Category: Other

So, that was interesting. Last night saw the Toronto Marlies win in their first playoff game of the season (if you don’t know the details, click here for the post game). Now that it’s over though, I thought about some stuff. nothing on the ice, because I liked what I saw from the team. For now, my focus is on some off-ice stuff, based merely on what I saw last night.

To the crowd..

You were nothing short of fantastic last night. The announced attendance was 6244, and it was a number that while obviously not perfect, had way less no-shows than a 6000 game usually does. If I had to guess actual people in the stands, I wouldn’t be totally shocked with 5500. The important part though? You were loud. You went nuts with the “Lets Go Marlies” chants. You let Ben Scrivens knew you had his back. You really gave it to David Leggio as his armour started to crack, reminiscent to what the fans at the Air Canada Centre do to Ryan Miller when the Sabres roll into town. The flags that everybody got were a nice touch, and the fans were more than happy to wave them. Saturday brings rally towels to the mix, which should add another element to it all.

My suggestion to you? Keep showing up to these games. It doesn’t look like this is going to be a problem on Saturday, with the building already 95% sold out. But if you’re even remotely considering going to a game, just do it. The crowd is an entirely different experience from anything I’ve ever seen before in this building, and I mean that in the best possible way. You’re watching great hockey at a great price, and now the great atmosphere is here too.

To the media..

I have to admit, showing up yesterday, heading to my usual seat in the press box was kind of weird. Mostly because I saw a reserved sticker there. Sure enough, the media was here in full stride last night, to the point that a second press box was made outside, where I took my seat. It was different, but I was more than happy with the setup. I loved the fact that there was going to be plenty of coverage of this team for once. Sort of.

It turned out a lot of the crowd was part of the Rochester media, along with the team’s video crew. Really cool that they made the trip, but they obviously don’t add to the buzz here. Happy they’re here though. Quite a few of the Toronto types were here observing but (at least so far) haven’t put out anything. But that’s cool. Quietly observing, building up the ability to form an opinion is fantastic. It’s certainly a lot better than showing up to one game and thinking that you have it all figured it out. This is where I have a bit of a bone to pick, and my bone is with the Toronto Sun.

They sent two guys here, Lance Hornby and Steve Simmons. Lance was here to write his piece on the game itself, which was actually rather good. The only criticism I have of it is the assertion that games at the ACC would suddenly boost attendance – while I’m very delighted to see the crowds will beat my expectations, I don’t think that a building change is the difference between 8 and 18 thousand people, especially considering the fact the buildings are practically next to each other. His bit on Stuart Percy was also a good addition. Here’s my thing though – if you’re going to send two guys here, and have one of them write two articles… why is the placement so bad?

If I’m to open the Toronto Star today, the Marlies win is on the front page. Not just on it, but the lead story (with the actual article being on page 3, of course – but the massive photo is there). Bob Mitchell’s piece was closer to the first half of my post games, but it still gets the point across with the facts the readers want to read. The Sun? The Jays and the NHL playoffs on the sports cover. Cool. Pages 2 and 3, Jays. Fine. The Jays should probably get priority anyway. Page 7, and it shifts to the rest of the MLB. Alright, fine. Page 11, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Not the hockey team, the baseball team that exists at Christie Pits. Now we’re kind of reaching, but still passable. It’s baseball. Then comes TFC. Followed by a preview for a Toronto Rock 11PM away game. Getting crazy. NHL playoff time at page 14. All the way until 25. Get to page 26, and finally, you see, you know, the Toronto hockey team that won a playoff game last night. Well, at least they beat horse racing.

And don’t get me started on Simmons’ contributions. There was no article from him. What we got were tweets. The first tweet was taking a shot at the attendance, the second a criticism of Jake Gardiner, the third another attendance shot, the fourth a mention of Zigomanis’ goal, and lastly, the ever so expected 6th tweet where he calls a blogger a homer for liking Gardiner’s game last night. A few notes, Steve:

- Ricoh Coliseum seats 8000 people. Knowing this, its not hard to figure out how many are in the seats, and it was rather obvious that there was at least 5500 of the 6200 there. Not the 3500-4000 you were suggesting.

- Jake Gardiner wasn’t looking lazy, or bad enough that he wouldn’t have made the Leafs.  I understand you’re unfamiliar with the AHL, but skating ability is one of the biggest differences between this league and the NHL. Players take sloppier strides, and the entire pace is different. You’re shocked that a kid who already skates a near elite NHL level doesn’t have to take strong strides against minor leaguers? He was easily the best defenceman on the ice last night for either team. I’m sure he’ll know next time to skate way ahead of the play just to prove to you that he cares, or whatever you expect.

- For the record, I know you expected more than 6200 people here, but the first round of the playoffs isn’t exactly known for its seat filling abilities. The other games last night? 3682, 4618, 3158. And I bet the AHL is ecstatic with those numbers. 3000 is a good showing in the first round.

- And another thing, what ever happened to calling an arena by its actual name? Ricoh Coliseum, not Centre.

I actually brought that last point up to him last night. The answer was along the lines of “well, I don’t have to watch the AHL”. That’s fine. I get that yours, and a lot of the additional media have a focus outside of the league. But that’s when you keep your reporting to facts, or if you must be opinionated, stay observant until you have a decent perception. Dallas Eakins was pretty spot on when he asked Simmons if he was “jumping the bandwagon” before last night’s media scrum. It shows.

