Keith Aucoin shoots while Aaron Gagnon surely does nothing meriting a penalty. (Chris Knight / The Patriot-News)

You gotta give the Bears this: they know drama.  Despite the Hershey offense being well tuned and on-target all throughout game five, the visitors could not gain a lead over the Stars.  By the end of regulation, the Bears had notched 37 shots, but all but one were summarily blocked by the excellent Stars netminder Matt Climie.  It took nearly fifteen minutes of extra hockey for Alexander Giroux to finally defeat the Stars defense and create Hershey’s first game-lead of the series.  The Bears beat the Stars 2-1 in overtime to put the series at 3-2, Hershey.

Don’t be mistaken by the low score; this was a 70+ minute exhibition of superb hockey.   The refs all but abandoned the concept of adjudicating hockey.  The two teams traded off in puck domination and net aggression.  Players dove to block shots with astounding frequency, and no player seemed to forget this is the finals– even when exhausted.   Michal Neuvirth, without a doubt, deserves tonight’s MVP nod for having rebuffed the Stars on perhaps a dozen excellent scoring chances.   John Carlson and Kyle Wilson, too, deserve applause for their precise defensive and shot output respectively.

But it was Alexandre Giroux, all but silenced before this play, who stepped up in overtime to score the game-winner. Roo pounced on a loose puck and swatted it in with a tenacity and alacrity that Climie could not match.  After blocking 41 shots, Climie was finally defeated the goalie by Alex’s force of will.  As John Walton would say, “Good morning, good evening, good night!”

The Bears are probably airborne right now, headed home to Hershey for the final one or two games of the series.  The Chocolate and White now have two chances to win the Calder Cup, and they seem more determined to do so than ever.

Clear your social calendar for Monday, June 14.

Above: Hershey celebrates their Game 4 win. Top: John Carlson does it again. This time, he redirects the GWG Home on a Bears PP. (Photos by Chris Knight, The Patriot-News)

Tonight could have gone very differently. Despite rediscovering their offensive mojo, the Hershey Bears could not generate a lead over the Texas Stars. With the end of regulation looming, the Bear shook off the threat of a do-or-die game 5 with Captain America John Carlson’s razor-sharp deflection past Stars goalie Matt Climie. An empty netter from Alexandre Giroux sealed the deal, and now we’re facing a unique prospect: the Calder Cup will be awarded in Hershey. With the series finally tied, the only question remains who will claim it.

A couple other quick notes for you:

• Pinizzotto penalty? Naturally.
• Scott McCulloch’s response to John Carlson’s GWG was to smother Karl Alzner into the boards. Yeah, they’ll remember that.
• No one was too sure who scored the game’s first goal: Andrew Gordon or Keith Aucoin. Once the snow cleared, Aucoin was given credit, but Gordo was a key player in that play and Carlson’s game-winner.
• If Hershey doesn’t make a red, white, and blue Carlson t-shirt soon, someone’s gonna make it for them.

The Bears will play their third and final game in Texas on Friday night. The series will return to Hershey on Monday, but will the most winning team in AHL history land in PA with the series lead or not?

Above: Chris Bourque skies in the air to keep the puck on his stick. Top: Bourque and Andrew Gordon celebrate the GWG. (Photos by Chris Knight, The Patriot-News)

After an absolutely dreadful start which saw the Bears take a 3-1 deficit into the first intermission, even the most optimistic of Bears fans would have thought that the chances of Hershey coming back in this series were slim. But Head Coach Mark French showed confidence in his players and made the necessary adjustments. He allowed Michal Neuvirth to return in net for the second period, despite witnessing last year’s playoff MVP flub a clearing attempt on a first-period powerplay. Neuvy’s whiff led to Texas’s second goal of the night, an unassisted short-handed goal by Francis Wathier. French then subtlety tinkered with his forward combinations promoting Chris Bourque to the top line and dropping the 2008-09 AHL MVP, Alexandre Giroux, to the second. It paid immediate dividends.

Hershey went on to score five unanswered goals, punctuated by two third period tallies by Andrew Gordon which included the eventual game-winning goal. The Hershey Bears win 6-3. The high-octane offense has returned!

