Another night, another home win

The Fort Wayne Komets look and feel almost infallible at home these days. A 4-2 victory over the Bloomington PrairieThunder on Friday night was the Komets' 16th straight victory at Memorial Coliseum, two shy of the franchise record set in 1963-64 and six short of the league record set in 1965-66 by the Muskegon Mohawks.

Yeah, it was a two-goal margin in this one, but it wasn't even that close. Both of the PrairieThunder's goals came off deflections, when the Komets let down their guard for a 23-second span. Other than that, the Komets dominated from end-to-end, start to finish.

Brent Henley was out, serving the first game of his five-game suspension for high-sticking Tyler Willis. No problem. The Komets were still plenty physical with three fights, including a Mitch Woods vs. Neil Clark bout after the final buzzer because Clark slashed P.C. Drouin.

The Komets had to play one man short of a 19-player lineup, as part of the Henley suspension. No problem. The Komets still didn't look to have a weak link, or a fatigued one, on the ice. Their power play was 2 for 7.

About the only bad news is that Luciano Aquino, the Komets' leading scorer, who had a goal, could face a suspension. He was booted from the game for attempting to injure a Bloomington player with a high-stick. I doubt he'll get further punishment -- I heard there isn't a good replay of it -- but it could happen.

Fort Wayne plays at Bloomington, Ill., on Saturday.

• The Komets played without Konstantin Shafranov, who has foot and wrist injuries. Also, Brandon Warner remained out with a knee injury.
• PrairieThunder owner Tony Lisman is attempting to transfer ownership of his franchise to Bloomington-based owners, The Pantagraph reported. I've heard that that even if that happens, the PrairieThunder will remain in the IHL. Lisman also owns the Muskegon Fury.
• The IHL's trade deadline passed Friday afternoon with no deals around the league. Shocker.

-- By Justin A. Cohn, The Journal Gazette

Comments

[gman]

So why did 13 on the Thunder get tossed anyway?

[Mark]

gman-

He came off the bench to enter an altercation..automatic game misconduct

[Jungle Monkey]

Woods OWNES Clark.

[Ryne Gurney]

What did Aquino do? I couldn't make it to the game tonight.

[FWKRTJ]

Aquino skated pretty swiftly into a PT player who was getting ready to hop on the bench and clocked him with a cross check to the head. It was premiditated as the player was no where near Aquino seconds before it happened. He's suspended until the league reviews the play (automatic with a match penalty) which means he will miss the remainder of the weekend if they don't review until Monday.

Very dirty play by Aquino if you ask me! I'd say he sits the rest of the weekend regardless.

[Ryne Gurney]

Hmm, Aquino is normally smarter than that. He seems to have a bit of a hot head at times, he needs to get that under control because he is one hell of a player.

[kometfan]

were you watchin the game FWKRTJ?? if you were you would have seen when the lil scuffle between woods and clark happened which drew two minor penalties....holmberg was slashing aquino and trying to get him to fight....all the players stayed on the ice...and no longer than 20 seconds after the puck was dropped aquino was against the boards...and i dont think he had the puck..holmberg came out of no where and hit him sending aquino to the ice....when no penalty was called aquino went right after him.....holmberg had it coming..searle let that happen...and how about those roughing calls woods and bertram got for letting cornish and clark beat the crap out of them....myself i believe cornish should have definately got a 5 minute major for fighting since he threw about 10 punches! otherwise..i think legault played well tonight and skated a lot better than normal!! hopefully he continues to get more playing time!

[Tom]

Aquino was basically defending himself because only a few seconds earlier he was cross checked pretty hard and he hit the deck about 15 feet from the Bloomington bench and of course Mr. Searl didn't see it and that is what led to him going back at him. Everyone in section 203 where I sit saw it. It is a shame since the ref didn't protect him he thought he had to do it himself. Also Bloomington was sticking him/slashing him all night trying to provoke him into the box and I thought he did a pretty good job of staying away from it until that point. This is nothing like Henleys incident and Aquinos "intent to injure" was immediately after the cross check he received. Also if anyone has room and are going to Bloomington tomorrow I would love to hitch a ride with you...or if anyone would like to go I would be willing to drive. I have never been there and would love to go to their arena...especially after tonights' game. Also it is Parson's Bobblehead night and it would be awesome to make fun of him next year with it....and they have stretch boy for entertainment. [email protected] is my email shoot me a line and I will get back to you at 1 or earlier if I hear from you then. GOD I hope some people want to go...I am excited about the game...I might go myself...just would rather not drive that far since I haven't been there before myself.

