Star Power

On February 8, 2012, amidst their twentieth anniversary season, the Providence Bruins received a hard-earned present in the form of All-Star hospitality privileges for the next winter. The selection quickly ended a one-year practice of hosting the AHL’s midseason showcase in a non-league market. The 2012 All-Star Classic took place in Atlantic City, New Jersey, which was briefly a home away from home for the Albany Devils, but had otherwise not hosted pro hockey since the ECHL’s Boardwalk Bullies left in 2005.

At the formal press conference to announce the event, Rhode Island Convention Center Authority chairman and CEO Jim Bennett noted that mayor Angel Taveras had arisen at four o’clock in the morning and made the trek to Atlantic City to personally pitch Providence as the next host to the league’s assembled owners. Within ten days of the 2012 event’s conclusion, the plans were in place for many stimulating returns.

Besides returning the event to one of the league’s full-time venues, this choice marked a return to the AHL All-Star Classic’s modern roots. In his portion of the press conference, league president Dave Andrews fondly reminisced on his first season, 1994-95. That year, the AHL revived its all-star game thirty-five years after West Springfield had hosted the previous one.

By the time Andrews was inaugurated, the AHL was the continent’s “Eastern” Triple-A hockey circuit. Comprised of sixteen teams throughout New England, the Mid-Atlantic and Atlantic Canada, it was in a heavyweight battle with the IHL for the distinction as the NHL’s go-to development circuit. Keen on boosting publicity, it would spring for a midwinter exhibition with one team comprised of the best players from U.S.-based franchises and one of those from the Canadian clubs.

“That event was designed to showcase our players, to rebuild our brand, to use a national TV presence in Canada and the U.S.,” Andrews told his 2012 audience. “Looking back on it, it did exactly that. We sold out the building here, we had national TV coverage on ESPN and TSN in Canada and the USA. First step for us in moving our league forward. Eighteen years later, we’ve had eighteen all-star games, but perhaps more important, we have thirty teams across North America, we have almost seven million fans attending games each year, we provide the National Hockey League with eighty-seventy percent of its players.

“Our league is a much different league than it was eighteen years ago, and our thanks go to Providence for helping us kick that off.”

That’s right. After the old AHL All-Star custom went to die in Springfield, the league’s other time-honored New England city, complete with a well-received reboot of its own franchise, answered the call to revive it. After conducting only seven such games in its first fifty-nine years of operation, it has held one in each of Andrews’ twenty-three years as president.

And it all started in Providence.

 *****

            In 1994, as Andrews was succeeding Jack Butterfield, the P-Bruins were coming off back-to-back years as runaway AHL attendance leaders. The top echelon of the hockey world was on its way to a self-inflicted PR gash, as second-year NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and the league owners would lock out their players for half a season.

Though that lockout would let up on January 11, 1995, six days before the scheduled exhibition at the Providence Civic Center, everything was still ripe for the AHL’s picking. The half-season for the NHL meant no All-Star Game for the top league, and only minor leaguers would be in top-notch midseason form by January.

            Accordingly, the AHL’s most searing hotplate was still sizzling with anticipation when the best of tomorrow’s NHL talent convened. While the parent league resolved its labor dispute, the P-Bruins continued to draw unmatched audiences to the Civic Center. They, along with other teams, drew puck-starved audiences who lived nowhere near an active arena to the TV via NESN or ESPN2. And they assured everybody of the well-timed substitute All-Star fix by sporting a star-shaped emblem with their city skyline (State House front and center) in the upper left corner of their jerseys.

            On Tuesday, January 17, 1995, three nights before the belated NHL season began, a capacity crowd of 11,909 joined the ESPN and TSN at the Providence Civic Center. Public-address announcer Jim Martin, who within a year would have the same duties at the next NHL All-Star Game up in Boston, stoked the building’s zest upon introducing the starting lineups.

On the U.S. side, all three P-Bruins players were seeing action at the opening draw. Rookie Scott Bailey scraped the blue paint as the home squad’s first-period goaltender. Player/assistant coach Tim Tookey shared the captaincy with fellow first-liner Jody Gage, and fellow Bruins striker Fred Knipscheer joined them at the center line for the opening draw.

