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WPCNR Stage Door. By John F. Bailey. October 19, 2004: It was a Dracula night when Dracula opened this weekend for five performances by the Fort Hill Players: rainy, windswept, chilling. Count Dracula, the character who, with Sherlock Holmes, has held the fascination of horror and mystery aficionados, and particularly women, for a hundred years, is chillingly recreated by Peter Green whose chosen and comely companion for immortality, Suzanne Davis, is succulently vulnerable and lustfully mouthwatering as the vampire’s apprentice.

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The Wretched Renfield (Douglas Zimmer) Begs for The Master’s Mercy. Peter Green is Count Dracula walks for two more nights, Friday, the 22, and Saturday, the 23.  Photo by WPCNR StageCam

The production is the most elaborately-staged production the Players have done in the five years WPCNR has reviewed the group. The attention shows the fanatic reverence players and staff have for this classic. From the howls of wolves, to chants to chilling musical interludes the production is haunted with the menace of the undead. Here is staged horror: believable, eerie, compelling.  We see real persons caught in a web of mystery and the macabre. Such a mood is particularly difficult to achieve because most everyone (with perhaps the exception of the teens and young persons in the audience), knows the story.

The Seward Residence  Under the spell of The Count at The Rochambeau. Left to right, Larry Reina as Van Helsing; Stanley Wexler as Dr. Seward, Peter Green as The Count; On Stairwell, Suzanne Ochs as the maid; Suzanne Davis as Lucy, and Timothy Young as Jonathan Harker. The Count pays his condolences to Lucy, the ingenue is under the weather. Photo by WPCNR StageCam.

Dracula played to a full house Friday night of over 100 persons and drew 60 persons for the Saturday evening performance at The Rochambeau School. What they heard as they were taken to their seats were howls of wolves and eerie music, setting a mood of foreboding which carried through the evening. They saw an actual set (the detail of which was close to Broadway in effort), recreating the library of Dr. Seward in an English country estate where evil things just seem to happen.

A relic from another stage, another time.

The play, adapted by John L. Balderston and Hamilton Deane from the Bram Stoker novel, is a melodrama, filled with hysterics and long winded explanations to carry the action, complicated explanations of technical vampire lore. It is an adventure, and on a higher level a psychological exploration of temptation, control, manipulation, and fear of the unknown.

It is hard to articulate the part of the compulsive Count, the disbelieving Dr. Seward, the maniac Renfield, the crusading, intense Van Helsing (the vampire hunter), and the ingénue Lucy as straight action, due to the rambling, often hysteria-tinged lines actors  have to deliver. They have to feel it. This cast feels it.

For Dracula to work for an audience, the players who surround Dracula, the central figure, who dominates the stage, and their reaction to him, have to play in a believable manner. Their reaction to him when he glides into their midst, their fear, their interaction creates the illusion of the vampire’s power.

A web of a play.

To the credit of director Carin Zakes, she has been able to channel the actors and actresses to play off Mr. Green in a credible manner, each endowing their characters with a humanity, while Peter Green’s Dracula relentlessly demonstrates no humanity whatsoever – a key component of the Dracula character. Each of the supporting cast react as a victim reacts to the silent legs of a spider making its way towards a victim in its web.

The tall Stanley Wexler as Lucy’s Father, Dr. Seward,  projects his growing dread and horror, in a controlled very British sort of way. Timothy Young as Jonathan Harker is a more a manly fiancé of Lucy than we are used to seeing, demonstrating real concern for his girl friend and  her illness. Butterworth, (Kevin Rishel) the asylum aid, (Seward operates a lunatic asylum), provides  comic relief in his chatting up of Wells, the maid, played by Suzanne Ochs. Ochs is your typical English maid.

Douglas Zimmer as Renfield is a hideous foil to The Count, as the fly-eating maniac. His wild eyes, electric shock hair and precise movements give you the creeps. He invokes pity as he does the vampire’s bidding. Having once myself, tried out for this part, I can tell you it is no easy role, so easy to overplay. Zimmer’s first appearance slides the audience into the bizarre twisted evil of Dracula’s world.