[kometfan]

Wow did the komets miss out on that Justin Depretis....4 goals and 2 assists in 8 games..and 3 of those goals were on the PP.....

[Tom]

Cheers Kometfan for also seeing the hits on Aquino...they were on him all night.

[kometfan]

Woods is on a tear also...wow did he really handle clark tonight at the end of the game and he didnt play dumb at all either!!...great game all around

[Tom]

Also cheers to the wings tonight...5 powerplay goals and 8 total. That is more than they had the last weekend of play...and against Flint to boot.

[kometfan]

I almost let out a comment tonight when it was quiet during a faceoff....to he** with you searl we'd rather have hawthorne..haha..i wonder how that would have made him feel!!...searl let too much go tonight and called the dumb penalties and not the obvious ones....with 3 minutes in the game i looked at a friend that came and told them just wait and see searl would call a cheap penalty and sure enough he did..horrible officiating in this league!! so inconsistent

[Ryne Gurney]

I'm very upset I missed this game, sounded like a great one.

[Tom]

anyone want to go tomorrow...email me...am I desperate...a little the game tonight just made me really want to go.

[Bruiser]

I think a lot of the nonsense on Aquino would have been avoided had Bertram and Woods fought instead of turtling early on. Yeah they got powerplays...blah blah blah...and to me Bertram and Woods shouldn't have gotten ANY penalties on their turtle displays, but they did. Woods fight at the end of the game was great, and I sure wish Bertram had fought...maybe he is hurt... but the cheapshots from Bloomington just escalated after those two wouldn't fight. Aquino is battling for his life out there.

The IHL has got to do something about slashing. It goes on by both team all night and there are never any calls. This has been brought up before by a few very wise hockey fans and it deserved mention again. THAT kind of rough stuff isn't good for ANY league...no one likes stick work.

The hitting tonight was great from both teams, and #94 for the Komets was leading the way. Legault had a beauty right before his first fight as well.

The game tomorrow is going to be a war. The Komets need to watch cheapshots on Chaulk and PC. They are coming!

[Caleb]

Heh heh... you call that a fight? I'm not so sure it was a "fight", per sé, but it definitely was awesome!

For those not at the game: Legault had a SWEET hit against the boards, turned around, saw Clark coming at him for retalliation, and just met him in the air and took him down body-slam style. Yeah... it was sweet.

In general, though, Bruiser, yeah I agree with ya. I loved the intensity of the whole game; both sides were fired up and throwing their weight around. I remember thinking to myself a couple times that I was really impressed with the effort Curadeau was putting out, too.

[JW]

Bloomington picked on Aquino all game and did a good job of getting him out of the game. i give them that. it was nice we showed our ability to fend off the run they made on us after they got what they wanted with aquino out of the game.

i dont expect tomorrows game to be this rough at all myself but hopefully its good

go komets

[ds214]

Did anyone notice Chaulk and Guinn having a chat just before a face off early in the third. I wonder what that was about cause Guinn sure was animated over it. I also agree with Bruiser that the stick work has escalated significantly and that needs to be addressed. Tonights game will be just as rough if there is a weak official.

[Rich]

Did anyone notice Cornish mouthing off to Bert after the woods fight? Bert was at center ice and Cornish was talking at him, P.C came over to the P.T bench and picked up Woods stick and Cornish said something to him and P.C turned and looked at Bert. I don’t know if Cornish was telling him that he was going to give him a big bear hug Saturday or what. If Cornish wants to fight he need to take his beating and stop the hugging and throw down to the ice crap!! At least Ewasko will take his beatings.

[Ryne Gurney]

I haven't seen Bertram fighting very much lately, he was on pace at one point to top like 600 minutes but that seems to have dropped off.

[Homco]

Forget the Kalamazoo / Ft Wayne rivalry. It is all but dead.

Bloomington / Fort Wayne rivalry. What crazy games these two seem to produce lately.

I completely agree with Ryne Gurney. Aquino needs to keep his cool a little better and let his team stick up for him so that our leading scorer stays in the game.
He really seems to be getting a little too physical lately.

