#bellcentre

Junun opening for Radiohead with Jonny Greenwood on Bass. Huge sound. #radiohead #junun #montreal #livemusic #bellcentre #jonnygreenwood #MTL #bellcenter (at Centre Bell)

Country girl at heart but boy do I love the views I get in city 👀• • • • • • #Bellcentre #downtownmontreal (at Bell Center)

Little morning hockey game at the @canadiensmtl home #BellCentre Thanks for the invite, @evenko ! Can't wait for our show here on March 15th! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 Petite partie de hockey ce matin au #centrebell ! Merci pour l'invitation @evenko et @canadiensmtl ! Bien hâte à notre show ici le 15 mars! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings HARTFORD, CT - The NHL playoffs have completed their round-robin and play-in round and are now well into the "first round" of the playoffs. News is coming with increased speed and levels of import. In Gatineau, Quebec, an interesting development that will have a major effect on the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) Olympiques team. The governing agency assembled during the pandemic has announced that their home arena, the Robert Guertin Arena, will be maintained as an emergency COVID-19 shelter for another year which will keep the Olympiques out of the building. Known by the French acronym CISSSO, the announcement by that authority came as a shock to the QMJHL team. The authority has scheduled the vacating of the arena this week to accommodate the Olympiques pre-season preparations. But in a terse release last Friday morning, the agency said the Guertin Arena was “essential to protect (vulnerable) populations … and to provide them with long-term stability,” in a story in the Ottawa Sun. There are 14 other structures that were under consideration along with the arena to serve as an emergency shelter. There are initial ongoing discussions between the city, the team and governing health agency seeking an amicable solution. The city, which owns the arena, supported the decision and “will work with its partners to identify solutions for activities that have normally been held at the Robert-Guertin arena,” CISSSO said. Read the full article

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings CROMWELL, CT - The trade deadline has come and gone. The roster of the Hartford Wolf Pack is intact and now the next goal for the New York Rangers' AHL affiliates is making the Calder Cup playoffs. “We have 21 games left before the playoffs. 12 of them are on the road. We still have our work cut out for us,” remarked Pack Head Coach, Kris Knoblauch. The lineup he has, with few exceptions, will be the one the team will have when they head into the playoffs for the first time in five years. “This is our group. We have had a few changes, but will have some more, maybe later on, but this group will have,”  Knoblauch said stoically. “Our goal is always to have Hartford Wolf Pack players play for the Rangers whether it was Phil (Di Giuseppe), Lindy (Ryan Lindgren), Igor (Shesterkin) or (Filip) Chytil that’s our job here. Make the best environment for them to play in. One of the reasons (for the development success) is the veterans brought in here such as Danny O’Regan, Phil Di Guiseppe, Mason (Geersten), and Vincent LoVerde. Can’t say enough how well he has played. They all have made their mark with this team." Knoblauch loves to talk about O’Regan. “He’s not a loud guy, but a quiet, effective leader. He works very well with a player like Patrick Newell. On the ice or just hanging out together. He’s a natural person to gravitate toward. There is an extra step when he is paired with Danny.” The Pack begins a second three-games-in-three-days with two on the road. They visit Binghamton to play the Devils on Friday, then travel to Bridgeport on Saturday against the Sound Tigers, and then Sunday afternoon they'll have a crucial meeting with the Providence Bruins at 3 PM at the XL Center. From the good news department comes word that centerman, Boo Nieves, is close to returning to the lineup. He was in practice for a third straight day sporting a green jersey, not the non-contact yellow he'd been wearing lately. “Right now, he is day-to-day, (but) questionable for the weekend. He looks fantastic. Our best player the last three practices. We're very eager to get him back. However, it has to remain day-to-day until he gets (medical) clearance.” For team captain, Steven Fogarty, he can jokingly celebrate that he was not traded at the deadline. Fogarty staying breaks the "Captain Trade Jinx" which saw the team's captain being traded the last five consecutive years. “I wasn’t too worried about it,” Fogarty said with a laugh. Now, with all the distractions behind them, for the team, the march to the postseason is everything. “We put ourselves in a good spot. We like who we have, so it’s a matter of doing what we have been doing and clean up the things we need to.” The strong finish on Sunday in the solid effort in the 4-1 win over Bridgeport is what they want to carry into the start of the weekend in Binghamton. “Two points is all we got out of it last week. We didn’t play well Friday. We did well, but not enough on Saturday. We want to help ourselves down the road. We're still in a battle.