For the hosting market’s audience, there was a sprinkling of notable contributions from the three then-current representatives, as well as displays from future home heroes.

Two eventual members of the P-Bruins family put each team on the board in the eighth minute of the first period. Dennis Bonvie, then a Cape Breton Oiler who would later spend 2001-02 in black and gold, drew first blood for Canada at the 7:08 mark, beating Bailey through the five-hole. The Americans retorted thirty-four seconds later when Albany River Rats blueliner Kevin Dean converted a pass from Tookey.

By the time the P-Bruins were hosting the midseason showcase again, Dean was holding Tookey’s old spot as Bruce Cassidy’s spot. Of the odd-man rush that led to his equalizer in 1995, he told the Providence Journal’s Mark Divver, “Great pass from Tim Tookey on a two-on-one. Don’t know what I was doing up there.”

            The rest of the way, Dean generally stayed in his standard position, doing his part with the American franchise goaltenders to keep the game competitive. Bailey, who repelled eleven opposing shots, blinked once more in his lone period of play, but went to the dressing room with a 2-2 draw at hand.

But another future P-Bruin, Jim Carey of the Portland Pirates, was shelled in the middle frame on four unanswered goals. Conversely, Dwayne Roloson of the Saint John Flames, who would later wage memorable playoff duels with the Bruins at both levels with Worcester and Tampa Bay, hushed the U.S. team with eleven saves on as many second-period shots.

Tookey’s second assist of the game let Martin Lapointe, an Adirondack Red Wing who would sign with the Boston Bruins in 2001, nudge the home team back to within three goals in the third. But after that and a tally by Hershey’s Yanick Dupre, Canada held on to cement an eventual 6-4 victory.

            Knipscheer, the other hometown representative on the night, placed third on his team’s chart with four shots on net. The U.S. was led in that category with seven by Jean-Yves Roy, a Binghamton Ranger who would go on to split his last two North American seasons between Providence and Boston in 1996-97 and 1997-98.

 *****

            The reassuring reception in Rhode Island prompted an AHL All-Star encore in the league’s longest-tenured city, Hershey. Andrews added the league’s first-ever skills competition for the eve of the game. The historic Hersheypark Arena sold 6,523 seats for the 1996 U.S.-Canada matchup, which the representatives of American franchises won, 6-5. Bear-turned-Bruin Mitch Lamoreux followed Tookey’s act in co-captaining the U.S. team with a fellow first-liner. He and Tim Sweeney, the other Providence ambassador, both bagged an assist in a five-goal first period.

            Over the next sixteen years, the event would set up shop in fifteen different cities around the continent. It would make two stops in Portland, Maine, and returned to Hershey at the new Giant Center in 2011. Three years after the AHL became the NHL’s sole Triple-A base, the game made its first stop to an ex-IHL city in Grand Rapids. Likewise, Winnipeg, Manitoba got a turn in 2006.

            At least one active P-Bruin represented his city and franchise of employment on the road for each of these extravaganzas. Even in the downtrodden 1997-98 season, Barry Richter was selected to PlanetUSA, for whom he won the distinction of fastest skater in the skills competition.

Not surprisingly, the Baby B’s got their broadest representation in 1999, when four players went to Philadelphia and split up in accordance with the Canada-PlanetUSA matchup. The Canadian-born Randy Robitaille and Andre Savage faced off with Landon Wilson and Jim Carey, both U.S. products joining their countrymen and European-born stars. Robitaille assisted on the icebreaker (the only goal of the opening frame), Carey stopped all seven shots he faced in the second and Wilson and Savage each chipped in a helper as the teams played to a 4-4 regulation tie. Robitaille and Wilson were among those tabbed for the five-round shootout, with PlanetUSA won, 2-1.

            The following year, no players represented Providence in the game, but the defending Calder Cup champion coaching tandem of Peter Laviolette (himself a 1997 World team All-Star) and Bill Armstrong directed PlanetUSA.

            In 2001, Eric Manlow charged up a playmaker hat trick, then capped a barnburner for Canada, scoring the tiebreaker en route to an 11-10 victory with 4:54 left in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton-hosted game. Fellow Bruin Cameron Mann, who won the fastest-skater challenge the preceding nigh, had converted his third assist for Canada’s tenth goal while Peter Ferraro struck once and added two helpers for PlanetUSA.

