Ice Flyers Christen The New Year At Home Where Crowds And Wins Have Wowed
By Bill Vilona
Ice Flyers.com Correspondent
Much of the Ice Flyers time on New Year’s Eve was spent on a bus.
The team left Wednesday morning, traveled 350 miles or so to Macon, Georgia for the 5 p.m. (CST) game against the Macon Mayhem, and secured a 2-1 victory before immediately returning to Pensacola.
That meant ringing in New Year at midnight somewhere on a highway. Or in this case, twice in two time zones.
“What’s better than that, when you’re together, right?” said Ice Flyers coach Jeremy Gates, smiling. “We’ll have two midnights.
“I think when you have a team that’s had early success and a locker room that enjoys each other’s company, I think it makes it more enjoyable. It’s all about how you look at it and embrace it. The guys will play cards, watch movies, chill out…it’s fine.”
The Ice Flyers (15-5, 3 OT losses) entered Wednesday night’s game needing a win to supplant Huntsville again for first place in the SPHL standings.
After taking New Year’s Day off on Thursday to relax and recharge, the Ice Flyers play back-to-back home games on Friday and Saturday at the Pensacola Bay Center against the Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs.
This will end a stretch of eight games in 13 days that began on Dec. 20. Talk about a holiday rush. It is by far the busiest stretch in the Ice Flyers season.
Just three days into January, the Ice Flyers will be nearly halfway through their season schedule.
“It’s a lot of games in a short amount of days, so taking care of your body is huge,” said Ice Flyers rookie winger Sam Rhodes, the team’s leading scorer. “I personally like to ice bath (after game), other guys do biking, stretching, and for every guy it’s a little different.
“Whatever we have to do to care of our bodies, the guys are dialed in to do. We have a good group and guys that prepare well, so we will continue to do that the rest of this week.
“Getting back late on the bus can mess with everyone’s sleep schedule, but everyone is used to it and it’s part of our job. So we just try and prepare and get as much rest as we can and get ready to go.”
Along with the Ice Flyers strong start, the seamless transition of new players and new coaches, the other standout element has been the home ice advantage, fueled by large crowds.
The Ice Flyers have already drawn more than 75,000 fans to 13 home games at the Bay Center. Because the arena capacity is listed at 5,608 – due to rare usage of the upper bowl – the Ice Flyers attendance percentage to capacity is currently at 103.8-percent.
The only other team in that same vicinity is the Huntsville Havoc at 96-percent. The Havoc have played one more home game and lead the SPHL with 83,324 in attendance.
The Bay Center’s upper bowl was needed on Dec. 27 to accommodate a sellout crowd of 8,082 for the game against Huntsville on Military Appreciation Night.
“I was going out for pregame warmups (about 30 minutes before first puck drop) and the upper bowl was over half-filled then,” said Gates, whose team is 9-2 at home, plus two overtime losses. “Just the energy in the building for the game was amazing.
“Even though there wasn’t a heck of lot of scoring (a 2-1 Havoc win), it was a tight hockey game with scrums and fights. So it was a good hockey game if you were into the game.
“Our entire front office…the full time staff, the interns, they do an awesome job. It takes all hands on deck when there are that many people in the building. The players absolutely love the atmosphere. They love playing here.”
Rhodes said the only time he played a game with that many fans occurred during his junior hockey days in London, Ontario and a season in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in the United States Hockey League – the top junior league in the U.S.
The Ice Flyers learned hours before last Saturday’s game at the Bay Center that ticket sales were surging toward a sellout.
“We got a little bit of an idea what the crowd was going to be like… we heard were like only 600 or something tickets left, so we were definitely juiced for that,” Rhodes said.
“Going out there before the game and seeing everyone, and hearing how loud the crowd was the entire game was just incredible,” Rhodes said. “I don’t think we had (Bay Center) that full yet this year, so it was a pretty cool experience.
“Obviously when you’re on the ice you want to just focus on the game and you kind of tune it all out, but when things happen like the line brawl (late in second period) or we score and you hear how loud the crowd gets, it kind of clicks to you again just how many people that are actually here.”
The way the game ended – the Havoc getting a go-ahead goal on a late power play with just 1:09 left – did not sit well with Gates or the players.
That was the final scheduled meeting against Huntsville this season. Heading into Wednesday game in Macon, all five of the Ice Flyers losses have been against the Havoc. But after losing the first three games this season to Huntsville by a combined 20-6, the Ice Flyers erased the gap in every aspect.
“At the beginning of the year when we played them, they were out-pro-ing us,” Gates said. “They had more experience, and we were like a deer in headlights.
“Over the course of this first part of the season, we have understood and identified what kind of team we are. We have gotten harder as a team. As far as team-tough goes, we learned how to get in front of things and that’s been a huge factor that we’re not going to get pushed around.”
WANT TO GO?
WHO: Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs vs. Ice Flyers
WHEN: Friday and Saturday, both games start at 7:05 p.m.
WHERE: Pensacola Bay Center.
TICKETS: www.iceflyers.com or the Bay Center box office.