“ Fogarty has been just as effective in getting offense while the team is shorthanded as he has been while playing five-on-five. There is an art form to playing shorthanded. He has a very quick stick, but a player needs to know when to be careful and when to use it. “You gotta know when the right time to jump on it to make the play is. I got a long stick and it helps sometimes. You can get too deep trying to fish one on a play and use your body more sometimes. So, we’ve got important meaningful games in the last ten. It's something we haven’t had in the last few years looking forward to it.” His linemates have changed throughout the year, which happens, but nothing tends to change, “You start to hunker down a bit, get all four lines going. That’s gonna be important to us.” Playing for something after several miserable years is certainly something Fogarty relishes. “The last few years certainly didn’t end the way anyone wanted. Playing for something this year is something we've worked for all year." The chase for the Calder Cup is fully under way and picks up in earnest this weekend. NOTES: On the Rangers "paper" assignments of Julien Gauthier and Brett Howden for the postseason, Knoblauch steered clear of that one. “That’s way off in the future. I don’t have control of those decisions. Till the playoffs are here, and those players are sent here, I can’t really think that far ahead. We'll have some bodies here and we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.” No decision has been made, publicly anyway, on the weekend's goaltending rotation between Adam Huska and J.F. Berube. Congrats to Fogarty who's heading to the Hall of Fame….the BC (British Columbia) Hall of Fame. The 2011-12 BCHL Penticton Vees team is among inductees. The team went 54-4-2 and won the BCHL Fred Page Cup, the regional Junior A Doyle Cup, and the national Junior A RBC Cup. “That was a special team. I haven’t been back there since. Several of us will be going with the ceremony in the summer. I'm very much looking forward to it. That was a special year and I'm very honored that our team was selected.” With 81 points, Fogarty was the sixth-leading scorer on the team. His teammates included current Sound Tiger, and former Quinnipiac University Bobcat, Travis St. Denis. The other player of local note was one of St. Denis’s collegiate teammates at QU, goalie Michael Garteig, who's now playing in Finland. “It's been something playing him (St. Denis) the last four years,” Fogarty said. Fogarty explained how he wound up in Penticton, BC, saying, “I knew a couple of guys I played with who were going up there to play. Why would anyone go there to play? Usually, kids from Minnesota. You're off to the USHL and then college. The USHL draft didn’t go as planned. Notre Dame wanted me to go there, get a little seasoning. It looked like a good opportunity. So, I went for a visit and fell in love with the place. Penticton is one of the most beautiful spots in Canada, just gorgeous. It was first-class. They treated us very well. Fans were out every night, cheering us and made it great every night. It was one of the best years of my life. We won 42 games in a row. We had everyone following us around like TSN. It was a wild, fun time.” They almost lost everything. “We lost our first two games in the RBC Cup (National Junior A Championships) and we're down in the third. We're almost eliminated. We tied it and won in overtime. We won the rest of the games. It wasn’t so easy. It wasn’t what looks it on paper, but we had our moments.” Interestingly, current Wolf Pack, Ryan Gropp, played his first two Junior A games that same year with Penticton where he notched a goal. The BCHL announced it's reducing its schedule starting next season from 58 to 54 games, plus they're starting later in September. The league will go now to two nine-team conferences based on BC geography for teams on the mainland and Inland locations. In Montreal, not only was Pack radio voice, Bob Crawford, in the Bell Centre. For the second time, Lindgren got to be on the same ice with his brother Charles, but this time in the NHL. The two met