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WPCNR PRESS BOX. By John F. Bailey. March 11, 2005: The Fastest Game On Earth  was the tagline Madison Square Garden used to promote the New York Rangers back when there was a National Hockey League in the 1950s. The Broadway Blues always had tickets and used to run tiny hockey stick shaped ads in the sports sections of the old Herald Tribune and World-Telegram and Sun to fill the blue smokey rafters of the old garden where you were right on top of the action. Kids could attend 2 PM Garden games against the Red Wings, the Bruins, Black Hawks and Maple Leafs and of course The Flying Frenchmen.

 

 

The Voice of the Bad Boys of Hockey is Ebersole Rink’s own John Ransom who invented phrases such as “Be part of the Evil Empire,” and “The Bad Boys of Hockey,” Ransom handles public address duties at the Danbury Arena and contributes to the family entertainment atmosphere and the creation of the Danbury Trashers mystique. Fans come out and come back thanks to the friendly ushers, the well-disciplined crowd control, and a “family” crowd evenly divided between college students with their dates and families with hockey playing sons and daughters. Ransom’s son has become involved with the team as a stick boy and despite their rough and rowdy, no-nonsense ice style, the players have become the darlings of Danbury. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

The Danbury Arena: Home of the Trashers. Newly refurbished and has become a Danbury hub thanks to the Trashers. Photo by WPCNR Sports

 

Well, the NHL ruined itself this season, but the fastest game on earth lives in places like Bridgeport, Providence, Flint, Fort Wayne, Kansas City, Elmira, Adirondack in the United Hockey League and the American Hockey League. Instead of the Flying Frenchmen The Tri-State area has the Bad Boys of Hockey, the Danbury Trashers, owned by the youngest owner in sports A. J. Gallante owner of a carting company in the Danbury area who has singlehandedly given Danbury a team it has taken to heart,  supporting their Bad Boys with an average attendance of 2,400 fans a game.They have drawn 81,345 in 34 dates.  Tonight in the first of two straight home games they meet the Adirondack Frostbite their chief rival in the UHL Eastern Division. The gloves will be flying.

 

HOCKEY IS ALIVE! IT’S ALIVE! At the Danbury Arena. Here the Trashers in white attack the Motor City Mechanics. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

The United Hockey League is a well-balanced league considering that the Trashers have a 12-8-5 record in 1-goal games and a 14-3 record in 2-goal games. The games are competitive, end-to-end action, and are highly energetic. These are young professionals playing because they love the game, certainly not for the money or the 1,500 mile busrides from Danbury to Michigan, Missouri, Indiana and western New York.

 

The New Philadelphia Flyers. The Main Street Maulers.

 

The young Trashers from their opening game were the targets of the league as older teams tried to push the new guys around. The Trashers were having none of it and lead the league in penalty minutes with 2,378.  There was one game where the owner even got involved in an altercation, but John Ransome says he was there and it was blown out of proportion. The league actually banned a Trasher for life from taking a poke at a coach. However, there has been bad blood built up over the course of the season

 

Number 40: Ruman Ndur – The Trasher you don’t want to mess with. Within the first 10 minutes of every game, there’s usually a fight as the Trashers defend their ice and themselves.  Ruman Ndur has a classic fighting style, he drops his gloves, rolls up his sleeves, and poses like John L. Sullivan. The fans love him. Photo by WPCNR Sports

 

The Boys in Black are penalized so much they have 18 short-handed goals. Though big, they are fast and get a ton of breakaways as opponents with a skater advantage attempt to “pinch in.”  For the record, the Trashers in  65 games have 92 Majors – that’s at least 92 tiffs, with 474 Minor Penalties, 8 Bench Penalties, and an astounding 58 Misconducts. They are very touchy feely guys and very sensitive.

 

Trashers Congrat Scott Stirling on another win. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

 

The Trashers have the best goaltender in the league Scott Stirling who leads the league in wins with 31 wins and has a 2.31 Goals Against Average. He has lightning like reactions and looks like a cross between Bernie Parent and Terry Sawchuck. He fills the goal but has matinee-idol looks behind the mask. The T-men play excellent defense in front of him, kill penalties well and always are battling the odds. They like this image.

