rossi still thinks the team’s future is bright, with the parent Islanders’ ownership and leadership and the Oak View Group’s management of Webster Bank Arena. The present is difficult.
“I said this to Alan a couple of weeks ago,” Rossi said, referring to Alan Fuehring, the team’s broadcaster and publicrelations director. “You don’t realize how much you miss and love sports until something like this happens.”