And as everyone has said and will continue to say. The slashing is REDICULOUS! One of these games it is going to go to far and then maybe we will start to see it stop!

[Homco]

Almost forgot to ask.

Where was Ewasko? IR?

[Booner]

First off...who isn't going to turtle when someone just starts punchin you, aka cheap shot. NOTICE: Bert and Woods both had there gloves on WITH their stick stuck in between...come on. it was a cheap shot. NOTICE: when clark FINALLY threw done with woods he got his behind kicked.... bert is one off the toughest guys in this league! and HE DOESN'T HAVE TO FIGHT! He carried this team early on, and now since our roster is so so deep with talent and toughness, he can acually play, and when he has to, beat some sense into someone. props to aqino!! REF SUCKED! and both of legs fights weren't that good. cornholio AND legs both looked kinda affraid. but legs is skatin better!! I have to say GOOD JOB pence and marchant! lots of hustle last night. GOOD JOB K's. beat em up tonight.

[Booner]

And about the slashing. Like you all said all teams are "doing it too much" well..... maybe if the slashers get a beating for it everytime, they would stop....oh wait, i almost forgot how much the ref tries to control the game, any team in this league gets to scared to throw a hit or take out a cheap shotter. hell. bert and woods getting roughing penalties??? when cornholio gets a double minor for throwing 10 punches on someone not ready to fight and legs and clark get major fighting penalties right before that and didn't even throw a punch. if i was the ref i would have gave them both 2 min minors to embarrass them.... that wasn't a fight!!! the refs need to watch some old IHL games and realize how good they got it. Fletcher and Bezeau would have wrestled with the ref, both line judges, and a couple players to get to the guy talkin smack!! cant tell ya how many times i seen a ref get caught in the line of fire tryin to break up a fight. I cant stand how much they are trying to change the game of hockey.. LET IT BE! lol ok guys, im done complaining. sometimes ya gotta vent...right?

[Patrick Stelte]

The Bloomington game was taped for Komet Game of the Week and will play next Wednesday at 7pm and Thursday at 11am on Comcast 55 and Verizon 25. Brandon Warner did guest commentary.

I managed to get most of the rough play and fisticuffs. However, I don't believe I framed Parsons coming off the bench to get at Aquino. Luis had been chippy with Parsons a great deal of the second period and I was not surprised Parsons retaliated. Clark and Wood had been going at it all game. With 10 seconds to go in the game, I noticed Woods on the ice and focused on him knowing something would happen.

Also, we used near ice-level microphones for the game and you can hear the players talking throughout the game along with the hits, skate-swooshing and tape-to-tape passing.

[Shawn]

It seems to me that Bloomington's game plan was to be physical and try to get the K's into the box. After every goal we scored there was a Thunder player wanted to pick a fight. Cornish wouldn't take no for an answer and he should have been given and 2/5/10 (instigator, fight, misconduct) for going after Bert. Holmberg tried on numerous occasions to pick a fight with Aquino. He then pasted him against the glass and Aquino snapped and went after him as he was leaving the ice for a change. Holmberg's head bounced off the rubber pad on the glass by the bench door. The intent to injure was the right call and I expect him to get a few game suspension.

[Tom]

Finally I will make my trip to Bloomington tonight with 1-3 people...we are leaving around 2 so if anyone wants to go...this is your last chance. GO KOMETS! Also last night Mr. Searly actually called more penalty minutes then Hawthorne...wow!

[Tom]

If Brad Jones is consistent with his logic he stated Henley basically wasn't provoked in his hit immediately preceding his hit on Willis where Aquino definitely was...less than 30 seconds earlier...if he gets a suspension I will be extremely angry with this league and their inconsistancies in judgement.

[lovelost]

Sims had Woods and Bertram on a leash all night. We were getting physically out beat but were pulling penalties. Good hockey though. I have a good video of the Aquino hit but I will not release it. Parsons should get suspended as well for leaving the bench and the intent to injure then. Parsons was standing in the stands the last 10 minutes of play and when Hukalo scored the fourth goal and looked over at him and said that for you Parsons and he just gave me a crappy look and went back to watching the game till Woods and Clark fought and then he walked down the isle to see it. good win though. Hope things don't get to out of hand tonight.