earlier in the season in Hartford with both brothers still playing in the American League. Charles was in goal for the Laval Rocket. The two brothers got their pictures taken at center ice before the game. Gauthier, a Montreal native from the east end of the city in Pointe-aux-Trembles, had plenty of family and friends in attendance. He was interviewed by his uncle Denis Gauthier, a former NHL defenseman, who is now an analyst on RDS (the French language sports station). It was also the 30th anniversary of the last NHL hat trick by Canadiens' legend, Guy Lafluer. The "Hattie" wasn't tallied for the Habs. It came while Lafleur played with the Rangers against the LA Kings. A few more names have been added to the Wolf Pack Calder Cup championship reunion that will take place on Friday, April 10th. Daniel Goneau and Jason Dawe will also be on the ice. Read the full article

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings BRIDGEPORT, CT - Tim Gettinger scored a stupendous shorthanded goal and had an assist to pace the Hartford Wolf Pack to a solid 4-1 road win to break a modest two-game losing streak over the Bridgeport Sound Tigers before 5,427 at the Webster Bank Arena. “We did a very good job today because it's much easier to play when we have all four lines going as we did today,” remarked Wolf Pack head coach, Kris Knoblauch. Nick Jones also contributed a goal and an assist while Darren Raddysh had two assists and ended the three-in-three weekend on a positive note with three periods of solid play. The Wolf Pack record improves to 30-14-6-5 (71 points) and they are in second place in the Atlantic Division, just one point behind the idle Hershey Bears who hold a game in hand. The winner of the Providence Bruins and Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins are three points behind the Wolf Pack. Bridgeport's record slips to 19-30-5-2 (45 points) are in last place in the Atlantic Division and 30th overall in the AHL. In the third period, the Wolf Pack extended their lead to two goals. With team captain, Steven Fogarty in the penalty box, Nick Jones took his place on the PK and hit Gettinger with a lead pass. The rest was all Gettinger. He motored up the right-wing side past Josh Ho-Sang who was trying to defend him. Gettinger blew by him, pulled the puck in around Sound Tiger goalie, Jared Coreau, and did a backhand-to-forehand in mid-air a la Bobby Orr, and tucked his 13th of the season into the net at 6:16 and gave the Pack a 3-1 lead. “Jonesy hit me right in the middle (of the ice) and I was able to drive to the net on the backhand. That was a big goal to keep us moving forward,” Gettinger said with humility and modesty. Upon further prodding, he would let a smile sneak across his face. “When we see a forward playing D like that, we try to take advantage of it. I was able to lower my shoulder and got a good head of steam going to the net…the rest was a blur, to be honest.” Reunited with his original linemate from the beginning of the season, Jones, who was shaking his head, and marveled at the play. “He was able to drive so fast, it was amazing he made a move going that fast. Just a hell of a play." Gettinger was very happy with the team win. “We weren’t very happy how the first two games this weekend went. Friday we weren’t at our best. Last night we did a lot of good things, but it wasn’t enough. Tonight, we put it all together. We came out and wanted the two points and we picked up the win.” As the architect of the team, Knoblauch got the desired results. “They really seem to like one another and putting the line back together, we got exactly what we wanted out of it.” The Wolf Pack got another specialty team goal. Nick Ebert took Matt Beleskey’s pass and waited at the right point patiently as Fogarty moved in to screen Coreau along with defenseman Grant Hutton. Ebert whistled a wrist off the cross bar and in for his fifth goal and the second Pack powerplay tally of the afternoon. “Really good play all-around. You get a better chance when you take away a goalie’s eyes,” commented Knoblauch. The Wolf Pack jumped out to a 2-1 lead with all five players getting touches of the puck. The whole series started on a smart dish off by Patrick Newell as Darren Raddysh saw an opening along the right-wing boards. He took the pass and filled in the gap, motored to the net, and put the puck to the net. Gettinger got the first crack at it. Jones, as semi-trailer from behind the goal line, reached out on the loose puck and put it in out in during the mad scramble. It was his eighth of the season to match his jersey number at 5:29. “It was a nice play all-around to get to that point. I just saw the loose