Mr. Green’s Dracula is a compulsive practitioner of the seven deadly sins: lust, pride, greed, murder, sloth, gluttony, and envy. His appearance reflects it – all appetite – all predator. The shaved-head Mr. Green, though short of stature, (considering the Stoker novel describes Dracula as “a tall old man, clean-shaven, except for a moustache”), plays The Count with presence and dignity, creating a creepy aura that swirls palpably ahead of him filling the stage with a fascinating dread, enhanced by Green’s  gleaming snaky eyes, like a cobra in a cape.

If you’re a nice girl, you best keep away.

But the way Green plays him, you could not. Green is better than the pretty boy Draculas, Frank Langella  and Michael Nouri. Why? The trouble with having a pretty boy like Langella or Nouri play Dracula it gives appearance as the reason why women are attracted to him. With Mr. Green, who is striking, compelling rather than clean-cut handsome as a Langella or Nouri are – shows the seductiveness of the Count lies in his power, his mystery, the evil, not simply sexual attractiveness, in this reporter’s opinion. (While I am at it, what is it about bald headed men that women find attractive, what is going on there?)

Peter Green, The Prince of Darkness Calling to His “Children of the night…What beautiful music they make.” Photo by WPCNR StageCam.

From his first grand entrance at the top of the stair, when he is announced as “Count Dracula,” Green is the rock star of horror creatures.  Green is pale of countenance, majestic in carriage, and speaks his lines with eloquence and an attitude of self-importance as befits the King of the Vampires. He moves about, slithery, silently and throws back attackers with a flick of a gesture, and a look of pompous disdain. He was made to wear the crimson-lined cape.

His pomposity does not cross the line into foppish caricature. He even carries off the joke, “Thank you for reminding me of the time,” when it is just before sunrise with applomb. Another laugh is when The Count says “I love England so filled with opportunity.”

A Star is Born.

Suzanne Davis, the lissome heroine in the vampire’s cross-teeth, delivers the wailing role of Lucy Seward very convincingly. Just 22 herself,  Ms. Davis is bewildered at what is happening to her at the outset of the play, afraid to sleep in her own bed, looking suitably virginal and angelic, and wailing, crying and being depressed. It is hard for modern audiences to relate to this much emoting, but Ms. Davis appeared to get the emotions just right.

Ms. Davis adapts the style of the role acted by Helen Chandler as Lucy in the original 1931 Dracula motion picture. She has the wails, the anxiety, the perplexed notion of a woman who does not know what is wrong with her, and increases those levels as the first act builds in intensity. Ms. Davis confided to the CitizeNetReporter that she has studied Dracula and has long been fascinated by the story. It was obvious from the way she played her role, she has done her “homework.”

Harker (Timothy Young) consoles Lucy (Suzanne Davis). Lucy is telling him no matter what, do not tell her what he knows, even if she begs him. Photo by WPCNR StageCam.

The best scene in the play is the languid, sexy visitation of Dracula in Lucy’s boudoir where Dracula evokes both the consuming lust of the vampire for blood, and displays the vampire’s awesome sensual attraction. The steam generated from the couch by this subtle and compelling pas de deux is carried off with one very shocking and powerful embrace. The way this scene is lit, the overwhelming presence of a heavy atmosphere of evil,  the helpless, growing, eager anticipation of Lucy, the intensity of The Count casts a sinister, irresistible appeal. It is lusty, uninhibited, and deliciously decadent!

The other Lucy emerges. Suzanne Davis transitions to Vampiress.

Photo by WPCNR StageCam.

In Act II, Ms. Davis succumbing  to the “Vampire’s Kiss,”  transitions shockingly  to Lucy the Vampiress. She is so different, it is startling and arousing. The seductive wiles she practices on Jonathan Harker, may be a little too-2004, a little too Orange County for a 19^th century seductress to practice, the tantalizing invitation she smothers Timothy Young with in Act II is perhaps the sexiest interlude we have seen on a Fort Hill Players stage. (For example, did 19^th century ladies cross their legs? Did they flounce and slither down the front of their intended seducees? Ms. Davis is a willowy undulating slithereress. I don’t know, maybe they did.)

Resistance is Futile.

