Posts Tagged ‘Hudson Valley Bears’

I conducted this interview on Wednesday last week, just two days before I received word Cardinale was put on waivers by the Aces. However, the guy was so entertaining and honest that I decided to run it anyway. It’s not like the Hudson Valley site is chock full of player profiles anyway, so I figured this article could serve two purposes. One, to let Aces fans out there see what Cardinale was all about and second, to give the Hudson Valley fans a deeper look into one of the most popular players in the Aces short history.

When 11 skaters on your team have at least three shots on goal and every player but one has a point, there aren’t many other ways to describe it.

Offensive domination.

Scoring eight unanswered goals to start the game, the Aces ran all over the Bears and for the fourth game in a row, they hit the back of the net at least seven times. Like most of the season, the Aces offense came from a variety of sources, as Chris Holmes, C.J. Tozzo and James Brannigan netted two goals apiece, while Mike “shooter” Thomson, Kyle McCullough and B.J. Kuper had tallies of their own. McCullough also had two assists on the night, giving him 11 on the season for the league lead.

Like their last three games, the Aces defense and goaltending was extremely solid as well, with backup goaltender Miro Recicar making 24 saves for his third win of the season.

This should be a very interesting game to watch. Not only because the Aces barely squeaked out a 7-6 win when these two teams played each other last week, but because of the fact that both Dan Rohanna and Jerry Cardinale were added to the Bears roster yesterday.

After speaking to various members of the team and the Aces coach Chris Firriolo yesterday, I got a feeling those rosters moves were made for a variety of reasons:

1- On any other team in this league, Cardinale gets a regular shift, as to the Aces where he and new captain Chad Wilcox were only getting spot shifted.

2- The Aces team is stacked from top to bottom and a guy like Cardinale could really help the Bears round out their top two lines or be a extremely solid grinder on the third.

The newest team in the EPHL, the Hudson Valley Bears, concluded their player draft earlier in the week and three players from the Aces were lost in the process. Defensemen Joe Lyle and Gabe Yeung and goaltender Len DiCostanzo will all have some Uhauls to rent in the next few days on their ways to their new club. While Lyle and DiConstanzo have minimal professional hockey experience, so it’s impossible to know what they would have done this season in Brooklyn, it would have been nice to see the 6′5, 230 pound Yeung [who has skated for 13 teams over the past five seasons in 10 different leagues] in Brooklyn this season, especially with the gritty Dan Rohanna as his partner.

Nevertheless, in spite of those losses, you have to like the direction this team is going. With only three players announced thus far, the Aces have already addressed several key roles, which could play a pivotal role in their success this season.