Venue change, vocal fans give Moose chance to outrun Bears

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/06/2009 (5973 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Much has changed in the Calder Cup final. There’s a new lens on the best-of-seven AHL championship series that returns to Winnipeg Friday night, when Game 6 between the Manitoba Moose and Hershey Bears takes place at the MTS Centre.

Before we spell out what’s different about the series that was extended with a 3-2 victory by the Moose on Tuesday in Hershey, it’s wise not to lose sight of the constants:

 

• Hershey has earned its 3-2 series lead. Best-of-sevens, however, require four wins before exuberant celebrating is proper.
• Close games seem to be guaranteed. The series has seen overtime, three other games with empty-net goals and a 2-1 Game 4 thriller that went to the final horn. Overall in Hershey, the Bears were the consensus better team but some seemed to lose sight of the fact that it was tight — likely why Hershey won just two of the three.
• The goaltending has been special. Apart maybe from Game 1, both Cory Schneider of the Moose and Michal Neuvirth of the Bears have displayed quality worthy of a championship series. This is the AHL’s best commercial — future NHLers head-to-head.
• The dislike builds. The final minute of Game 5 was ugly (not to mention unnecessary) but this is what happen when you combine high-level effort with emotion. We just can’t see this declining now.
• Loud, record-setting fans. When they open the doors for Friday’s sellout, attendance will have exceeded 77,000 for the series, easily eclipsing the previous league mark from 2002 between Hamilton and Houston. (Also see below.)

The change in location, however, figures to provide some new dynamics to this battle, a reality not lost on either side.

"It seemed like at a couple of points in this series over here that we were hanging on for dear life to get one and go back to our house," Schneider said after Game 5. "We played much, much better in the first two games. It’s a big lift for us; we know how we can play at home. It’s not a gimme, though. It’s going to be a real tough game because they’ll want to finish it off."

"We’re not happy we have to go back but our goal since the start of training camp has been the Calder Cup and we’ve got two cracks at it," said Hershey coach Bob Woods. "We’ve won there and it’s going to be a great environment there."

 

That great environment is among the differences:

 

• The MTS Centre is loud, very Canadian and to some, a more civil hockey environment. Said Moose captain Mike Keane about what the Moose faced on the road: "I’ve never seen it before. I’ve never seen a group of fans show up and stand behind the bench and not watch any of the game and just concentrate on giving it to the players. It was jailhouse rules after a while, some of the things that were being said. I guess it’s what they do. But it’s a fun building to play in."
• The Moose were the AHL’s best regular-season road team but in an illustration of playoff intensity, have been a better team at home during the playoffs. It’s been very evident in the last two rounds and needs to be again if they’re to have a chance to win the title.

"I just didn’t think we’d ever played our best game down here," coach Scott Arniel said after squeezing out the win in Game 5.

"And you have to give Hershey an awful lot of credit because they pressure hard and they play well in this building and they attack you and they’re physical. I hope we go home and get our A-game back to where it was."

• Officiating. It’s the last thing you want to be a factor in a series, but it’s inevitable here. Friday’s standard can’t help but be different from the 1989-style, turn-a-blind-eye work of Frederic L’Ecuyer on Tuesday. There was grousing in Hershey that it kept the team’s excellent power play out of the game and favoured the Moose, but do the aggressive Bears, with a penalty-kill that has had its flaws, want to risk Game 1’s 10-5 tally of power plays?

A tight series, now with a key location change makes this a once-in-many-moons Winnipeg weekend.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca