The shuffling of Bears and Caps players continued this afternoon with defenseman Aaron Ness being placed on waivers Tuesday at noon. Ness had played in just eight games for the Caps, recording one assist and eight penalty minutes.
Chris Bourque celebrates his GWOTG against Providence Friday Thursday night at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in the Atlantic Divison Finals (Kyle Mace / Chocolate Hockey)
Pheonix Copley has been a big story for the Hershey Bears this season. He was brought in at the trade deadline to give the team a chance to win games, and if that wasn’t evident at any point this season, it was on Thursday night. The Bears won Game 3 in Providence behind 39 saves from Copley and two goals from Chris Bourque propelled the Bears to a 2-1 victory over the Bruins in the second overtime in as many games. Hershey leads the series two games to one.
After a well deserved second day off on Tuesday, the Hershey Bears were back on the ice Wednesday morning at historic Hersheypark Arena. Two notable faces joined the Chocolate and White as they prepared for their second round series against Providence starting on Saturday.
Chris Bourque celebrates his game winning goal with less than a minute left in the third period to beat Lehigh Valley in game two of the Atlantic Division semi-finals (Kyle Mace / Chocolate Hockey)
The Hershey Bears erased a 4-2 deficit in the third period, and Chris Bourque’s game winning goal with 33 seconds on the clock got Hershey a 5-4 victory in Lehigh Valley on Saturday night. Hershey takes a two-games-to-none series lead, with the chance to eliminate the Phantoms on Wednesday night at Giant Center.
Back in February, I was tweeted a really cool video of some of our videos edited in a quick little video. After talking to the creator, @tmhjesslyn, she made a longer video with a ton of awesome clips. Now, she brings back some shorter edits, but with a few of your favorite players. First up: Riley Barber, Christian Thomas, Jakub Vrana, Nathan Walker, Aaron Ness, and Pheonix Copley
This might have been the hit of the year, and only one player was involved. On Saturday night against Hartford, the Bears were absolutely dominating the Wolf Pack the first half of the matchup (shots were 23-4 in favor of the Bears at one point). That didn’t stop Hartford from playing a physical game. Or at least trying to play a physical game.
Late in the first period, Aaron Ness was going for a puck on the end boards as Hartford forward Matt Carey skated in for a big hit on Ness. Seeing Carey coming, one of Hershey’s best skaters stopped short, letting Carey skate full speed directly into the boards.
In millennial terms, Ness yeet’d Carey.
— Kyle Mace (@kyle_mace) March 19, 2017
When I went to Bears practice, I was just planning on watching and getting a few quotes for a story we’ll be publishing Thursday. What ended up happening was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen at a Bears practice.
At the end of the day’s skate, Troy Mann split the team into two squads: Black and White jerseys. Each team member took one shot on goal, trying to win bragging rights (and the chance to miss out on the forever popular suicide skate), for their team. At the end of each player shooting, the score was tied 3-3, meaning they head to overtime.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Hershey Bears visited Penn State Hershey’s Children’s Hospital for their annual Christmas craft day. Bears players Riley Barber, Madison Bowey, Liam O’Brien, Zach Sanford, Tyler Lewington, and Aaron Ness helped some patients make some picture frames and sign some autographs for them.
For the first time since 2010, the Hershey Bears are back in the Eastern Conference Finals where they will face one of the best teams to come through the AHL since the 2010 Hershey Bears team, the Toronto Marlies. This season’s Marlies team finished with 114 points and a 54-16-5-1 record. The teams only faced each other twice this season, each winning in the other team’s building.
With both teams coming off of a series that went the distance, we could be in for another long match-up between these two division winners.
There were a lot of hugs and smiling faces after Travis Boyd scored his series-winning OT goal against Wilkes-Barre Sunday night. But there was not a better celebration than Aaron Ness‘ on the bench right after the roof came off of Giant Center.
