By now you’ve probably heard about the plane crash involving the KHL team from Yaroslavl.  There are some good things happening in media coverage and some bad things happening in media coverage.  Conflicting reports, speculation, and I’m not all that interested in adding to that, nor am I interested in eulogizing.  So I’m going to keep this brief, and direct you to major news organizations for more details.  Puck Daddy has actually been doing a great job with the coverage so far.

A couple of former Admiral defensemen were on that plane.  Karlis Skrastins spent parts of two seasons in Milwaukee from 1998-2000.  And Robert Dietrich played two seasons from 2008-2010.

Admirals head coach Kirk Muller will be heading down to Nashville later this week, as rookie camp is right around the corner.  Coach was gracious to give me a few minutes of his time this afternoon, and the Roundtable is proud to present the first part of our summer sit-down with the Coach.

AR: It was a whirlwind earlier this summer being named the Coach, and then diving right in to development camp. What has your summer looked like since then?

KM:  Pretty steady, actually. After development camp…bringing your wife and two kids out here to Milwaukee was a bit of a move, so pretty much trying to get them settled in with schools and housing and all that. And then back to Canada for the summer, and then just starting to get to know the personnel in Nashville and here as well, and get organized and get set for training camp.

AR:  How have Lane and Herbie been helpful in the transition of power?

KM:  They’ve been great. Lane, I met during the prospect camp, (he) got me really familiar with some of the personnel moves and some changes with players…new guys coming and going. And the lay of the land.  Ian has been great because he’s had experience at this level, going through the whole protocol of training camp. There are a lot of differences in the way things are operated at this level than in the NHL.  Sometimes it’s apples and oranges comparing it in terms of the way it runs down here.

AR:  Coaching the top minor league affiliate, is it your job first and foremost to develop players, or is it more important to win?

KM:  It’s important to develop, but I think your competitive instincts kick in anyway. Of course it’s important about Nashville, one call away from supplying them with some good young players that are ready to play and fit in when they need help, from injuries and trades or whatever. But we all love to win, and competitive nature is there, so I think it’s important that no matter what happens…guys going up and down… the kids at this level, you’ve got to say hey, there are no excuses. You’ve got to find ways to win and dig deeper. I think it’s a combination.   You want to create a winning attitude, and it’s all about creating a culture. And if they start at this level and understand that, then it filters right up into Nashville when they get an opportunity to play there.

AR:  What are some of the things that drew you to coaching after your playing career?

KM:  There’s nothing like playing and being involved in the competitive level at the NHL level, or the American Hockey League. When it ended, playing 19 years, it felt like I gained some good experience and went through a lot of different situations that I thought I could really help out a lot of younger guys. So being behind the bench as a coach I think is the next best thing as far as being right in there and having that competitive level again, and just enjoying the game still. It’s fun being around young guys, it’s fun being out there every night trying to beat your opponent. I love being around the dressing room and I think it was a pretty easy transition to get into coaching right after.

AR:  How would you describe your demeanor behind the bench during games? Smooth or fiery or somewhere in between?

KM:  I was a fiery guy when I played and vocal and all that, but I think your actions behind the bench will reflect on how your players respond as well. The one thing about coaching is that you’ve got to kind of hold back your emotions more than you did as a player. I think you’ve got to stay focused — you’re operating 20 guys instead of yourself as a player. Of course you’re going to be energized and excited and in to the games, but you’ve just got to know that you’ve got to do it within a controlled factor that doesn’t disrupt the team in general.

AR:  So it’s probably not likely that you’ll end up in a Jim Playfair-esque explosion on Youtube sometime this season…

KM:  I hope not! (Laughs) You’ve got to be yourself. I had the passion when I played and I have the passion now and that’s what I want from my players. To enjoy the time — you work hard all week to get in the games, so enjoy it and don’t be afraid to use your enthusiasm and all that. But at the end of the day it’s about discipline and being a control factor, so I can’t imagine I would get to that (Playfair) level.

AR:  Did you have a good relationship with officials over the course of your playing career?

KM:  Oh yeah. I’d been a captain for a long time in the NHL, and I think I can only really remember getting one kind of gross misconduct over 24 years, so I’d say that’s a pretty good ratio.