Young’s reaction to Lucy’s wiles, on the other hand, is one of shock as Lucy through her personality change radiates the evil of the vampire. Davis conveys a mature, calculating, dedicated, bright eyed intensity in Act II that rivals the presence of Dracula himself. The parallel personas Green and Davis create (as Lucy is partially turned into a vampire) through the play sends weaves a spell of evil.. Good evil is always seductive, that is one of the points of Dracula.

Harker on the other hand recoils appropriately. Men of the nineteenth century, the late Victorian Period, especially Englishmen were not used to strong women. Lucy’s hunger expressed in her body language, her intense eyes repel him rather than seduce. Davis acts like a beautiful wolf about to tear into a meal (Harker), which she is.

Enter the Crusader

Larry Reina as Abraham Van Helsing the vampire exterminater, brings the earnest “Reina rush” of intensity to an earnest part. He brings the exasperated impatience of a man with knowledge who is consistently frustrated that people do not grasp what he is telling them. (Much like some reporters and lawyers, of which Mr. Reina is one. ) He delivers for instance, a classic line from this play: “The strength of the vampire is that people will not believe in him.”

A mixture of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, (contemporary literary figures of the time), Reina brandishes a sacred wafer, a piece of garlic, and a cross like Indiana Jones brandishes his bull whip, to fight off the menacing Green, even applies deductive reasoning. He analyzes the symptoms in quizzing Dr. Seward, Lucy’s father.  WPCNR liked Stanley Wexler, the former opera star, playing Seward, and doing his best John Gielgud.  He is so British, so serious, so “shocked,” but practical. I loved him in that role.

Reina and Green as The Count play off each other well in the contests of wills between all-powerful vampire and spiritual hunter, choreographing Van Helsing’s resistance to the Vampire’s hypnosis, and catching the feel of the power of the vampire as well as Van Helsing’s courage.

The Chase is on

Great moments: the Van Helsing-Vampire standoff in Act One; the Vampire at bay in Act II, and Mr. Van Helsing’s words at the spiraling, catharthic denouement. The end of the play is powerful, but a little too short. However, before seeing this play, I always was disappointed at the fate of Dracula, wanting him to survive. In this play, my emotions of the moment were relieved that he does not. I think this is a tribute to the way Mr. Green embodied the evil force of the vampire.

Reina captures the one-track intensity of a man on a mission in Van Helsing, bringing a new heroism into a character who was played as too old a person in the original Dracula movie. Reina’s performance creates a new dimension future actors can give to the role. 

The character Renfield is a delicious lunatic whose performance lends an air of the bizarre to the otherworldly events. Renfield’s rantings are tortured, evoking emotion, pity and repulsion on the part of the audience. His twisted figure is a metaphor for a soul tortured by demons, restless with guilt, beholden to his mentor, Count Dracula, against his will.

Conflict of the Will

The play is all about will, of doing other’s bidding against what  is right, fighting an evil power that is too much to resist. How the characters resist the power of the vampire and the need to resist is the same.

The set by Anthony Fabrizio is ingenious. Built obviously lovingly by Scott Fauble and Peter Cranco, designed in posh detail by Mario Fuentes,  the three-panel set  transforms into library Lucy’s Boudoir and a crypt at the close of the play. It cleverly unfolds making scene changes shrouded in gray lighting that gives the impression of a shroud. Lighting Designer David Ulman has created eerie effects with makeup and screened patterns giving the impression of dawn through library windows, the flicker of torchlight. All I missed was candelabras (a staple of the original Dracula movie). The way Ulman lit the vault in the final act conveyed the mustiness of the grave better than any movie scene.

Who Trained the Bat?

Another actor that should be congratulated is the giant live bat, (perhaps a refugee from the Greenburgh Nature Center who wanted to get into bat pictures), who makes a very realistic appearance in the show. Whoever trained that bat, well that bat has a future in show business. Actually I assume the bat was a prop, a marionette, that was manipulated very convincingly, and whoever was the “bat trainer” kudos. Very realistic. Unless of course, it was a bat. You could not tell. Though you knew it had to be not real. Or was it? See for yourself.

Dracula is all about us.