[mightbite]

What King-Kong Henley did to little willis was kind of mild to some of stick work last night. I say no more than a vebal warning for HENLEY. One stat I'd like to seeis points per ice time at even strength.

[Tanner.]

marchant did really good last night. boy does he take a beating in front of the net. but anyways. aquino took crap all night. he just got mad. no big deal. but i really dont think he should get any suspensions. but who knows.
good game. it was fun. Go Kometsss. good luck tonightt.

[jkmess11]

I hope Bloomington will still be around next year. These games could generate a great rivaly for next season

[Junior]

Nice Patrick!! I dvr'em all and I enjoyed the K-zoo game.

Look forward to watching it again.

[Kris]

Does any one have video of the Woods fight at the end of the game? I wasn't there and would like to see it. If anyone has it, could you please post it on youtube?

[becky]

I just saw the suspension notice on the IHL web site and Aquino got two games and Parsons got one. Still seems unfair since they targeted Aquino all night but it is better than I expected.

[Mark]

I think its complete bullcrap that Aquino got suspended at all. Holmberg came way out of his way to hit Aquino. These guys were on him all night, and he finally gives the guy what he deserved and he gets suspended for it.

I think if you come off the bench to get into a altercation you should get more than one game. Just my opinion.

[St.Christopher]

Unbelievable!Tabbing Bert and Woods with the "turtle" handle after both took cheap shots from behind.Come on, you can't possibly think that.If both of them would have seen it coming you could bet they'd of dropped em.I believe you have to be toe to toe and face to face.Perfect example is McSorley vs McCarty.Go pester Martha Stewarts blog with your nonsense they'll believe what your trying to sell.

[scoops]

The turtle-town post irritated me as well. Makes me wonder what game they are watching.

UFC is on pay per view tonight. There goes 75% of this audience.

[Jungle Monkey]

Thanks for your postitive contribution, Scoops.

[Shutterbug]

End of 1st:
Komets 1 Bloomington 0
PP goal by Drouin assist Chaulk 11:25
SOG Komets 11 Bloomington 7

[kometfan]

To hell with the IHL Commissioner!!! how the heck does he get this 2 game suspension.....this dude is unbelievably STUPID.....Justin Rohr....1 game.....hansen leaves on a stretcher...holmberg doenst get hurt...are you serious get a clue mr. comish!....or get a day job and quit this one!

[Melissa]

They were picking on Luciano all night. They had it coming. Bloomington accomplished what they wanted when they gave Luciano the game misconduct. Luciano should not have hit that guy but he had to stand up for himself!

[Caleb]

Lovelost,

Why did you decide to withhold that good video of the hit? Just curious.
I was sitting in s213, r17 (visitor bench side, up a few rows) and saw the hit, but I'd like to see a replay from the other side.

I can't wait til we get a replay-screen in the coliseum.

[TGP]

Many of you obviously weren't watching the game Friday. Bertram was attacked STRAIGHT ON. He did SEE it coming and chose not to fight to get a powerplay, I guess.

Woods has guys after him ALL NIGHT and he SEES it coming.

At the end he was actually tackled a bit from behind, but THIS time he fought and did very well.

So you folks are delusional on Bertram and Woods...they saw both attacks coming. I'm with the guy who said the two of them were on a leash. I might buy that.

[Caleb]

I would definitely buy the "leash" idea. As time was expiring in the third, I saw Chaulk wave one guy off of Clark, and he tried to wave Woods off, too, but Woods just skated right past him and fought Clark anyway. I could just picture Chaulk saying, "Aw, kids these days..." haha

[Jerad Shaw]

<--- Was at UFC 82. AMAZING.

[Hoss]

Neither Bert or Woods "turtled" but they did have a chance to fight and decided to try to draw a call for the other guy. I think it takes a bigger man to do what they did, containing their emotions for the betterment (is that a word?) of the team. Bert got hit in the face five times before a linemen broke it up, and he still got called for ta roughing! I will never understand that call...I just wish some of these "fans" would....... sorry gotta go, UFC highlights are on!!!!

[Greg]

The Komets got two points out of the game Friday and last night so all's well IMO.

[scoops]

What kind of crowd did it draw Jarad? I wouldn't mind going to one live if it came around this area.
Last time I was in Columbus the entire downtown area around Nationwide Arena had massive pockets of contruction and detours. When you don't know your way around that is a recipe for diaster.