Peoria Rivermen Win Opener

By Childhood TraumaÂ

I took in the home opener in Peoria as the Blues had the poor taste to, once again, start the season well out of driving range.

The arena was what I'd consider frighteningly empty for a home opener. The announced crowd was in the 6k range. The people who were there were friendly and polite. I was greeted and glad handed by several members of the staff which had me convinced someone told them Brad Lee was coming and they had me confused with someone they knew or someone with clout on our paper. It was also strange to see ushers doing things like ushering, last few times I've been at Savvis, the Blues decided to raise money by lowering staff.

I, of course, expected to see Marek start.Â

He did not. I got a few shots off of the starter, but I'd still rather see Marek warm up than Cash play. Not that Cash played poorly. He looked pretty good and took a large lead into the third before giving up a few. Not sure he grabbed every shot he should have but his rebounds became non-threatening in the AHL game.

Also saw the usual Blues suspects...

I was completely shocked to learn the greatest moment in Wisconsin hockey was the fact that the local baseball team lost the World Series to a punch and judy club. Why else would the Admirals sport a Brewers logo form the early 80's? Let's count it off. 82--92--02 - that is twenty. 03-04-05-06-07 that is five. Yep. Twenty-fifth anniversary of the '82 series. Makes me wonder if in 25 more years the Admirals will don the current Brewers logo and add the ".500" to it.

As for the non-Blues I wanted to see, I really thought Statsny and Kariya looked good. Yan was a force in all zones and played a physical game, he took one bad penalty and one good one, assisted on the first goal, and had me wondering why he isn't sitting on the bench pretending he is an NHL'er instead of Perron. Kariya was fast, but when he had control of the puck in traffic (especially along the boards) he seemed to have trouble getting himself or the puck into an advantageous shooting position. Not that the Admirals were able to strip the puck away from the ever twirling Martin Kariya, but just by being in the area they created traffic Kariya couldn't penetrate. When open, as Martin was on a two-on-one break during a power-play, he showed he was capable of finding the net.

Jeff Woywitka scored the game's first goal by pinching in from the point and getting enough of a bouncing puck to beat the goalie on the game's first shift.

Yes there was even a fight.

They even timed the fight to start with the end of my roll of film. How fast can I change film? I got the take-down captured and when I get that roll developed (think next year) I might stick it somewhere. Sorry to say the good guy was on the bottom of a Alex Henry avalanche.

Cash earned the third star, and despite strong (and point producing) play by some names somewhat notable in St. Louis, the best player turned out to be Chris Porter who hit everything and set up several scoring chances.