On Friday night The Hershey Bears were torn apart by Bulldogs in an embarrassing 3-0 home loss in game one of the Calder Cup Finals. After putting on a convincing impression of “the big bad wolf” in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Bears got burned at the beginning of the big dance by reclusive nineteen year old named Carey.
Of course, the night’s events did not warp into a Stephen King novel. The Bears faced Carey Price, a hockey savant who grew up in the middle of so much ice that his father had to fly him to practice in order to reach the nearest youth hockey team. It’s rumored that he needs to get hit with pucks in order to survive. He may even look like sasquatch now, but no one we know has ever seen him without his goalie mask.
Still, the Hershey Bears are not a team to be troubled by children. They stayed at the top of the AHL all season, even before the infusion of talent that sent them Mike Green, Tomas Fleischmann, Alexandre Giroux, Jakub Klepis, Dave Steckel, Frederic Cassivi and 6’5″ defenseman Jeff Schultz from their farm team, the Washington Capitals. Then they traded benchwarmer/waterboy Jonas Johansson for leading playoff scorer Scott Barney. But the boys from Hershey don’t just depend on superior skill and beards. With mohawks on their side, the Bears came from behind to win game two at home. Game three tonight is in Hamilton, and the script for what comes next is clear: Exit Carey, pursued by a Bear.