• Tonight marked Hershey’s 9th game in 39 days. Maybe the rust is starting to come off? (Special thanks to fan of the blog Emily Bennett for pointing this out to me via email.)
• I swear Bears’ third-line center, Kyle Wilson, must love NHL10 like I do. He scored both of his goals tonight, Hershey’s 1st and 2nd of the night, via one timers from odd areas in the offensive zone.
• Not to be outdone, Mathieu Perreault had a pair of tallies, and both Keith Aucoin and Chris Bourque had two assists.
• Andrew Gordon’s game-winning goal tonight was a perfect example of why he is such an invaluable player to this club. Gordo set himself in front of the net, and after multiple failed whacks at a loose puck, finally connected on his backhand to give Hershey it’s first lead of the game. John Walton said of the goal, “That is paying the price to win.” While Gregg Mace responded, “Andrew Gordon is one of the heart and soul guys on the Bears.” We agree. We totally agree.
• After giving up 3 tough goals on 11 shots in the first period, Neuvy responded in the clutch by stopping the Stars next 19 shots on goal. He finished with 27 saves on the night and deserves a lot of credit for Hershey’s comeback tonight.
• Patrick Wellar deserves props for his penalty killing tonight. At one point during the second period, I thought I was watching Rod Langway incarnate on the ice as he delivered hit after crunching hit. Wellar also received a Game Misconduct in the third period for his part in a brawl. Well done, Patrick!
• Once again, Steve Pinizzotto played a charged-up game which yielded multiple takeaways and great defense. And once again, Steve Pinizzotto took a completely unneeded penalty, this time a charging call in the third period.
• Caps Employee and reserve goaltender Brett Leonhardt noticed from the stands during a second period TV timeout that Stars Goalie Matt Climie was chirping at the Bears bench. Four goals later, he might have regretted that.

The Bears will now look to even the series at two Wednesday night at 8:30. Make sure to check back in the morning for another installment of Gordo’s Take, as Andrew Gordon will give his view on Game 3. See you then.

Francois Bouchard and Mathieu Perreault do the Bears only celebrating of the night after Bouchard's second period tally. (Photo by Kyle M.)

The hockey gods must be playing a cruel trick on us. Why? Because for the first time in the postseason and the second time in 39 games this year, the Hershey Bears lost in front of their home fans at Giant Center. (And no, we weren’t there to curse them!)

Yet before you hit the panic button and start considering doomsday scenarios, we must acknowledge that this was the first time the Bears had played a game in 11 days. During that period, celebrities Gary Coleman and Dennis Hopper died, May turned to June, BP ruined the entire Gulf of Mexico three times over, Team Russia was humbled in another International Tournament and Bret Michaels nearly died from a brain hemorrhage, recovered and then won Celebrity Apprentice. So rust obviously could have been a factor tonight. It’s hard to have your mojo going after that long of a layoff.

The first 30 minutes of tonight’s Calder Cup Finals exhibition played out much to that effect as both teams treated the first half of the game like a chess match. Both clubs tried desperately not make the game’s first, crucial mistake. However despite being outshot 12-2 after one period of play, the Bears were the ones to score the game’s first goal in the second period. The ever-darty and creative Mathieu Perreault found Francois Bouchard wide open in front of the Stars’ net and the Sherbrooke, Quebec native buried it past Texas Goaltender Matt Climie. Yet, Texas was unfazed. Tonight was the 11th straight game they had given up the game’s first goal and during that span they are 7-4.

5 minutes after Bouchard dented the twine, Stars’ center Greg Rallo responded by beating Michal Neuvirth glove side with a sick wrist shot from the top of the circles. Then in the third, Scott McCulloch backhanded home what turned out to be the eventual game winning goal on a semi-breakaway. As Bears’ Radio Announcer John Walton so eloquently put it, the Bears turned it on too little, too late tonight. Hershey falls 2-1. To the bullets!!

• After tonight’s loss, this is the first time that the Chocolate and White have actually trailed in a series during the postseason. Hmmm. Sleeping Giant = Awoken?
• 

  Doc in the house!

  The best The second best The third best play by play man in the NHL, Mike Emrick was in the house and dropped the ceremonial first puck. Kyle caught the scene in this awesome photo to the right.
• Just a simple request: Can someone turn off the disney channel next time they have a serious hockey interview during intermission? Poor Bob Woods.
• Not only was Elvis in the house wearing a sweet Hershey sweater, he was also frenching all ladies in sight.
• First line right winger and fan of the blog Andrew Gordon returned to the Bears lineup for the first time in four games after suffering a knee injury, and was one of the best players on the ice. He had numerous scoring opportunities in the first and second periods, and in the third, he leveled Andrew Hutchinson, the Stars’ most steady defenseman, along the dasher boards. The hit, which was deemed legal, caught Hutchinson awkwardly from the side and started a brawl that woke up the Bears during the final minutes of play.
• Despite getting the L, Michal Neuvirth was especially solid in goal making 24 saves. At times, I would even say he was spectacular. It’s like he’d be a great back-up goaltender in DC next year, no?
• One thing that seriously bugs me about the AHL is how goalies intentionally knock the net off its moorings when danger approaches. There’s never a delay of game penalty. Ever! Tonight, Matt Climie flung himself into the cage several times to get a whistle. If the AHL had more than one referee, as Corey Massisak so intelligently pointed out, maybe they could make this call consistently. But all I can say for now is: It. Drives. Me. Insane.
• Comcast Sportsnet’s Allen Pope reports that Games 3 through 5 from Texas will be shown live by Comcast. Make sure you join us Monday, Wednesday and Friday of next week to watch almost Caps hockey on TV again!!

Hershey will look to rebound and tie the series Saturday night in front of a sold out Giant Center at 7pm. We’ll talk to you then. Keep your heads up!