 

The Trashers have made it easy to purchase tickets to their games, by telephone and on the internet through an easy-to-navigate website, www.danburytrashers.com. On the site the fan gets a complete update on the previous game and can access the entire league’s statistics, including attendance figures.

 

 

TRASHER PLAY-BY-PLAY ON THE NET: in this reporter’s opinion, what has gotten Danbury to come on out and support the hockey club is that the team internet-casts all of its games on their website free with an audio play-by play, relayed worldwide by their Public Information Director, Phil Giubileo at the microphone. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

For fans who miss hockey on television they can watch the Trashers play at home, enjoying Mr. Giubileo’s play-by-play with the web live telecast for $6 a game. No doubt, the ability to follow a team when the local media are not covering them is what has helped the Trashers grow in popularity. (New York-New Jersey Juggernaut, National Pro Fastpitch Teams take note).

 

The Price is right.

 

Everything about the Trasher operation is big league except the prices. They fit a working reporter’s pocket book. For less than the cost of two beers at Madison Square Garden, you can watch two hours of hockey action, and enjoy beer (cut off after two periods), soda and concessions at prices that are very reasonable. A Trasher front row seat is $12. For that you get Zamboni Races on the video screen; replays of goals, fights, and sequences on the big video jumbotron; and you are closer to the action, virtually on top of the game. It reminds you of the Old Madison Square Garden.

 

THE SAN DIEGO CHICKEN HAS MET HIS MATCH: It’s Scrappy the Trasher launching Trasher T-shirts to the fans inbetween periods. Photo by WPCNR Sports

 

The Staff is nice and you have parking.

 

You can park in the Danbury garage, or at the railroad station lot across the tracks next to the old Danbury Railroad Museum. You can park for $4.50, even get walk-up tickets at the door. But, the team is very popular, so I suggest phoning ahead.

 

 

The World’s Sexiest Zamboni — Always a Thrill. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

Inside the arena, the staff does everything possible to make you feel welcome. The box office girls are pleasant, the souveniers are really big league, the ushers are always glad to see you. The concessions move fast. The arena is intimate and there are no bad seats.

 

Never a dull moment.

 

The pregame introductions introduce “The Evil Empire, your Danbury Trashers.” Every stoppage of action, for “discussions,” or whatever,  produces hard-driving up tempo music that keeps the jive going that appeals to the twenty-somethings and the 50-somethings.

 

Inbetween periods there is the world’s sexiest Zamboni, painted to look like a sanitation truck (the Trashers are owned by a carting company). There is the ever popular Chuck-a-Puck raffle, where hundreds of fans throw pucks on the ice with hopes of taking home a pot of money. There are promotions. At a recent Motor City Mechanics game, two local girls hockey 12-and-under teams competed. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

The Trashers do a lot of promotions and outreach to local groups, and thanks to their internet play-by-play, fans (mostly children) are able to keep in touch with the outstanding young men who visit schools to clinic youngsters coming up. The Trashers are only tough on the ice. They are good interviews and clean cut. They also travel on the road in jacket and tie.

 

TRASHERS SUPPORTED THE Danbury Hornets — a 12-under Girls Hockey Team that played an exhibition between periods. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

The Trashers are getting set for the playoffs, having four home games remaining after this two-game set with Adirondack. Upcoming home action is with Elmira, March 18; Richmond, March 23; Motor City, March 26 and the final home game is with Muskegon, March 27. The Trashers play their final 7 on the road before playoffs start mid-April.

 

 

 

Trashers to watch are leading scorer Number 22, Bruce Richardson with 20 goals and 54 assists; the opportunistic Blake Bellefeuille, Number 13 with 16 goals and 14 assists; Jeff Daw, Number 11 with 21 goals and 42 assists (63 points);  and Number 24, Dan Cristiansen with 19 goals and 26 assists for 45 points.

 

KICK SAVE ON A PENALTY SHOT by Scott Stirling. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

Top policeman on the team is former  Ranger, the big defenseman from Nigeria, Number 40, Ruman Ndur, a fan favorite and Number 71, Mario LaRocque, a little tough guy who has 26 assists as a defensemen. I miss Brad Wingfield, Number 42, who broke his leg several weeks ago in a wild game. Wingfield’s wife works the souvenir stand in Danbury and reports big Brad is mending well but that his only hockey now is on the PC.

