Former Hershey Bears Eric Fehr and Steve Oleksy have won the Stanely Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Fehr was a member of the 2005-06 Calder Cup team and is the 128th player in history to win the Stanley Cup and…
No matter what happens the rest of the 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs, at least one team will have a Hershey Bears connection in the finals. With the New York Islanders win tonight, each of the four teams in the Eastern Conference have some sort of Hershey Bears ties.
Brooks Laich during game six of the 2006 Calder Cup Finals.
Before the 2006 Calder Cup Playoffs, Brooks Laich had a phone call with his dad. “We’re going to win the Calder Cup Championship,” he told his father. “How do you know that?” his dad responded. “You can’t run though our team four times. We are too big, too strong, too deep.”
Laich was right. That playoff run brought Hershey their first Calder Cup in nine seasons, sweeping the first two rounds of the playoffs before forcing a game seven with Portland, beating future NHL stars like Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry after an OT goal from Eric Fehr to go to the Calder Cup finals.
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 05: Steven Oleksy #61 of the Washington Capitals (R) and Tomas Kundratek #36 hold up pucks for their first point and goal respectivly after an NHL game against the Boston Bruins at Verizon Center on March 5, 2013 in Washington, DC. The Washington Capitals defeated the Boston Bruins 4-3 in overtime. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/NHLI via Getty Images)
One day after Steven Oleksy was recalled by the Washington Capitals and signed to a three year deal, he and former Hershey, now Washington teammate Tomas Kundratek both recorded first in the Caps’ game against former Bear Chris Bourque and the Boston Bruins.
HERSHEY, PA – Mike Green speaks with Dimity Orlov at the Outdoor Classic (Kyle Mace – Sweetest Hockey on Earth)
Over five years after playing his last game for the Hershey Bears, Mike Green returned to Chocolate Town to drop the ceremonial first puck at the Outdoor Classic. The Calgary native played 108 games in a Bears sweater, with 40 of them in the playoffs.
Braden Holtby looks in disbelief at the replay. Photo by Kyle M.
A sold-out crowd gathered in Giant Center tonight to watch the Bears take on the Lake Erie Monsters. It was the only time we will see the Monsters in Hershey this season.
The game started off perfectly. Hershey scored the first goal early in the first period, as they often do. Lake Erie had two men in the box and Hershey had a 5-on-3 power play for thirty seconds. After getting roughed up, Keith Aucoin made the Monsters pay by scoring on the man advantage.
A few minutes into the second period, Ashton Rome recorded his sixth goal of the season. Tyler Sloan had a nice role in the play, joining the rush as a winger. Along with Maxime Lacroix, they got the puck to the goal. John Grahame made the initial save but Rome buried the rebound.
Perhaps getting a little too comfortable, the scoring ended there for Hershey. Meanwhile, Lake Erie started to kick it in gear. They cut Hershey’s lead in half before the end of the second period. Holtby couldn’t see the rebound and Lake Erie got their first goal of the night. With about a minute to go in the game, Lake Erie pulled their goalie. With an extra man, the Monsters got a lot of traffic in front of the Hershey goal and tied it up with just 40 seconds left in the game.
Overtime didn’t solve anything and so it went to the shootout. Unfortunately, the Monsters scored twice and Hershey could only score once.
Despite the loss, Braden Holtby was fantastic in net. It would have been a whole different game without him. He was there to make all the huge saves that the Bears needed him to make. I’m sure a shootout was not how the Bears wanted to end this game, especially with an early game in Binghamton tomorrow. Nevertheless, the Bears watch the game slip through their fingers and lose 3-2.