AR:  As long as that gross misconduct wasn’t with a Koharski, because we’ve got two Koharski officials in the AHL…

KM:  (Laughs) Yeah, well, I was involved with Koho when I was in Jersey at the time when the big fiasco happened….I was right in the middle of that, but I didn’t initiate it! (Laughs) But no, he’s great, and we laugh about it. But I can say I was actually involved in that situation.

In Part II later this week, we’ll talk about power plays, working with the young forwards, how to deal with mopers, and who specifically impressed him in development camp.

Here’s something I missed in August whilst I was out of the country…

One of the most important figures in the history of the Milwaukee Admirals passed away.

Erwin J Merar, who is responsible for the team name “Admirals” among other things, passed on August 15th.

Here’s a link to a piece that is a great tribute to the man, with quotes from family and Phil Wittliff.

And while we’re remembering some great men that are responsible for us having hockey in Milwaukee, here’s a piece Billy “Whiteshoes” Johnson wrote for Warren Fansher (aka “Auk”) after his death in 2007.  Auk is credited with co-founding the Admirals.

Good news:  Here’s Aaron Sims talking with our new skipper.  Some nice info coming out of the video.

We’ll be having our summer sit-down with the coach next week, so we’ll have that for you, um, next week I guess.

Bad news:  Wade Belak was found dead in Toronto.  For more coverage about this, follow the Nashville blogs, as they’ll keep everyone up to date as the details come out.  But what an awful summer for this kind of stuff.  Just awful.

Hooray! We’ve got a schedule!

While many of you have given your first impressions in the previous post, here are a few other tidbits about the schedule.

– Let’s call out the elephant in the room…..There is a particular car race on February 26th. There is also a home game that day, as the Admirals will entertain the Rampage. Sorry Todd. Better luck next year. Hey, Bert Blyleven got into the Hall eventually…maybe next year will be your year?

– Yes. April looks to be brutal. 9 games in 15 days, and 7 of them in a row on the road…but only one set of games on back-to-back nights, and that’s once they return to the midwest to close out the season. They’ll cover a lot of miles on that trip, but they shouldn’t have any days where they’ll be playing the same day that they are travelling. So that’s nice.

– The AHL got rid of the 4-games-in-5-days stretches….but they kept the 3-in-3’s. And the Admirals have 9 3-in-3’s this year. Of interest: 8 of those stretches have two games as home dates. The last one is the closing weekend of the season, with one home date.

– Sunday December 18th, the Admirals host Peoria. They won’t play again until the day after Christmas. 7 off-days. I’ll just go ahead and pencil in ‘caption contest’ during that week.

– No odd one-off travel dates. No home game Friday, and then game in San Antonio on Saturday. I don’t book the flights, but it looks like there should only be 7 trips requiring air travel this season.

– The Admirals will play road games in different cities on back-to-back days three times. Lake Erie/Hamilton, Lake Erie/Toronto, and then Rockford/Chicago the last weekend of the season.

– Day hockey anyone? 1:30 start at home against Chicago on Saturday November 12th. 10am at Peoria Tuesday January 24th. And early Sunday games at Charlotte (11/27) and Houston (2/5).

– I thought the team did well last year with 75% of their home games on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Somehow, they managed to get a better percentage, as 32 ofo 38 home games (84%) will be on those weekend dates. Just 15 of the 76 full season games are M, T, W, or Th.

– The schedule-makers did a pretty nice job breaking up the division games this season. Of course, with 44 games against division foes this year, that’s a tough task. But there are only two stretches all season where the Admirals will play over three straight games against division foes.

– How many calendar weeks (Sunday through Saturday) of the regular season will the Admirals not have at least one home game (Excluding opening night in Peoria)? Three. Once for the Abbotsford trip in October, once in March, and once in April. (Yes, I know I’m fudging the numbers a bit…a more useful stat would be weeks that go Monday-Sunday, but that number isn’t as aesthetically pleasing)

– Speaking of Abbotsford, three out of the four games will be played before December 1st. But they’ll re-appear at the Bradley Center in February.

– By December 10th, the Admirals will have played 22 games. 6 of them will have been against the Wolves.

– Half of the season series against Rockford will take place after March 1st.

To be honest, I expected a lot worse. Yes, April appears to be unpleasant, but I don’t have a lot to complain about here outside of the usual gripes (lack of Eastern Conference, etc). The team isn’t gone for a long time, and they are never home for a really long time. Seems like as balanced of an unbalanced AHL schedule that we could hope for. Lots of chances to travel on weekends to Rockford and Rosemont (and Peoria if you get good gas mileage on your vehicle).

