Bronze League Back Stories Volume One...The Stingers

Killer here, I had the opportunity to sit down with the coordinator for the three time champion Stingers this week, and find out the back story on the team. Hopefully between Dickie and I we will get the back stories on all the 10 Bronze League Teams:

Killer: How did you come to name your team the Stingers?

Dan: When we started the Stingers at Euless, 4 years ago, I was also coaching my grandsons squirt house team at Euless. At that time, we could choose any team name that we wanted. We looked at a bunch of different hockey leagues logos. So we chose the “Sting” after the Sarnia Sting of the OHL. Everyone loved the “bee” logo. We even had hats & tee-shirts made. So when we scrounged up a men’s I-League team & were trying to come up with a name, the guys liked my “Sting” logo on my hat & said “hey lets call ourselves the “Sting” like your grandsons team. I said fine, but to avoid any type of confusion between the 2 teams (especially for me), how about we modify it & call ourselves the “Stingers”. Everyone agreed and that’s how its been. Today, about 85% of our team that started with us back then, is still with us.

Killer: How did you guys settle on the Dallas Stars syle jerseys?

Dan: When we started, we went about a year without any style jersey. We then decided to get something & went with a black Pittsburgh Penguin style jersey with the “Sting” logo. It looked great, but was a little expensive. After a few personnel changes & a desire to go with something new, we ordered new (black) jerseys last summer & the white ones this past spring. We wanted to keep it simple & liked the way the Dallas Stars did their new ones. So we adopted their style with “Stingers” instead of “Dallas” on it. We got a hell of a deal on them as well. Lots of credit goes to David Mulvey for that!

There you have it folks, now you know a little more on the Stingers. Thanks to Dan Fenili for giving the Killer the full story.

Preview: Tomcast Senators vs Silver Bullets 5/30/09

In the closest matchup all weekend, the Senators and Silver Bullets will try to claw and scrape to avoid dropping into the basement of the league. Both teams are 1-2, and both teams this season have given up about twice as many as they have scored.

This all boils down to who wants it more. Senators seem to have a slightly more stable roster but the Silver Bullets always show up ready to play and ready to scrap.

My brain tells me Senators but my gut (which is bigger) tells me that the Silver Bullets are highly motivated and will assasinate the Senators with an overtime game winner. Killer disagrees with extreme prejudice.

Dickie Dunn's Pick: Silver Bullets 3, Tomcast Senators 2
Killer Carlson's Pick: Tomcast Senators 8, Silver Bullets 0
Uniform Czar's Pick: Coin-Toss came up Silver Bullets

Preview: Spider Monkeys vs Ice Gators 5/30/09

Sorry for this short preview but it's already Friday!

It's a matchup of the two most awesome goalie masks in all of Bronze League Hockey. At least these two teams have consistent goalies (by that I mean they seem to have started the same goalie for most of their games).

Ice Gators (2-1) have the offensive numbers and the Spider Monkeys (1-2) defense has been letting alot get through. High scoring day for the Ice Gators unless the Spider Monkeys figure our how to keep the shots out of Mike Best's imaginary hair.

Dickie Dunn's Pick: Ice Gators 7, Spider Monkeys 3
Killer Carlson's Pick: Ice Gators 11, Spider Monkeys 0
Uniform Czar's Pick: Ice Gators

Spotlight on 1310 The Ticket Part Four.......The Hardline

The final ticket spotlight falls on the Killer’s favorite show, the Hardline. The Hardline airs from 3-7 Monday through Friday afternoons. This show is anchored by one of the founders of the ticket, Mike Rheiner, and Corby “Snake” Davidson. The show is produced by Danny Balis, and Michael Gruber aka Grubes turns the knobs. This show is perhaps the most wheels off show on the radio in DFW. The Hardline use to feature Gregg Williams as Rheiner’s co-host, however not to long ago the two separated thanks to Williams irresponsible actions. You can read all about it here: http://www.dallasobserver.com/2007-11-22/news/hammered

