Bulldogs pay for their mistakes
Apr 29, 2005 18:25:39 GMT -5
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Apr 29, 2005 18:25:39 GMT -5
Bulldogs pay for their mistakes
By DAVID DICENZO
HAMILTON (CP) - The recurring theme in the Hamilton Bulldogs' 2004-05 AHL campaign was opportunity. During the regular season, the youth-laden Montreal Canadiens' affiliate seized it to manufacture a great finish and snatch a playoff berth away from the Edmonton Road Runners.
Yet in the post-season, when the stakes increased against the AHL's top dog Rochester Americans, the Bulldogs couldn't raise their game and blew leads in four straight losses.
So despite a valiant effort on the whole, Hamilton's players will enter the long summer fixated mostly on what could have been.
"It's one of those things that you make one good accomplishment but you fail at another one," Hamilton captain Jason Ward said following his team's painful post-season exit at home Tuesday night. "It was a major accomplishment making the playoffs but it was real disappointing the way we finished. This team had a lot more in it.
"We were so close but we found a way not to win games. You can't go on in the playoffs when you're doing that."
Through the four-game series, the Bulldogs played excellent hockey for the most part, executing their trapping defensive system to great effect and taking the game to goaltender Ryan Miller and his Rochester teammates. But short lapses proved costly. And against the league's best team, the errors were magnified. Hamilton lost three of the four games by a single goal.
- slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/AHL/2005/04/27/1015658-cp.html
By DAVID DICENZO
HAMILTON (CP) - The recurring theme in the Hamilton Bulldogs' 2004-05 AHL campaign was opportunity. During the regular season, the youth-laden Montreal Canadiens' affiliate seized it to manufacture a great finish and snatch a playoff berth away from the Edmonton Road Runners.
Yet in the post-season, when the stakes increased against the AHL's top dog Rochester Americans, the Bulldogs couldn't raise their game and blew leads in four straight losses.
So despite a valiant effort on the whole, Hamilton's players will enter the long summer fixated mostly on what could have been.
"It's one of those things that you make one good accomplishment but you fail at another one," Hamilton captain Jason Ward said following his team's painful post-season exit at home Tuesday night. "It was a major accomplishment making the playoffs but it was real disappointing the way we finished. This team had a lot more in it.
"We were so close but we found a way not to win games. You can't go on in the playoffs when you're doing that."
Through the four-game series, the Bulldogs played excellent hockey for the most part, executing their trapping defensive system to great effect and taking the game to goaltender Ryan Miller and his Rochester teammates. But short lapses proved costly. And against the league's best team, the errors were magnified. Hamilton lost three of the four games by a single goal.
- slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/AHL/2005/04/27/1015658-cp.html