Feel free to weigh in on the schedule in the comments section.

At 3 P.M. on Thursday afternoon we should finally get our first look at the 2011-2012 American Hockey League regular season schedule.  The proposed schedule is pending league approval by the Board of Governors, but as far as I know, there shouldn’t be anything holding back its release.

Ryan has already mentioned a few dates that are already penciled in as Bradley Center contests, but here are a few things that I will be keeping my eye on.

1) How will the AHL handle the Rochester Americans and the Charlotte Checkers?

Last season Rochester played in the Western Conference, but only halfheartedly, with a large portion of its schedule being teams from the East.  Rochester changed hands in the off-season, becoming a part of the new big budget beast in the East–the Terry Pegula-owned Buffalo Sabres franchise.

This season another geographically eastern team moves west, and not even to a primarily “eastern” West Division, but into the Midwest Division.  Charlotte is over 14 hours by bus from Milwaukee, and over 13 hours from Peoria, which is its closest geographic rival.  Obviously, the Checkers will be racking up the frequent flier miles this season.

I expect more of the same with a hybrid style schedule for Charlotte and Rochester, but it becomes more difficult with two teams to take care of instead of one.

2) Division Games vs. Conference Games vs. Inter-Conference Games, how will that shake out?

I have yet to see how the AHL is planning on breaking down the actual team slates.  With the two obvious outliers in Charlotte and Rochester, and the five West Division teams being so far away from everyone but themselves, it will be curious to see how this breaks down.  I still expect unbalances to be prevalent, but the AHL loves Division games.  Just how many will there be in 2011-2012?

3) The Abbotsford question?

In case you have forgotten, there still is one team in the AHL located no where near any other–the Abbotsford Heat (as long as you forget that there is now a team in Newfoundland).  Travel expenses for this franchise will border on ridiculous in 2011-2012 no matter how you breakdown the schedule.

Lets also not forget Milwaukee’s strange scheduling with the Heat over the past two years.  Will the Admirals even get to see Abbotsford in the calender year of 2012?  I am assuming Milwaukee’s players would prefer to get that road trip out of the way earlier rather than later, but a late date at Abbotsford could be a difficult thing to contend with.

So Roundtable, what are looking for in the schedule to be released tomorrow?

So the pre-season games were announced yesterday, and now the team has announced five regular season home dates, including the home opener.

October 14th will be the home opener, although I think it’s a little late to be a season opener.  So we’ll probably open somewhere on the road the previous weekend.  The opponent has not been announced yet, but there is a ticket pre-sale going on….you can go to milwaukeeadmirals.com for more info about that. (The Pre-sale is done now.  You missed it!

Other announced home games include games Monday December 26th and Wednesday the 28th.  Those Christmas-break games traditionally have some great crowds, and the high school hockey tournament usually goes on during that week too.  Saturday November 12th and Saturday January 27th are also guaranteed home dates.

So Roundtable….last year we had a plethora of Friday and Sunday home games, and just a handful of Saturday games, thanks partially to the Bucks schedule.  With the NBA season in jeopardy, that may even things out a bit.  Do you prefer games on Saturdays compared to Fridays and Sundays afternoons?

Note:  February 26th is the Daytona 500…..if there’s another home game conflicting with the race, I’ll reach out to Todd from (the re-designed) Milwaukeehockey.com for his annual comment.

First off, thanks to everyone who has shared so far in the previous post.  I’ve enjoyed reading your responses, and I love the passion and loyalty that many of you have had with this team over the years.

So here’s today’s news — the Preds have signed defenseman Jack Hillen to a two-way deal.  He’s 25 years old, 5’11, and has the distinction of being an undrafted free agent that went straight to the NHL as soon as his college season at Colorado College was done.  He played two games with an assist and four penalty minutes that year.  He split time the next season with Isles (40 games) and their AHL team in Bridgeport (33 games).  He was an Islander exclusively the last two seasons, and comes to the Preds organization with 175 games of NHL experience.  He was -5 defensively last year on the team that gave up the second most goals in the Eastern Conference.  You can probably twist that stat to make an argument that he’s better than the stats suggest, or that he was part of the problem.

