The Hershey Bears have their new coach and longtime Capitals fans may remember the name.
Former Capitals defenseman Todd Nelson will be the Hershey Bears’ 28th coach in franchise history.
Nelson replaces Scott Allen who was promoted to the Washington Capitals as an assistant coach in late July.
The Hershey Bears announced on Thursday that the team’s head coach, Spencer Carbery, and two members of Carbery’s coaching staff, assistant coach Patrick Wellar and goaltending coach Alex Westlund, have been signed to multi-year contract extensions.
The signings come as the Bears lead the AHL’s North Division (16-5-2) and are the third-best team in the league overall (.739 points percentage). The Bears have won five straight games and nine of their last 10.
Tuesday afternoon the Hershey Bears announced that former Bears player Patrick Wellar would be returning to the organization as an assistant coach. Wellar will be replacing Reid Cashman, who was recently promoted to an assistant coach with the Capitals.
Wellar spent six seasons as a defenseman with the Bears from 2008-2014, helping the team win the Calder Cup in 2010. His first coaching job was during his time as a Bears player, filling in as an assistant coach when Mark Haviland, head coach at the time, could not attend a game due to a medical issue.
By Rachel Cohen 5 years ago
Galiev and Kashirsky hold the Kelly Cup after the game. (Photo credit: @Galixon_97)
Caps prospect Stan Galiev, the 29th ranked prospect in the world coming into this season, may not have stuck with the AHL’s Hershey Bears all year long, but the Russian forward rebounded in a big way with the ECHL’s Reading Royals. The Russian winger scored 47 points in 46 games, including this sick goal which got him featured on SportsCenter’s Top 10 in early December. Galiev continued performing for the Royals in the playoffs, scoring 11 points in 13 playoff games to help Reading win the 2012-13 championship.
Above: Chris Bourque skies in the air to keep the puck on his stick. Top: Bourque and Andrew Gordon celebrate the GWG. (Photos by Chris Knight, The Patriot-News)
After an absolutely dreadful start which saw the Bears take a 3-1 deficit into the first intermission, even the most optimistic of Bears fans would have thought that the chances of Hershey coming back in this series were slim. But Head Coach Mark French showed confidence in his players and made the necessary adjustments. He allowed Michal Neuvirth to return in net for the second period, despite witnessing last year’s playoff MVP flub a clearing attempt on a first-period powerplay. Neuvy’s whiff led to Texas’s second goal of the night, an unassisted short-handed goal by Francis Wathier. French then subtlety tinkered with his forward combinations promoting Chris Bourque to the top line and dropping the 2008-09 AHL MVP, Alexandre Giroux, to the second. It paid immediate dividends.
Hershey went on to score five unanswered goals, punctuated by two third period tallies by Andrew Gordon which included the eventual game-winning goal. The Hershey Bears win 6-3. The high-octane offense has returned!
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Andrew Gordon is wiped out along the boards by Aaron Gagnon. (Photos by Joe Hermitt, The Patriot-News)
If you’ve ever played a competitive sport at any high-level, you know the importance of momentum. It’s something that cannot be accurately measured by statistics, but its presence will never show up on any box-score. Watching game two of the Calder Cup Finals between the Hershey Bears and the Texas Stars tonight, it was obvious who had momentum in the final ten minutes of the game: The Hershey Bears. Despite the Chocolate and White never leading during regulation, Andrew Gordon’s electrifying put-back off a Patrick Wellar shot from the right point rallied the troops and tied the game 3-3 with 9:16 to go. And after Stars’ Defenseman Matt Stephenson went off for a four-minute double minor for high-sticking towards the tail end of a Bears Powerplay, it seemed like fate was on the Bears side.
It was not to be. The Bears could not score during the ensuing 31 seconds of their 5 on 3 advantage and fretted away the first 1:16 of their 5 on 4. Then, after a whistle, Boyd Kane lost his temper during a scrum and speared a Texas player. The back linesman saw it, notified the head official, and Kane was sent off for four minutes, negating the rest of the Bears Powerplay. Hello, 4-on-4 hockey. Goodbye, momentum.
By 13 years ago