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What does this play and its popularity say about women’s fascination with blood-sucking vampires? With manipulative paramours? Is submission to a higher male power what women truly like? Women’s fascination with submission to the seductive vampire male, and men’s desire to hold hypnotic total control over women go a long way to explaining why Dracula is so enduring. Dracula,  being unable to achieve eternal life through sucking beautiful ingénues’ blood, has achieved it instead by media celebrity. Dracula explores each of our capacities for evil.

You will see and feel this seductive power for yourself two more times, Friday night at 8 at The Roch (Rochambeau School), and Saturday night at 8. Admission is $15, $12 for students and seniors. For more visit the www.forthillplayers.com website. Box office is at 914-309-7278.

Some young persons after the performance were obviously attracted to the power that is in this play, the young men already appearing more intense and Count-like than before they came to the show.

Special effects include a very convincing mist, and a disappearing act in full view. The audience loved this show, applauding for a full two minutes, cascading The Count and his Vampiress for their transformation back into the humans they play every day, before they stalk the night in search of hot blood.

The Spell of Dracula. Photo by WPCNR StageCam.

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WPCNR WHITE PLAINS LAW JOURNAL. From Pace University School of Law. October 19, 2004: The Women’s Justice Center (WJC) of the Pace University School of Law in conjunction with the Committee to Promote Gender Fairness in the 9^th Judicial District and the Westchester Women’s Bar Association will co-host an informative program entitled “Domestic Violence and Responsible Mediation:  A Critical Look at Screening and Safety” at the New York State Judicial Institute, located at the Pace University School of Law, 78 North Broadway, White Plains, New York, Omni Room, on Wednesday, October 27, 2004, from 6:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Reflecting wide community interest in mediation within domestic violence cases, this program hopes to bring to light current knowledge about the nature and dynamics of domestic violence and whether and when mediation may be appropriate.

The evening’s panels of speakers reflect a range of perspectives including Westchester County’s Family Court, Integrated Domestic Violence Court, and New York State’s statewide ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) Coordinator.

Hon. Joan O. Cooney, is now the Supervising Judge of the Family Court, Ninth Judicial District. While in the private practice of law, she concentrated in the areas of Family and Juvenile Law, serving as a law guardian for the Westchester County Family Court from 1977-1992. She became a leader in juvenile rights and responsibilities. Elected to Westchester County Family Court in 1992, Judge Cooney has presided in Yonkers Family Court, New Rochelle Family Court, and White Plains Family Court. As Supervising Judge since 1999, Judge Cooney started the first specialized Neglect and Abuse Part in the Ninth Judicial District to help foster children attain a permanent plan. Judge Cooney has also initiated a specialized Juvenile Delinquency Part and has worked to implement the Integrated Domestic Violence Part.

Hon. Daniel D. Angiolillo, is a Justice of the Supreme Court, Ninth Judicial District of the State of New York and presides over the Integrated Domestic Violence Court in Westchester County, thereby presiding over criminal, family and matrimonial matters in addition to appellate cases. This court is the first of its kind in New York State and serves as a model for other domestic violence courts around the state.  Prior to being elected to the Supreme Court, in 1993, Judge Angiolillo was elected as a County Court Judge in Westchester County. In 2003, he was appointed Associate Justice of the Appellate Term. Judge Angiolillo has further presided over New York State’s first Domestic Violence Felony/Misdemeanor Court since June 1999. He is a former prosecutor and current adjunct professor of law at Manhattanville College.

Daniel M. Weitz, Esq., is the Statewide ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) Coordinator for the New York State Unified Court System. Mr. Weitz oversees a statewide program of court-annexed ADR initiatives involving mediation, arbitration, neutral evaluation and summary jury trial. He also directs the Community Dispute Resolution Centers Program, which provides dispute resolution services as an alternative to civil, family, and minor criminal court litigation in all sixty-two counties of the State. Mr. Weitz has over twelve years of experience in the field of ADR, serving as administrator, professor, trainer, and practitioner. He is an Adjunct Clinical Professor at Cardozo School of Law and has taught ADR and conflict resolution at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Long Island University. Mr. Weitz has served as a mediator in a wide range of matters, including, general civil, family, employment, human rights, community, and police conduct cases.