The Hardline has been around since day one of the ticket back in 1994. Although the time slot has changed, one thing has remained the same, this is the most popular sports radio show in DFW history. Of all the shows on the ticket, the Hardline is probably the most multi talented. Every single person in the cast is also a musician, and Davidson has a bit part in a recent movie filmed in Dallas. Rheiner plays in the popular Tom Petty cover band called, Petty Theft. He plays the roll of Tom Petty in the band handling lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Mike has been involved in bands since he was a kid growing up in Oak Cliff. In fact, true story, Rheiner was in a band in Oak Cliff back in the I think early 80’s maybe late late 70’s. Anyway, his band was auditioning lead guitar players, and none other than Stevie Ray Vaughn came and auditioned for Mike’s band. Mike passed on him saying the kid had a bag of nothing. And of course Stevie went on to become rich and famous until his early death. Random sidenote, Stevie Ray Vaughn played with David Bowie (google stevie ray Vaughn david bowie dallas). Hardline producer Danny Balis has been playing in bands in the DFW area for a very long time as well. He played with the killers old pal Carter Albrecht (RIP) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Albrecht in popular Dallas acts such as the Sparrows and Sorta. Quick Bronze League Tie in here, Senators Owner Tom from Tomcast studios played drums in Sorta during their final two years, and Sortas last two records were recorded at Tomcast Studios. Balis also plays in a very popular country band called, the King Bucks. Grubes plays lead guitar in Pepper Theft, a local Red Hot Chili Pepper Tribute act. Together the four often take the stage as the hardline band with Rheiner on drums, Balis on Bass, Grubes on Guitar, Snake on Guitar and lead vocals. They will do Neil Young Covers, and just about anything else if you get them drunk enough.

One of the staples of the Hardline is their musical intros to segments and bits. Balis is usually the mastermind behind these bits of audio gold. On any given day you are likely to hear at least one crazy musical intro. The Hardline does have a deep roster of quality segments like Entertainment News For You, Community Quick Hits, What’s on Mike’s Mind, The Snakepit, Nude Music Tuesday, Fun with Audio, and The Concert Calendar.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAVvWmgFCyw
Keep on Rocking with the Hardline

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjtYvc5js0o
Basketball Practice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5gTZjuo0rc
Corby and Shaq

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SD6Fz7WGBM
Classic Mike

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgdNZvID12w
More Classic Mike

Preview: Mid-Air vs Indians 5/30/09

Two strong teams with strong personalities meet up. I've never seen these two teams head-to-head myself.

Indians Zone: pretty even matchup
Indians have allowed about 2.33 goals per game.
MidAir have scored 3 goals per.

MidAir Zone:
MidAir: The fly-boys have taken it in the shorts so far, allowing 6 on average.
Indians historically score plenty, but are only averaging 1.33 per game.

This might be mostly a neutral zone party with a low shot total. This could be our first overtime game of the season.

Dickie Dunn's Pick: Indians 3 Midair 2
Killer Carlson's Pick: Indians 2 Mid Air 1
Uniform Czar's Pick: Toss up. Leaning toward MidAir.

Preview: Jaguars vs Stingers 5/30/09

Dickie Dunn recuses himself from most meaningful discussion of the Stingers, so I'll let Killer sum it up:

Jaguars Stingers game is irrelevant due to the lack of roster for the jags (I think they have like 6 full time now). Jags will look to recruit the help of the hurricanes and arc angels but still cant beat the Stinger attack.

Dickie Dunn's Pick: Stingers 9, Jaguars 6
Killer Carlson's Pick: Stingers 7 Jaguars 5
Uniform Czar's Pick: Stingers

Preview: Hurricanes vs. Arc Angels 5/30/09

Arc Angels vs the Hurricanes - The veteran Arc Angels appear to have instability in goal. Bruno and Coach Ivey have appeared in net for the Double-A's. Neither of them is a full time goalie for the AAs. AAs' GAA = 3.33, which isn't bad considering that they have played some formidable opponents in the Senators, Indians, and Spider Monkeys. The Hurricanes are tied for first place in the league, despite this being their first season. One win vs the Jaguars is a gimmee, but the Silver Bullets and Mid-Air were no walks in the park. Goalie Instability also plagues the Canes, however they have had some experienced journeyman netminders play for them in Best and R.Kelley.