puck. Everyone was hacking and whacking at the puck. I got the last one,” Jones said with a laugh of his first AHL game-winning goal. The Sound Tigers, with the 30th worst powerplay which has awoken over the last two games, connected on their first chance of the game. Sebastian Aho was at the right point and spotted Ho-Sang wide open at the Wolf Pack goal line. The shot was deflected on a tip try by Nick Schilkey. Ho-Sang got the puck and darted around the net. Ho-Sang completed the wraparound attempt for his third goal at 13:10. The Wolf Pack answered back with a powerplay goal of their own. It will be in contention for the Wolf Pack goal of the year before Gettinger's goal. After the Sound Tigers' Jeff Kubiak blew out a tire on a rush attempt, Raddysh picked up the puck and put a short pass to Vitali Kravtsov at center ice. Kravtsov weaved thru the middle of the ice and as he crossed the Sound Tigers blue line and put short pass in Vinni Lettieri’s wheelhouse. Lettieri let loose a vintage one-timer on a 40-foot shot that went to the short-side, on Coreau's stick-side who seemed shocked at both the power and speed of the shot for his team-leading 24th of the season at 15:08. “It was a great shot off of two nice plays, and we have to have the powerplay working. You can’t rely solely on five-on-five scoring all the time. We could have had some more points this weekend if we capitalized on them (powerplays), even possibly a win on Saturday,” said Knoblauch. Newly acquired goalie Jean-Francois Berube, in his second start for the Wolf Pack, kept things steady in the first period especially on an early breakaway by the Islanders 2019 first-round pick Simon Holmstrom with a clear shot, but a rolling puck Berube calmly stopped it. He then took away a short-side attempt from Oliver Wahlstrom off a blast from the left-wing faceoff circle that made the difference for the Wolf Pack and two of the toughest of his 18 saves for the game. “That save was crucial because if they score on that breakaway might be a whole different game for us. He’s veteran has Calder Cup experience. We're glad to have him,“ remarked Jones of Berube’s first win as a member of Hartford. The head coach thought the early part of he game set up the rest of the game. “It really could have gone haywire early had they got the goal on a broken play really and JF was right here for that breakaway early on LINES: Fogarty-Kravtsov-Beleskey Jones-Newell-Gettinger O’Regan-Lettieri-Gropp McBride-Dmowski-Ronning Hajek-Raddysh Ebert-Geersten Crawley-LoVerde SCRATCHES: Boo Nieves - Upper-Body - Out Indefinitely Yegor Rykov - Healthy - Seventh time in the last nine games. Jake Elmer - Healthy Gabriel Fontaine - Shoulder Surgery - Season Over NOTES: The Sound Tigers have now lost four in a row (0-3-0-1). On the powerplay the Wolf Pack are 28th at 12.8% the Sound Tigers 30th at 11.3%. On the PK the Wolf Pack is 5th best if the AHL at 85.3% and the Sound Tigers at 10th at 83.6%. Two good things in yesterday’s Rangers 3-2 win over San Jose. First, the Rangers won extended their recent record to 7-1 all with Igor Shesterkin in goal. The other is they are four points out of the playoff race for the second wild-card spot. The bad thing, Phil DiGuiseppe played his tenth game which now requires the Rangers to pace him on waivers if they want to send him to Hartford. So, he will be in New York for the rest of the season. Ex-Pack Shawn St.-Amant has signed a PTO with Chicago. Ex-Pack defenseman Hubert Labrie was released from his deal by Belleville and assigned to parent Ottawa. Two ex-Sound Tigers are on the move the brothers Holmstrom. Ben goes from Norfolk (ECHL) to Cincinnati (ECHL) and Josh exits Norfolk for Wheeling (ECHL). They’re not related to the current Sound Tiger Simon Holmstrom as he is from Sweden, they’re from Colorado Springs, CO. Not only players or coaches get recalls, but so do team’s staff. The only voice of the Wolf Pack, Bob Crawford, gets his second recall to do a Rangers game. The first one was at MSG this one will be on the road at the Bell Centre in Montreal on Thursday. The regular Rangers radio voice, Kenny Albert has a broadcast conflict and Crawford will have Rangers great from the 1970 and 1980’s Pete Stemkowski alongside to provide color commentary. While the English language Canadiens broadcast on TSN 690 can be heard here at night you can go to the Rangers website and click on the audio section to catch the broadcast. The game is being bumped off ESPN radio 98.7 to 1050 AM which is not a very strong signaled station the Rangers radio home because of a scheduling conflict. Montreal will put out the Bienvenue sign for Crawford. Read the full article