Beginning with an introduction by Susan L. Pollet, Esq., Executive Director of the Pace Women’s Justice Center, who will also serve as moderator of the panel, the evening’s discussion will take up Mediation in Family Court Mediation in Integrated Domestic Violence Part and will end Screening for Domestic Violence in Mediation Cases. 

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WPCNR STAGE DOOR. From White Plains Performing Arts Center. (Edited) October 19, 2004: National television personalities Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford will host the First Anniversary Gala Celebration of the White Plains Performing Arts Center on Monday, November 8, beginning at 6:00 p.m.  The event will be held at the Performing Arts Center, located on Level 5 of City Center.  As Honorary Chairpersons of the event, Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford will join in the “Broadway Salutes White Plains” celebration, honoring White Plains Mayor Joseph Delfino for his vision and accomplishments over the years.

Ruppert Holmes and 10 Broadway Stars will perform hits from their shows in the original, one-time-only performance, “Broadway Salutes White Plains,” the second year in a row this unique “review” has been put together by WPPAC producers Tony Stimac and Jeffrey Rosenstock. 

The event will feature singer/songwriter Ruppert Holmes, a production number from the musical, “Swango,” an original piano concerto composed in honor of the special occasion, and 10 performers from various Broadway shows including “Les Miserables,”  “The Producers,” “Hairspray,” and “Spamelot,” a new musical adaptation of the most popular Monty Python movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, opening on Broadway in the Spring of 2005.

The Gala will begin at 6:00 p.m. with wine and hors d’ouevres, followed by performances at 7:30 p.m., and a post-performance coffee and dessert reception at 8:45 p.m.  Ticket prices range from $150 to $250, and all proceeds will benefit the White Plains Performing Arts Center.

For more information, please call the White Plains Performing Arts Center at (914) 328-1600, ext 10.

The White Plains Performing Arts Center is a professional not-for-profit producing and presenting company whose mission is to bring innovative, eclectic and always-entertaining new plays and musicals to this state-of-the-art facility. The Center also hosts local, national and international performing artists whose work reflects Westchester’s diverse population.

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WPNCR Sports Daddy. October 17, 2004: Ike Nduka was Da Bomb on Saturday afternoon, and Gary Morello  “Jerry Rice” catching the winning touchdown in Spring Valley in the White Plains Tigers 28-14 victory over the Ramapo High School Gryphons. WPCNR’s Sports Daddy talked with Ike about his 40 Carry, 220 yard overland performance , and the fearless tight end Gary Morello about this great victory.

IKE  “Nuke” NDUKA Great Day: 40 Carries, 220 Yards, 5.5 Yard a Carry on Saturday. Photo by WPCNR Sports

Ike Nduka: Am I tired? Yes. Actually you know what, in the second half, I wasn’t tired at all. Every play was a 100%. I don’t know what it was, maybe it was just, like, such an intense game?

Sports Daddy: What happened in that second half?

Ike: After the (first) half. All the players came together. All the coaches came together. We had a talk. We said we’re coming back out here and they’re not scoring and we’re scoring. That’s what happened.

Sports Daddy:  What were you doing on Defense that was cutting them down?

Ike:  We were just watching the fullback. Our number one goal was stop the fullback (Morgan Hall) Once we did that we started going on (other defensive) levels. We have a good pass defense. Our whole thing was to stop the run in the second half. (Ramapo only had the ball 7 minutes in the second half.)

Sports Daddy: What plays were working best for you on the ground?

Ike: Everything was working. Everybody was blocking. Everybody was working. We go to the inside, we go to the outside, we get the same amount of yards. Every player was stepping up in the second half.

Sports Daddy: You got that big sack on the QB in the 4^th Quarter (to stop the tying drive with 5 minutes to go)? What happened there?

Ike: That was something we call “The Guts.” I shoot the B Gap. So I shot the B Gap, I saw the Quarterback, hit the fullback first. Then what’s the next defensive level, I see the Quarterback trying to throw I grab him, started going for the ball, because we were trying to get him to fumble the ball, or whatever, so we could have good field position. Once we did that it became our game.

Sports Daddy: The touchdown takeaway in the first half, What happened on that one?

