The Worcester Railers, wearing incredibly cool looking “New England Football Specialty jerseys”, took on the Brampton Beast Saturday night at the DCU Center looking to make a run at the fourth and final playoff sport in the ECHL’s North Division.
And they ended up playing one of the worst games in Worcester pro hockey history.
Reliving that game by describing the goals will likely cause this writer to seek professional help to erase the debacle from memory, but the seven goal loss is the worst in Railers history. It’s the worst loss by a Worcester pro team since the WorSharks lost 8-0 to the Binghamton Senators on March 15, 2004, and it’s the worst loss at home for a Worcester pro team since the IceCats lost to the Portland Pirates 8-0 on March 3, 1999.
There was one upside, and least on a personal note, as during the first intermission Booster Club President Rich Lundin, Nick Frank, and I met a man wearing a Brampton t-shirt who was a friend of Brampton defenseman Miles Gendron’s dad. They were at the game watching Gendron, who had just finished his four year stint at UCONN and was playing in his third ECHL game. They got to see Gendron earn his first pro point, assisting on Brampton’s third goal.
At least someone will have longing positive memories of the night.
The two teams go at it again Sunday afternoon, with a 3pm puck drop at the DCU Center.
GAME NOTES
Scratches for the Railers were are Evan Buitenhuis (14-day IR/lower body), Ivan Chukarov, Drew Callin, Tommy Kelley, Kyle McKenzie (14-day IR/season), Ross Olsson, Tommy Panico (14-day IR/season), and Alex Vanier (14-day IR/upper). Blake Wojtala began the night as the backup and entered the game at 12:17 of the second period.
Just a couple quick notes from previous postings…the Railers and the Railers Booster Club held their annual awards dinner Thursday night at the DCU Center. We’ve got the lost of winners plus a handful of “Player of the Month Awards” that were handed out. Saturday was the 16th anniversary of the greatest comeback in Worcester pro hockey history, and we have a few notes on that too.
With it being the first game of a new week we usually look at the voting for Railers Player of the Week over on the Railers fans Facebook group, only there was no voting last week. Yanick Turcotte was the winner by acclamation for his one-sided fight victories over Ryan Ferrill and Derek Pratt. Nominally Dylan Willick and Connor Doherty were the other two nominees, but they weren’t going to get a vote so there really was no need for a poll to be created.
On this day, March 31st, in Worcester hockey history: in 2007 the WorSharks got a Mike Iggulden hat trick and four assists from Mathieu Darche in a 7-3 win over the Aeros in Houston. Brennan Evans, Torrey Mitchell, and Craig Valette all had a goal and an assist while Graham Mink added a goal. Thomas Greiss had 25 saves in the win…in 2010 John McCarthy had a goal and two assists and Danny Groulx had three helpers in the WorSharks 5-3 win in Hartford. Dan DaSilva added a goal and an assist while Andrew Desjardins, Cory Quirk, and Kevin Henderson all had single strikes. Frank Doyle had 27 saves…in 2018 the Railers got goals from Dylan Willick, Matty Gaudreau, Barry Almeida, and Nick Saracino on a 4-1 win over Brampton. Almeida added two assists while Gaudreau had one. Mitch Gillam made 35 saves
The three stars of the game were
1. BRM – 5 Jackson Leef
2. BRM – 61 David Pacan
3. BRM – 57 Jake Paterson
There is no “210Sports Player of the Game”, so we’ll use the spot to give a huge shoutout to Railers President Mike Myers for designing the very cool Patriots…errr…”New England Football Specialty jerseys”. Myers has a hand in all the in-house designing of specialty jerseys, and knocks it out of the park each and every time.
Even Strength Lines
Almeida / Hitchcock / Barnes
Sorkin / Holmstrom / Gaudreau
Schmalz / Willick / Brauer
Turcotte
Cornell / Mueller
MacKinnon / Doherty
Powers / Quenneville
BOX SCORE
Brampton 2 3 2 – 7
Worcester 0 0 0 – 0
1st Period-1, Brampton, Leef 10 (Pacan, Leavens), 6:02. 2, Brampton, Pacan 27 (Leavens, McEneny), 10:37. Penalties-Gendron Brm (slashing), 11:14; Quenneville Wor (tripping), 15:48.
2nd Period-3, Brampton, Leef 11 (Golightly, Gendron), 3:31. 4, Brampton, Tianulin 18 (Leier, Beauchemin), 12:17. 5, Brampton, Ciampini 14 (Racine, Vallorani), 18:23 (PP). Penalties-Martenet Brm (hooking), 4:20; Martenet Brm (cross-checking), 13:37; McEneny Brm (roughing), 17:08; Turcotte Wor (unsportsmanlike conduct, double – roughing, game misconduct – fighting (continuing altercation)), 17:08.
3rd Period-6, Brampton, Leier 3 (Todd, Ciampini), 1:53 (PP). 7, Brampton, Folkes 1 (Tianulin, McEneny), 4:44. Penalties-Sorkin Wor (hooking), 1:07; Doherty Wor (kneeing), 1:53; Mueller Wor (delay of game), 2:01; Racine Brm (slashing), 7:56; Gendron Brm (high-sticking), 12:31.
Shots on Goal-Brampton 9-14-7-30. Worcester 9-10-11-30.
Power Play Opportunities-Brampton 2 / 6; Worcester 0 / 5.
Goalies-Brampton, Paterson 10-12-1-0 (30 shots-30 saves). Worcester, Gillam 19-15-2-3 (19 shots-15 saves); Wojtala 1-3-0-0 (11 shots-8 saves).
A-5,600
Referees-Brett Roeland (23).
Linesmen-Kyle Richetelle (73), William Kingdon (58).
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