That said, any publicity is good publicity for this team, so good on the Sun for showing up. I just wish there was a better effort being put forward.

To the social media overlords..

I commend the push towards getting the Marlies out there on twitter, and getting conversation going. But #MarliesLive? The whole point of a hashtag is to have it become a trending topic, and become a hub for conversation. What was wrong with #Marlies? It’s descriptive, will catch people who just say the word Marlies, uses four less characters, and most importantly, was already used by people. The Marlies now have three of these tags (Marlies, MarliesLive, and LetsGoMarlies), and it would amaze me if anyone could keep up with all of them at once. Good effort, but it just creates confusion.

If you want something creative to try out during the playoffs? Do a search for check ins to Ricoh that get tweeted. Reward someone who does it with a prize. That would be fun.

Anyway..

That’s just a bunch of random stuff that’s been on my head. Probably the first “rant” I’ve done on here in quite a while. In short, thank you fans for showing up, and I hope to see more of you Saturday. Media, keep coming, but stick to the facts if you can’t form an opinion, and to those deciding the pages, go take advantage of this playoff team and move them up the ranks a bit. And scale back the hashtags. If we’re on a fourth one by the end of the series, so help me..

If I were to tell you right now that being in second place is probably the second worst place the Marlies could’ve been heading to the playoffs, you’d think I had gone crazy. Secondarily, you’d also be thinking “Oh, he means the pressure. First is even worse right?”. That’s not the point I’m here to make. The point I’m here to make is that I’m indeed worried about where the team is placed, not because of the expectation, but entirely due to who they’re facing. To put it bluntly – is no team in the Western Conference that worries me more than the Rochester Americans.

Why This Could Go Badly

You have to imagine that Marcus Foligno, who was more of a grinder in the season series against the Marlies (1G, 2A), has all the confidence in the world right now thanks to his stellar end of season call up to the Buffalo Sabres (6G 7A in 14 games), and will probably see significant ice time as a scoring forward. Though it’s almost certain that this is a hot streak for the 20 year old left winger, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he can keep it going over a playoff series.

This season series hasn’t exactly been mind blowing. Yes, in theory, the Marlies are 7-2-1 in this season series. That’s great, until you look at the scores. You see, the Marlies have outscored the Amerks by a whopping 4 goals in that season series. And this isn’t due to one of Rochester’s wins being a blowout, either. All ten of the games that they faced each other were one goal games. Don’t believe me, look it up. The scores were 5-4, 2-1, 3-2, 2-1, 2-1, 4-3, 2-1, 3-2, and 5-4. Three of these games went to overtime. That’s probably the least dominant 7-2-1 series ever, when you think about it.

David Leggio is one of those goalies that has the ability to completely shut down the Marlies when need be. Look to his 33/35 start on March 4th, 21/22 on March 3rd, 37/38 on January 28th, or 39/41 performance on January 13th, to see what I’m talking about. He has an off game or two, but never anything particularly bad, and even then, he finds a way to make big saves. If he catches fire, that’s a serious cause for alarm.

That final pair of games for the Marlies, while not panic-inducing, do mean that the team is coming in a bit flat footed. Rochester, on the other hand, shows up swinging, being 4-0-2 in their final six.

Why This Could Go Well

On the other side of higher impact players, Zack Kassian is now on the Vancouver Canucks. You could argue that Kassian was the most effective skater on the Americans roster against the Marlies.

The Marlies benefited much more from reinforcements than the Amerks. Foligno was already a regular on the team, and was merely returning. On the flip side, Frattin, Gardiner, and Rosehill are more supplemental additions to the team that Rochester can’t likely aren’t as familiar with.

Ben Scrivens has been pretty stellar as of late, and generally brings his A-game against Rochester. If he’s in any way consistent, and he usually is, there shouldn’t be much of an issue.

The biggest part about adding Gardiner and Frattin? There’s no way that they don’t make huge helps on the powerplay. Things certainly couldn’t get much worse, at least. Frattin adds a shot, Gardiner gives the team a powerplay capable defenceman who heated up towards the end of the year.

Nazem Kadri has a reputation for stepping things up come playoff time. Look at his time with the London Knights – in 112 games, Kadri had 171 points in the regular season. Impressive? Yes. More impressive? The 48 points in 26 games in the playoffs, which paces out to 206 points in 112. That’s a 120% clip of his regular season statistics. Assuming this stays the same, you can expect him to be a point per game, if not higher player in these playoffs.

The Difference Maker

I thin it goes without saying that this is going to be a goaltending battle. With teams this close, you have to think that if either Leggio or Scrivens falters, this series is as good as done for either team. Especially in a best of five, where the games are that much more important.

Conclusive Prediction

If you can’t make it to games 1 or 2, I’d start looking into game five. Yes, I see this series going the distance. And, without bias, I still see the Marlies winning the fifth and final game, and going on to a second round that may in fact be easier than the first. The game winner probably gets scored on the powerplay, confusing many.

The only place worse than 2nd for the Marlies would be 7th, with Rochester having the home ice advantage. That said, its good to get a series like out of the way right now. If they’re truly a championship caliber team, they need to be able to pull this off.

The Schedule

Game 1: Thursday April 19, 7PM (RogersTV/640) (TICKETS)
Game 2: Saturday April 21, 3PM (RogersTV/640) (TICKETS)
Game 3: Monday April 23, 7PM (640)
Game 4: Wednesday April 25, 7PM (640)
Game 5: Saturday April 28, 3PM (RogersTV/640)