            Rookies Jonathan Girard and Andy Hilbert represented the Canadians and the rest of the world, respectively, in 2002. Girard became the second consecutive Providence player, and the third in five years, to win the fastest-skater event. He also fired the hardest shot at precisely ninety-nine miles per hour. It was one of few highlights in an all-too-short career that effectively ended after an injurious auto wreck in the summer of 2003.

Hilbert returned to the All-Star Classic in 2003 and 2005, collecting four goals and two assists over his three appearances. In addition, he followed Savage in 1999 and Ferraro in 2001 by winning the accuracy shooting contest, going a perfect four-for-four in the 2005 event.

The next night, Hilbert’s teammate-turned-opponent, Patrice Bergeron, assisted on two of Canada’s four unanswered first-period goals before PlanetUSA rallied to force a shootout. There, Hilbert’s third-inning goal secured his team’s victory before 9,916 fans in Manchester, New Hampshire. The Valentine’s Day extravaganza was a welcome diversion for the hockey world, as it came two days before the second NHL lockout of the Bettman era forced the major league to cancel its season outright.

            Hilbert and Bergeron were both permanent staples in The Show after order was restored, but the Providence pipeline kept contributing to the AHL’s midwinter display. In 2006, Eric Healey captained PlanetUSA, having a hand in two of his team’s goals, and was joined by goaltender Tim Thomas in what would be his final year of minor-league development.

            When the game returned to New England via Worcester in 2009, third-year P-Bruins forward Martins Karsums, the team’s top Latvian talent since the late Sergei Zholtok, co-led PlanetUSA with two goals and three assists in an 11-10 edging of Canada. (Less than six weeks later, Karsums was packaged to Tampa Bay as part of the deal that brought Mark Recchi to Boston.) Finland’s Mikko Lehoten scored twice for the same team the next year in Portland.

 *****

            After selling out Hershey’s Giant Center in 2011, the All-Star Classic took an unconventional route to Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall in what amounted to a virtual “neutral-site” All-Star Game. Occasional Albany Devils home dates aside, the city and venue did not have the same vibe for the league. But that that time, just as Buddy Cianci had wooed the Maine Mariners management for the franchise two decades prior, second-year Providence mayor went down to persuade the AHL owners to get the game back to a more conventional setting, and then some.

            Barely a week-plus after the New Jersey experiment, the AHL unveiled another All-Star event logo with imagery familiar to Ocean Staters. A silhouette of the anchor that adorns the Rhode Island state flag fronted the emblem, flanked by the league and sponsor Dunkin Donuts logos, along with the host city and state name.

            Compared to the advent of the P-Bruins, enthusiasm for hockey in and around Providence was anything but lethargic, let alone dead at that time. This announcement was, after all, coming amidst the 2011-12 season. That season had started with a visit from P-Bruins captain Trent Whitfield, Boston assistant general manager Don Sweeney and the Stanley Cup to the Rhode Island Convention Center. The parent club had begun its 2011 preseason and its title defense with a newfangled intrasquad scrimmage at The Dunk. Opening night for the Baby B’s clashed with the coaching debut of Nate Leaman at Providence College, yet both arenas were full and fervent.

            In terms of flaunting its flair to multiple markets at once, though, the city was in a bit of a lull. The Dunk had once been a regular in the rotation of hosting venues for NCAA postseason events, including a few championships. But no such games had come by since the 2004 Women’s Frozen Four. It was going on a decade since its last neutral-site men’s event, dating back the 2003 regionals.

            All of that was to change at once. One La Salle Square would pull in the best of the AHL for the skills competition and All-Star game on January 27 and 28, 2013. Two months later, it would bring in four of the sixteen programs vying for the NCAA men’s championship as the site of the East Regional.

 *****

            For all of the revolutionary changes Andrews referred to in his 2012 press address, among others, the 2013 AHL All-Star Classic and its buildup bore a few fascinating common threads with its 1995 predecessor. In both seasons, the NHL held out on its fans until mid-January as it carried on a labor soap opera. In both games, three players from the host P-Bruins were on the home roster. In both cases, those Bruins consisted of two forwards (Whitfield, Jamie Tardif and Niklas Svedberg following the footsteps of Tookey, Knipscheer and Bailey). As it happened, first-year Bruin and AHL living legend Chris Bourque had been selected. But the end of the NHL lockout and his call-up to Boston the week prior prevented him from participating.