 

 

 

The Trashers also lost their stylish winger Brent Gretzky, who this reporter saw score several impossible goals earlier in the year. Nevertheless the Trashers are second in the division to Adirondack who they play tonight back-to-back at the Big D in Danbury.

 

The Trashmen have a record of 38-22-5 behind the DACK’s 41-15-8, 9 points behind with 11 games to play.

 

 

 

 YOU TALKIN TO ME? SCRAPPY WANTS TO SEE YOU THERE AT THE PLAYOFFS. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

 

 

 

 

 

WPCNR PARENT ABOUT TOWN. March 10, 2005: The White Plains High School Symphony Orchestra and Eighth Grade Orchestra, and the WPHS Symphonic Band presented their Mid-Winter Concert Thursday evening and held an audience of 400 spellbound with their artistry, sensitivity and complexity of presentation. 

 

William Eckfield, the ebullient Director of the WPHS Symphony Orchestra and Eighth Grade Orchestra collaboration charmed the audience first with his impeccable high school and Eighth Grade combination which played the McPherson’s Lament evoking with sensitivity strings those ancient moors. Photo by WPCNR StageCam.

What impresses this reporter is that the combination of the two orchestras (Eight Grade and High School)  only had one reheasal and that was Tuesday. The cooperation and cohesion between the two groups is a tribute to Mr. Eckfield’s way with children and the pride and professionalism of the children themselves. They sound more interesting than a professional orchestra. They never play tired. They always play sensitive. They attack the music and take it apart and deliver it.

Ecfield picks not easy pieces either. The 1812 Overture showed the audience that with splendid, seamless transitions from section to section, and my admiration for the young lady on the bells. The cellos and basses lay a beautiful bed complimenting the sensitive strings. Eckfield has a  way of making selections showcase every section of the orchestras. We have heard eighth graders enjoy and look forward to playing with the High School orchestra in these concerts as a right of passage continuing the musical tradition at White Plains High school, rated in the Top Ten High Schools for Music in the country.

Eckfield returned to the podium after a brief intermission with his White Plains High School Symphony Orchestra playing Mozart’s Oveture to The Abduction, Fascinating Rhythm and then delivered the piece de resistance, Phantom of The Opera Selections. Photo by WPCNR StageCam

 

The orchestra displayed the professionalism of every section, every player. The violins were delicate and forefront when they had to be; the horns supportive on the Mozart classic, flourishing romantically on Gershwin’s Fasinating Rhythm (that really is not one of the great arrangments), then really doing star turns on The Phantom of the Opera. (It’s not easy being brass in an orchestra, but they do not override the string artistes). This Phantom was forceful, this Phantom was delicate on segues into Music of the Night, holding you spellbound. I loved the very pressure packed flute solos in this.  The WPHS Symphonic Orchestra gave this most florid of pieces a class and refinement that made it beautiful.

Mr. Eckfield from what we are told is well-liked by his very serious young muscians. You can hear it.

STAND UP AND BOW! BRAVO! The White Plains High School Symphonic Band getting two minutes of applause. Photo by WPCNR StageCam.

 

After intermission, the curtain swept back (so glad to see a stage in White Plains use a curtain!) on the White Plains High School Symphonic Band under the direction of the effervescent Lesley Tompkins. The best band in all the land delivered a bouncy ingratiating toe-tapping version of Eine Kleine Yiddishe Ragmusic by Adam Gorb, then showed all their bench on The March from 1941 by John Williams. The swells of the march themes, the boom of the brass, the joy of the clarinets and the thunder of the percussion (WPHS lays down persussion support that just lifts you to heights when they’re playing behind you), made this reporter hanker for his old trombone and Pleasantville High School Military Band uniform again. WPHS closed with Ride by Samuel R. Hazo.

These groups have such a great sound, ladies and gentlemen, and these concerts simply get better, the musicians better, the entertainment better every time I hear them. These organizations play as a team and take their sound and their presentation seriously. You can hear it.

The White Plains High School Mixed Emsemble and White Plains High School Choir will perform March 22 in their portion of the concert, due to their inability to perform Thursday evening. A compact disk recording was made of Thursday’s concert and will include the choir portion.