Ike: Oh, that one, I believe that was a ref’s mistake, you know? My knees were on the ground and I set the ball out ahead of me. But that’s my fault. Because that same thing happened last week and the week before. As a player it’s never going to happen again. That’s my goal. Once we hit the playoffs, no more fumbles, no more mistakes.

Next the Sports Daddy grabbed the G-Man, Gary Morello who caught the winning touchdown pass on 3^rd and 9 from the 10.

Sports Daddy: Gary tell me what happened on that touchdown play?

Gary Morello:  We were down there, and the corners (defensive backs) actually kept coming up for the run. So the coach called for the 45 Power Pass, I slipped out. I saw the kid jam, I sped up to the end zone, Kevin hit me right in my chest, and a touchdown. A great feeling. Right on the pilon. I hung on to it.

Then in the emotion of the moment, Gary talked about how the team played in the second half:

Gary:  Today’s the day when our team definitely peaked. Today was our peak day. In the second half against Roosevelt last week and today we played as a family. You look at these kids and you can see we’re really starting to play together. It was a great feeling.

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WPCNR PRESS BOX. By John F. Bailey. October 16, 2004: Danbury, Connecticut got its first professional sports team Friday evening, and brought hockey-starved fans the shiver of the crunch into the boards, the electric thrill of the kick-save-and-a-beauty, and the intricate beauty of the power play as the Danbury Trashers, big, rangy and fast and well-coached held off the high flying Adirondack Frostbite at the cheery Danbury Ice Arena.

HIGHWAY ROBBERY IN DANBURY: Trashers Scott Stirling robs Frostbite’s Rob Gardner(25) on a penalty shot try in the Opening Stanza. Stirling, poised, cobra like refused to be drawn out and smothered Gardner’s backhander. Photo by WPNR Sports.

The SRO crowd of approximately 2,000 fans delighted in the artful netminding of 6-2 205 pound Scott Stirling who turned away 31 shots and made a 2-1 lead stand up for two periods. The Trashers are big, rangy, beefy and amazing fast. They play disciplined position hockey herd around the goaltender like nimble buffalo and hit with the force of dumpsters on skates. They pushed the Frostbite around in the First Period, then held off challenge after challenge in a scoreless third stanza. The United Hockey League opener was entertaining end-to-end hockey, reminiscent of the way the game used to be when the Flying Frenchmen of legend swept down the ice.

GOALLLLLLLLL! Blake Bellefeuille, in “Evil Empire Black” to left of goal has just stuffed the puck inbetween the legs of Frostbite goaltender Derek Gustafson, after taking a feed from The Little Great One, Brent Gretsky, foreground to score the first-ever Trasher goal at 5:25 of the First Period. Trashers coralled a loose puck, Gretsky shoveled it to Blake who walked in between the circles cut in front and poked it through Gustafson’s pads. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

The Trashers got their second goal at 15:49, when Mike Bayrack in the last 5 seconds of a Trasher power play rifled home a pass from Bruce Richardson after Nick Bilotto started the play. The Trasher power play, disciplined, relentless for this early in the season could give the New York Rangers a clinic.

The first period saw the Danbury “Dumpsters” drop heavy loads on the Frostbite, pushing the lighter, faster Dacksters resoundingly into the boards, spinning them to the ice and keeping play deep in the Adirondack end, peppering the nimble Gastafson with 13 shots, 2 going in. There were frequent stoppages of play with 10 penalties called, five on each club.

In the second period, the Frostbite came out with a lot more swaggAH and style. Richard Boryczki, The Voice of the Adirondack Frostbite, covering the game for radio back to the “DAKS”, in his second year of doing radio for them, observed,

“It seemed like they (The Frostbite) came out a lot more physical and that the offense was just pumped up. I noticed guys like Scott Drevitch, Bruce Garner and Hugo Belanger being more physical and that’s usually not their style of play. But they were getting out there. I think Coach Marc Potvin said to them probably you got to toughen up you got  to push these guys around and don’t let them push you around. And Adirondack really came out and did that the second two periods. The Trashers did play really well tonight. They’re a very physical team. They stopped Adirondack many times. Danbury had a lot of opportunities in the last two periods, but Adirondack’s Gustafson and the Frostbite defense came up pretty good. This was a pretty good game and I’m looking forward to seeing the two teams battle throughout the season.”