            Besides the obvious changes to the facility and the makeup of the league, 2013 had other contrasts with 1995. By this time, all international factors had gone out the window, and the matchup was now between the Eastern and Western Conference. With the NHL and ESPN’s 2005 breakup, a host of regional sports networks had combined to pick up the telecasting slack.

In this respect, there was one bit of a throwback, as play-by-play voice Tom Caron and his employer, NESN, led the charge this year. It was the first time the man and the station had come this way on assignment since NESN had dropped AHL coverage in the early aughts. Now cable and satellite subscribers across the continent would see all of those elements for themselves, as would international Internet users.

            No later than the skills competition on Sunday, January 27, did the building and the event team up to boast their respective evolutions. A pack of traveling mascots from around the league staked their claims to various aisles in the seating bowl to rev up the rooters.

The presentation crew, most naturally, soon dominated that endeavor. The same hard-rock highlight montage that preceded every P-Bruins home game that year lit up the jumbotron in the otherwise darkened Dunk. A subsequent league-wide highlight reel set to Motley Crue’s “Kickstart My Heart” was the grand finale before public-address announcer Dave Zibelli introduced every player, coach and honorary captain.

            In the first of seven events, Whitfield, the latter-day Tookey, helped set the tone for more hometown pleasure. In the last leg of the four-round, four-point puck-control relay, he beat out Grand Rapids Griffins speedster Gustav Nyquist, twelve years his junior. Nyquist blew a tire as he approached the finish line, allowing Whitfield to give the Eastern Conference team a 3-1 lead through one event.

            With Svedberg sharing shifts with his two fellow goaltenders in the rapid-fire event, and stopping six of ten shots faced, the East had a 6-1 lead through three events. The difference was 7-2 when Tardif led off for his team in the fifth station, the accuracy shooting. But that was when the West started to mount a comeback that would inadvertently presage the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and their rally against the P-Bruins four months later.

            Tardif tied Milwaukee’s Victor Barley with six attempts to hit all four targets. Nino Niederreiter of Bridgeport needed two more than Matt Fraser of Texas in the second round of the event. That gap stayed intact through Whitfield’s closing turn, opposite ex-Bruin Martin St. Pierre. Whitfield could only narrow the difference to one, and per the winner-take-all policy, the West claimed both available points, whittling its deficit down to 7-4.

            The East still led by a pair going into the final event, thanks in part to Svedberg’s perfection on three shots faced in the pass-and-score. But he was less perfect when all eighteen skaters and all three goalies from each side were summoned for the breakaway relay.

With every goal earning every team a point toward the final aggregate, the West closed the gap to 11-10 by the time the last goalies and last sextets of skaters were left. Svedberg blocked his first four challengers, as did Charlotte’s Justin Peters. But Mark Arcobello and St. Pierre scored back-to-back to give the West its first lead of the night. At the other end, Whitfield was denied as the last Eastern shooter.

            Final score: West 12, East 11. But no one was about to pull a 2009 Tuukka Rask here. This was too much fun, and it was all epitomizing what Providence is capable of putting on for tourists.

 *****

            Hungry for more, many of the same ticketholders reconvened less than twenty-four hours later. Following a repeat of Sunday’s warmup, buildup and introductory procedures, they watched a somewhat higher-scoring-than-usual affair, but one with more competitive dignity than some recent AHL All-Star exhibitions and certainly more than virtually any NHL counterpart of this century.

Just like Bailey eighteen years prior, Svedberg had the hometown honors of playing the first period for his team. He was perfect through his first seven shots faced, including a sliding kick save on Gabriel Dumont. But on a counterattack initiated by Western goaltender Justin Peters, center Drew Shore fed Jason Zucker, who bolted in on a breakaway and spooned home a backhander for the 1-0 lead at the 7:39 mark.