Why was he available?  He wasn’t given a qualifying offer from the Islanders.  They are also in a position where they have some kids on the cusp of the NHL level, and the Isles had more stock in them than him.

Tough to say if he’ll be ticketed to Milwaukee…but he gives the Predators some more depth and some more options in case they aren’t quite ready to rush Ryan Ellis or Roman Josi to the big time yet.

And in other news….while the AHL still figures out how to schedule their games without the benefit of four-games-in-five-days stretches, the Admirals did announce their pre-season schedule today.

Friday September 30th @ Kern Center VS Rockford
Saturday October 1st @ Hoffman Estates VS Chicago

I always get excited for these games, not just because it’s our first taste of live hockey after such an eternal summer, but I enjoy watching the guys who come in to the AHL training camp trying to make a good impression with the coaching staff in hopes that their phone will ring later in the season when injuries and callups inevitably take their toll.

So these are the first dates to put on your calendar.  Make it so.

I love listening to Wojo talk.

Which is good, because he likes to talk….but I especially enjoy hearing him tell stories about many of the earlier days of the organization.  Stories that I know next to nothing about due to my relative newness to the region.

So with that in my mind, I wanted to ask all of our friends at the Roundtable how far back you go with the team.  What was it that sparked your interest?  Who were some of your early favorite players?  And what keeps you coming back season after season?

My story:  I grew up in Maryland as a Washington Capitals fan, and came to college out here in Milwaukee starting in the fall of 97.  I attended my first Admirals games that season, and recognized some of the names right away, as they had been in the Caps organization in the not too distant past.  Ken Sabourin, Jeff Nelson, and Martin Gendron made it easy for me to jump on the bandwagon right away.  Al Sims was the coach.   And as a poor college kid, it was easy to afford tickets….at the time, I think it was the last two rows of the upper deck that were just $5.  I’d come to games with friends, and sometimes I’d come by myself and just move to various seats over the course of the game (I did more of the latter, to be quite honest).

The night before an 8am final exam, I convinced myself that it’d be okay to go to a playoff hockey game.  “I’ll study during the intermissions,” was my reasoning.  Uh-huh.  Sure.  That didn’t happen.  Game went to double or triple overtime too…I don’t remember which.  As for the exam…there weren’t any flying colors, but I passed.  That night was the first all-nighter of my college career, thanks to my superior time management skills…. But looking back on it, no regrets.  It was a hell of a game.

So that’s how it started for me.  I go back 14 years.  I’m sure many of you have me beat.  I encourage you to share some of your stories and favorite memories, as we pass some time this week waiting on the schedule.

So there were two caption contests out there, and it’s time to announce who the winners are.

I delegated the task of selecting the winners to Eric Kent.  You may remember him from such public service videos as “Designated Drivers – The Life-Saving Nerds” and “Phony Tornado Alarms Reduce Readiness”.  You may also remember him as the guy who used to write at the Short Shifts blog with me.

So here are the winners!

From Frontrowjon:

Bourque is leading the crowd in the “Haaaaaaaaaackett Haaaaaaaackett Haaaaaaaaaaackett YOU SUCK!!” Chant.

Eric’s comments:  “The imagery created by this hypothetical goal celebration is gold, baby. Gold. Forget jumping into the boards or sliding on one knee. Tauntung a goalie in three-part harmony after scoring a goal is the sort of bush-league showmanship that should be the bedrock of all sports comeptitions….but sadly isn’t.”

So Jon, you’ll get some cookies coming your way in October.  Mazel tov!

And then the Kelsey Wilson one with the manufactured outrage on my part…

From BrianTheAdsFan:

“Captain Ahab” Wilson harpoons Ortmeyer to keep him from scoring.

Eric’s comments:  ” I give mad props to the literary reference. The Ads Facebook page may have MORE fans, but how many of them have even READ Treasure Island, let alone use it in a caption contest??!! Well done!”

I did explain to Eric that Ahab wasn’t from Treasure Island.  And then he tried to argue that I should call him Ishmael… And then I hung up the phone on him.

So nice job Brian!  As a side note, I also enjoyed your Facebook mockery.  You’ll get media room cookies at a game early in the season.

Oh yeah…that season…. We should be getting a schedule pretty soon.  Hopefully by the end of next week.