Gorillas II

Posted By: Phillip Petrakos on Monday Jun 30, 2008

As of the end of June, the Gorillas have not announced one player for the 2008-2009 season. There is already a known exodus of a number of key players from past rosters. The rumored migration of several other young talented players to the European leagues appear to be viable. There is even a school of thought that none, or maybe just one, of last year's players will return.

Can this mean that new Coach Coolen is scouring Eastern Canada for talented scorers to replace Nimmo, Vandermeer, and Lipsett? Or is he in the wild western provinces of the frozen north trying to find some puck-lugging defensemen like Arvai and Fornataro?

Or is Patrick Roy coming out of retirement to play in the Texas Panhandle? We can only wait and see.

A less than interesting statistic: With a 19-man roster, and given the number of days and hours left prior to the opening faceoff of the '08-'09 season, the team can announce a new signee every 5 days + 18 hours from now until the opening faceoff.

Posted By: Phillip Petrakos on Monday Jun 09, 2008

On Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 1:30 PM the new Head Coach of the Amarillo Gorillas, Tom Coolen, will hold a press conference at the Amarillo Civic Center. Some more details can be found at the following link to oursportscentral.com.

http://www.oursportscentral.com ...

Posted By: Phillip Petrakos on Wednesday Apr 23, 2008

Two familiar faces will not be back with the Gorillas organization next year. This source has learned that Shawn "Stixy" Smith and his wife Tara Gilliland-Smith will not be returning in their roles of Equipment Manager and Athletic Trainer respectively. The team has not made these moves an official announcement.

Gunner Garrett, the long time Equipment Manager of the Austin Ice Bats is reportedly going to replace Stixy. There is no word on Tara's replacement. In fact that is no word from either the Gorilla's office or the Ice Bats office on any of this information.

Posted By: Phillip Petrakos on Friday Apr 18, 2008

The official Central Hockey League website no longer lists the Austin Ice Bats as a team on the team link pull down. At the same time, the new CHL team, the Rapid City Rage are listed as a team.

Posted By: Phillip Petrakos on Monday Nov 19, 2007

Four critical factors are impacting all aspects of the Gorillas organizations performance this year. Those factors relate to the youth of the team, the strained availability of ice time, the absence of an enforcer, and the desire of a reasonable bottom line.

Youth: For a quick comparison, put the players on this year’s Amarillo roster on a T-table with the fulcrum being a true three years of professional playing experience. Those with three years or less (and in most cases MUCH LESS) pro playing experience total sixteen or seventeen on our roster. That leaves Lipsett and Read as the only ones that have waged the battle for a significant time, and Lipsett’s pro tenure is the only one that can really be called a seasoned veteran resume.

A quick glance at the rosters of Laredo, Rocky Mountain, and Colorado show the teeter-totter tipped significantly the other way. They and other successful teams weigh in with many more guys with four or more (an in many cases MUCH MORE) pro experience. It can be argued that a team with minimal veteran savvy will have a hard time competing with teams wrought with time proven players, regardless of the raw young talent on the team.

Execution comes with time too. Veterans have been through the grind of learning and buying into several coaches systems. Most young players have played for a couple of junior coaches, and most of the college guys have played in just one system for up to four years. The understanding of the need to learn and internalize a coach’s system is clearer to experienced players. The ability to reason and learn a new system is often more difficult for a lesser experienced player as well.

Why do we have all the youth this year? We can only speculate, and there are surely more than one reason why this is the case.

One speculation comes from an obvious observation. With Joey Bastien somewhere in limbo, we now have only two players on our roster that are married. Because of their age, and as a result of their settling into their professions, often more experienced and veteran players tend to have spouses.

What is the difference? When you think about it, a married couple would likely find it awkward to be sharing an apartment with a young teammate. Having more married players means the organization would need to pay for more apartments. We don’t know that it is the case, but perhaps recruiting single players that could be roommates and cut down housing costs was a priority? That in itself would tend us towards younger players.

With no knowledge of payroll ramifications specific to the team, younger and unproven players likely play for less money than seasoned players. If maintaining as low a payroll as possible was another objective, then that could be another reason why we have so many young guys.

Then there is a catch-22. Veteran players normally have more contact in the hockey underworld than young players. Experienced players tend to know more about skilled and seasoned players that are out there looking for a place to play than guys’ right out of juniors or college do. With only two vets, and with one having spent his last several seasons in Amarillo, we may have limited our inside view of the talent pool.

Ice Time: In order to stay in game shape, in order to develop systems, and in order to observe offensive line and defensive pairing combinations that might work together, takes ice time. While the Civic Center has been played up as a great ally to the team, the seemingly endless scheduling of other events in the arena that shuts down the ice availability has had an impact.

When adult friends of mine are complaining about the lack of ice time for recreational play, I can only imagine what the team feels like. These are accountants, warehouse workers, mechanics, engineers and others that have “regular jobs” and only want to have the ice a couple of nights per week. In many cases, if the ice is not available to them, it is not available to the team.

The backup ice is in Lubbock. On off days with no ice, that means loading the bus in the morning, driving two hours to Cotton-Town, dressing, practicing for a couple hours, then showering and driving home. In an ideal world one can argue that this time together should build some comfort level, but in fact, it makes for a long day with young men stuffed onto a diesel-guzzling bus.

Logic would dictate that playing musical chairs with ice surfaces does not lend itself to developing team chemistry.

The missing Enforcer: In the NHL, Anaheim and Buffalo proved over the past couple of years that speed and skill can result in wins. Detroit and Colorado have been doing it for years. They all have a bunch of guys that can fly and play hockey, and a few guys on each team can hold their own in the fighting department.

But the common denominator is that most have one enforcer. While some of the skill and role players can stick up for themselves, if you cross the line with the goalie, or the smaller guys, or the top skill guys, you are going to have to deal with big George Parros, or Andrew Peters, or Scott Parker.

We do not have a player that scares anybody. That is why a punk like Kevin Harvey can get away with running our goalie on numerous occasions. That would not have happened more than once if either Mark DeSantis, Eric Andersen, Dave Rattray, Brian Pellerin, or even Ryan Shannon were around. Andy and Shanny were not feared pugilists, but they could and would give you a fight if you crossed the line.

The CHL as a whole has beefed up. It can be argued that there are more big and tough players in this league than any other AA-level league this year. We do not have an answer for the intimidating style of play. Youthful energy and skill can go into a cocoon if the element of getting lambasted is always hanging over one’s shoulder.

Bottom-line: In certain areas, although not clearly defined, it is about the money. The local ownership group has been pared down