            The tenth minute of play witnessed another Western onslaught, one that was rich with past, present and future P-Bruins. The aforementioned Texas Stars striker Fraser, who that summer would be packaged in the Dallas-Boston Tyler Seguin blockbuster, got his first look at Svedberg, who got his pad on the bid. Rockford’s St. Pierre, the leading playmaker and point-getter on the host franchise’s 2009 Eastern Conference finalist, fired the next shot off the pipe.

St. Pierre, who was participating in his fifth AHL All-Star Classic, had drawn exceptional cheers from the crowd during introductions. At least one spectator was spotted in his old No. 39 Spoked-P sweater, proof that the P-Bruins are people, and not just laundry, to their rooters.

Of his reception, he later told this author for Bleacher Report, “I was surprised when they announced my name in the introduction that some fans kind of cheered a little bit. We had a great run to the conference final my year (in Providence). I love this city and it’s a great organization and it’s fun to be recognized and know that even four years later the fans still cheer on for you, still follow you and track you.”

            The Eastern Conference dinged one of its own shots off the post at the other end before Chad Kolarik of the Hershey Bears buried a rebound for the 1-1 equalizer at 11:14. In another eighty-two seconds, Ryan Hamilton would waste no time trying to restore the Western lead. He swooped in on Svedberg from the far lane and stabbed at his own rebound, only to see Svedberg clutch it in his trapper while falling on his backside for the whistle. Svedberg summoned another whistle sixteen seconds later, but the visiting attackers finally broke him in the next minute of play.

            Ten seconds apart, Fraser converted on a partial breakaway and Brad Hunt unleashed a soapy wrist shot from the slot that eluded Svedberg’s left shoulder. The two sound system mainstays for early opposing goals — The Police’s “Roxanne” and Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” — cued up back-to-back in the wake of those floodgate openers. Two more minutes elapsed, and Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” acknowledged another Shore-Zucker play that raised the West’s upper hand to 4-1.

            Svedberg would stop the bleeding by stoning Zucker on the next attack, then denying Fraser when the future Bruins tried to convert St. Pierre’s pass after a neutral-ice takeaway. That brought the starter’s final tally to fourteen saves on eighteen shots, as he gave way to Springfield’s Curtis McElhinney as planned for the middle frame.

            Peters, Svedberg’s counterpart, had repelled twelve of his thirteen tests, including one by Whitfield and an Eastern Conference team-leading three by Tardif.

            No Providence associates figured into any significant second-period plays, but the East struck twice unanswered, whittling the deficit down to 4-3. Hamilton and Kolarik later traded tallies, sending the West back to the dressing rooms with a 5-4 edge.

            The two grizzled Bruins forwards set the tone for a compelling stretch run, though. Tardif picked up a perfect drop pass from Whitfield in the early going of the third period, but his attempt at a 5-5 equalizer met Grand Rapids Griffins goalie Petr Mrazek’s blocker.

Robin Lehner of the Binghamton Senators was equally stalwart in his crease until Hamilton tapped his second strike to the goalie’s left at 5:41. Tyler Toffoli of the Manchester Monarchs halved the deficit once more at 7:33, but Mrazek and Lehner were otherwise spotless until the final two-and-a-half minutes of regulation.

            The last home highlight of the night was as close as this game would come to duplicating the storybook conclusion to the 1996 NHL All-Star Game, when thirty-five-year-old Boston captain Ray Bourque finalized the East’s 5-4 victory in the last minute before his own fans at the FleetCenter.

This time, the Providence captain Whitfield, thirty-five years of age and in his final year of North American competition, absorbed Mark Barberio’s diagonal feed on the left side. With it, he cut in alone and thrust home the 6-6 equalizer, recharging the audience of 10,846 with only 2:30 to spare.

            Besides tying the score, Whitfield tied himself with his full-time teammate, Tardif, for the Eastern team lead with five shots on goal apiece.

            But that was as far as the picture-perfect Providence narrative would go. Before the newfound momentum could translate to the East’s first lead when it mattered most, Mrazek halted it by summoning a quick whistle with 2:19 to go. Nothing compelling happened at either end for the next two minutes, then Hamilton completed his hat trick by beating Lehner upstairs with 11.2 seconds remaining.