WINGFIELD- PAGE: Thriller in the Circle. Brad Wingfield and Scott Page (inWhite), dropped the gloves and discussed goalie-running in the first three minutes of the second period. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

The new aggressiveness of the Frostbite lead to their only goal after a real hockey fight, reminiscent of the Red Wing Gordie Howe- Ranger Lou Fontinato matchup back in 1958. 

The Frostbite laid a flurry on the Trashers early in the second period, and suddenly there was Trashman Brad Wingfield (# 42), and the Frosties’ Scott Page dropping their gloves and swinging, blade to blade, while  linesmen watched. (No fools they.)

 It was a great fight with heavyweight dumpster, Brad Wingfield (who looks a lot like White Plains Police Commissioner, Frank Straub) at 6-0 and 220 giving away two inches in height, but outweighing Page by 15 pounds. In three minutes of more action than you’ll see in any professional fight, Wingfield got in a couple of crushing haymakers and got Page down to the ice.

Wingfield, who is BIG, (there is not one small Trasher except for # 19 Jim Duhart)  told WPCNR after the game what starts these fights:

“I had some words with the guy that ran our goalie earlier, and the guy, (Page) sort of stepped in for him and away it went. It doesn’t always take a lot in a hockey game especially when you’re excited for the first game ever in franchise history. You have to step up and do it. It;s a dirty job but it can be a lot of fun.”

Brad Wingfield signing autographs after the game for young fans with former Ranger from Nigeria, Roman Ndur, left. Wingfield had a lot of fun last night, picking up three minors and the fighting penalty.Photo by WPCNR Sports.

Then, right off the faceoff after the fight, the puck came to Bruce Gardner who whipped a low shot deadon into a melee convering on let, straight into the lower leftcorner past Stirling to make it 2-1. The Frostbite came close to tying, but never could get the equalizer, giving up an empty netter with 19 seconds to go in the final period. John Morlang fired in the empty netter, to make the final, 3-1, Danbury.

Third Period, end-to-end action.

The Trashers played poised hockey for the final 37 minutes, getting back clearing, bumping Frostbiters out from in front of Stirling. Never losing their poise like some blueshirted NHL teams in the area.

ALL GOALIE. NO NET. Scott Stirling in Goal for the Trashers,wacks away another in the Third Period where he made 15 saves of his 31 stops, many of them at point blank range. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 However, the Frostbite, flying like the Montreal Canadiens and the legendary Quebec Nordique,  just kept sweeping in for deft backhanders and dead-on shots that Trasher netminder Stirling handled with cat-like almost radar-like perception and reaction. Stirling is the premier goaltender from the ECHL, having won the Goaltender of the Year award in that league twice. The former star from Brown University (1996-2000), Stirling is worth coming out to see. Stirling exudes solidity in goal, closes off the posts and never allows the rebound.

His style is to lurk back deep in the crease not giving any room to the corners, and is blessed with lightning reaction, anticipating the shot and having the patience poise gives, he stopped shot after shot almost as if in slow-motion. He is fast to the stop. And feisty, not hesitating to take a whack with his stick at forwards lurking too close. He even got a high sticking penalty for that in the First Period at 19:21. This was one of the best goaltending performances this reporter has seen in person. His best save came with 7:20 to go in the game when a breakway Frostbiter came in on him swooped to Scott’s left and bulleted one low to Scottie’s left but he smothered it in his pads. A great save.

ANOTHER KICK SAVE AND A BEAUTY IN THE THIRD PERIOD. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

The crowd saw hockey of the past: hard-hitting, great effort, and very nice offensive rushes. The Trashers mix it in the corners, and showed the ability to throw on the pressure with man-advantage.

They defend the power play well, shutting out the Frostbite six times when a man down.

Danbury plays in Elmira Saturday night, and returns for a Sunday Mantinee at 5:30 P.M. in Danbury against the Fort Wayne Comets. Fans can listen to the action on the internet in Elmira tonight, by going to the Danbury Trashers website at www.danburytrashers.com.