Dickie Dunn's Pick: Depends on goalies. I predict Arc Angels by 1 goal, 5-4
Killer Carlson's Pick: AA’s vs Canes the Killer says Canes 10 Angels 2
Beastie's Pick:
Uniform Czar's Pick: 'Canes

Bronze League Situational Awareness

Let's get our heads right with puck.

Week 4 is nearly upon us, this is the first week that it seems like it makes sense to do a detailed analysis of the teams in the league and this week's matchups.

A few thoughts as we look at the standings to date:

• The top of the standings look as we might have expected had we thought about it at the beginning of the season, with one glaring exception. Who are the Hurricanes and what do they think they're doing in first place? No seriously, can someone post in the comments and let us know a little bit about these guys?
• There have been ZERO overtime games so far this season. It's early in the season, but so far the winning teams have won by an average of over 2 goals per game.
• Jaguars can use a little help, it looks like, since they have forfeited every game so far this season. Does anyone know if they have enough players to field a team yet? (Something tells me there will be plenty of mercenaries looking to help them out vs the Stingers, even if the game doesn't turn out to technically count.)
• Despite the tumultuous manner in which we crammed in the first three games, I am really looking forward to getting back in the hockey rhythm. We shouldn't have any schedule interruptions until the 4th of July.

Throughout the week, we will be previewing each of the 5 games coming up this weekend.

Yesterday's Memorial Day Happenings at Nytex

Kuddos go out to Les Kelly of the Keller Indians, and Joanne Stanton of the Silver Bullets for organizing and running the first annual Armed Forces Classic at the Nytex Sports Centre. They worked very hard on this project, and as a result of their labor they helped raise over two thousand dollars to help out a young man from Saginaw who was injured while serving our country over in Iraq. So make sure and tell Les and Joanne good job next time you see them. The uniform Czar was also pleased as the two armed forces team looked fantastic in their red and blue jerseys. A crowd of 538 people cheered on our men and women of the armed forces who played in this great game.

Then the Bronze league took center stage:

The NHL has the winter classic, and now the Nytex Sports Centre has the Memorial Day Classic. The lone Bronze league game to take place over the weekend at Nytex was on Memorial Day between Mid Air Collision and the Senators. This was a make up game from last week when the rink was undergoing some ice maintenance issues. The only thing this game made was for an instant classic though.

Mid Air Collision who had pleased the uniform czar last season with their Philly Flier uniforms has now decided to roll with more of a multi uniform look. There were a couple uniforms out there with black and white stripes like an old timey jail would give prisoners, a jaguars yellow jersey was out there, a blue jersey, a couple random white jerseys, and only a few of the classic Mid Air Collision uniforms. Uniforms or not the MAC crew jumped out to the early lead in the first period (sorry Killer didn’t see who scored for MAC) beating Senator goalie Rush Rector breaking the scoreless tie.

The game turned out to be a goalie battle as Rector squared off against Garrod Tyler. Tyler was called down to the Bronze League despite being the leading netminder in the Silver League with 21 wins and 6 losses this season so far for the Ice Cracks.

The Senators knotted the contest back up at one when center Matt Davis took a feed from Mac Donovan in the second frame. The contest stayed tied at one until a well placed shot (Again Killer didn’t see who fired the shot) sailed right over Rectors shoulder and into the back of the net.

The Senators kept pushing, but ultimately could not break the wall in front of MAC’s net. A poorly timed unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Senators defenseman Chad Siewert all but ruined the Sens comeback chances leaving the Sens short handed for the duration of the game.

Tyler wins the Goalie Battle by stopping 27 of 28 shots. Rector was solid stopping 19 of 21 from MAC.

Box Score can be found here:
http://www.leaguelineup.com/gamesum_hockey.asp?url=nytex_i_league&sid=483939131&GameID=7801406