            For the second time in as many P-Bruins hosting gigs, the All-Star bragging rights went to the visiting constellation. It didn’t matter. Whitfield answered an immediate television interview audible to the appreciative crowd, the same base that had acknowledged his valiant return from injury with the 2011 Hendricks Fan Appreciation Award.

After missing all of November and December of this season, he would muster thirty-one more regular-season appearances, including fifteen at The Dunk. He would play in eleven of the team’s twelve games in its 2013 playoff run, then transfer to Austria for one more year before turning to coaching.

            The appreciation at the All-Star Classic was mutual, and it went well beyond Whitfield. In the wake of the horn, Eastern Conference honorary captain and then-Boston Bruins assistant general manager Don Sweeney answered his own exclusive interview with this author, who was covering the game for Bleacher Report.

            Of the electricity for Sunday night’s skills competition and Monday’s game, Sweeney said, “It just goes to show how passionate the fans in New England are and how supportive they are of the Providence Bruins and the Bruins organization in general. It’s a testament to how well this organization here in Providence is run.”

            A somewhat strangely timed statement, given that the Baby B’s were coming off an unprecedented three straight Calder Cup playoff no-shows. But despite the staying power of support through thick and thin, Sweeney expressed a craving to duplicate the zest the following spring. To create some of what the parent club had generated for itself in 2011 and make it a part of player development.

            On that matter, Sweeney told this author for B/R; “I think that we need to put that on the front burner this year to get the players a little higher expectation from a winning aspect. It’s so important for players to continue to develop and play in that atmosphere.

“In years past, we certainly have kept our eye on the development aspect of the organization and given the players a longer rope to make some mistakes. But I think now we’ve got a healthy competition internally to continue to push the grid forward, both from the development component and the winning component.

“This team, hopefully, will continue to move forward and secure a playoff position so these kids all get that experience.”

As it happened, the 2012-13 P-Bruins would secure home ice for the entire playoffs. While they would only use it for two rounds, they copied their 1994-95 forebears by following a postseason no-go and an All-Star hosting gig with a long-awaited playoff-series victory. Under head coach Bruce Cassidy and sidekick-turned-successor Kevin Dean, they have not missed that phase of the season in any subsequent year through 2017. And they have still never gone more than four years without at least one series triumph at any point in franchise history.

Perhaps, you could argue, motivation for a winning culture all starts here. And why not? The passage of eighteen years could only prove that Providence eats up top-notch AHL hockey when it is there for the viewing.

 *****

Since the Portland Pirates left for Springfield in 2016 and the St. John’s IceCaps for Laval, Quebec, in 2017, Providence is one of only three active AHL cities to have hosted multiple modern All-Star Classics. The others are Hershey and Syracuse.

Since 2013, the league has featured two more full-fledged games, but subsequently copied its parent league by having teams representing each of the four divisions face off in a series of mini-games. The Western Conference’s Central Division has prevailed each of the first two times in that experiment. It most recently edged the Atlantic Division, 1-0, in a shootout to secure its title defense. But that was not before the Baby B’s division won its first three mini-games on the night. And it was not before Providence goaltender Zane McIntyre outclassed his peers with a .923 save percentage.

As for that revival of bringing marquee events to Downcity, The Dunk, in conjunction with Brown University, has restored its place on the NCAA’s regional carousel. Two months after the 2013 AHL All-Star festival, the arena broke that decade-long hosting drought with the East Regional, which eventual national finalist Quinnipiac won. The regional returned in 2015, with Providence College prevailing en route to the title. Harvard claimed its 2017 Frozen Four ticket at Providence’s premier arena, and the place is due to host the East Regional again in 2019.

It may not be quite the same as the Frozen Four follow-up on the first modern AHL All-Star game in 1995. And it may be true that, at least on the men’s side, the national semifinals and championship have outgrown the venue once known as the Providence Civic Center, which hosted the men’s final for the last time in 2000.

But with ESPN’s family of networks leaving no moment of the tournament uncovered, the ice-rink rendering of The Dunk is assured national television exposure for at least one weekend every two years. Meanwhile, in-person locals get a glimpse of three or four out-of-state fan bases experiencing their proud capital city’s offerings.

However directly or indirectly, that restoration all started with the P-Bruins and their second go-round with their league’s midwinter classic. A throwback never felt so forward.