Bishop involved in AHL’S longest game
Checkers-phantoms game this week finally ended in fifth OT period; game started 7 p.m. and ended at 1:09 a.m.
There were two days off between Wednesday’s Game 4 and tonight’s Game 5 of the American Hockey League Atlantic Division final between the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and Charlotte Checkers.
Thank goodness, the members of both teams must be saying.
The Phantoms defeated the Checkers, whose lineup includes Clark Bishop of St. John’s, 2-1 Wednesday night in the longest game in the 82-year history of AHL, a contest that didn’t end until the Phantoms’ Alex Krushelnyski, son of former NHLER Mike Krushelnyski, scored 6:48 into the fifth overtime period.
The game, which had started just after 7 p.m., ended at 1:09 a.m. Thursday morning after six hours and six minutes of straight time. With 146 minutes and 48 seconds of action, it was longer than all but three National Hockey League games ever played.
Bishop, a second-centre for the Checkers, had six of the 95 shots Charlotte fired at Lehigh Valley goalie Alex Lyon, whose 94 saves are the second-highest total in league history.
The record for saves is 98 by Albany River Rats netminder Michael Leighton in a 3-2 playoff loss to the Philadelphia Phantoms 10 years ago. That game — which also went into five overtimes — had held the previous league record for marathons, but ended about six minutes earlier than Wednesday’s recordsetter.
Interestingly, both contests involved farm teams of the Carolina Hurricanes (River Rats, Checkers) and Philadelphia Flyers (Philadelphia and Lehigh Valley Phantoms).