Tag Archives: Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins

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After watching the Connecticut Whale work through 65 minutes of scoreless, defensive hockey and then score three times out of four in the shoot-out for a 1-0 victory over the Wilkes-Barre-Scranton Penguins Sunday night, the only way to describe it, especially this early in the hockey season is to notice that this group of young men have “guts.”

In fact after watching the contest before 4,133 at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza what came to mind was the film “Airplane II” and the late great Lloyd Bridges character, Steve McCroskey. To paraphrase his line in the film, he says drunkenly, “Gentlemen, I don’t find it easy to talk at a time like this, but I got to say something about (Those guys out) there, and I can sum it all up in just one word: courage…dedication, daring, pride, pluck, spirit, grit, mettle, and G-U-T-S, *guts*. Why, (The Connecticut Whale bench’s) got more guts in (their collective) little finger(s) than most of us have in our large intestine, including the colon.”

All joking aside, it was that kind of a game. Chad Johnson made his first start of the 2011-2012 season with one of his best performances in quite a long time with a masterpiece from start-to-finish. Not only did he keep the puck out of the Whale net, he was dominant in stopping three-of-five Penguin shooters which allowed his teammates the ability to focus on their jobs and they came through with three of four scoring goals in the skills competition giving the Rangers’ top affiliate got their first win of the season. Continue reading →