Sitting at 14-1-0 for his first season as a North American pro, maybe Rochester Amerks goalie Alexander Salak has earned a right to some cockiness.
And down 0-6 to the Amerks this season, maybe the Syracuse Crunch are due to be a little aggravated.
But the two conditions came to a head today when the Amerks put a 7-4 hurting on the Crunch in front of their home crowd, and Salak left modesty and reserve at the door.
Salak vs. the Crunch earlier this season – Photo by Keith Wozniak/Let’s Go Amerks
I won’t do a recap of a recap of a recap, but I’ll point you to stories from both sides:
- The Crunch are covered by beat writer Lindsay Kramer, and here is his initial blog report with some pretty heated reaction from the Crunch locker room, as well as Salak’s reasoning. Then a follow-up blog with his own thoughts on the matter.
- And here is, essentially, the rebuttal from Keith Wozniak, who covers Rochester on his blog, Let’s Go Amerks.
On the surface, it’s great theater. Salak wiping off the glass for the goal judge, an exuberant win celebration in a hostile barn, the “watch it now, kid” stuff coming from the Syracuse room.
Obviously, you don’t want hockey to be too much about showboating and cocky goalies and antics, but you won’t ever convince me that the occasional spicy goalie is bad for the game, especially when they play as well as Salak does, by almost all accounts.
Where’s the line between cocky goalie and confident goalie or between bad sportsmanship and showmanship?
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3 Responses to Salak fuels Syracuse/Rochester rivalry
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Salak is awesome!
The fact that he is sooooo far inside the Crunch’s domes is even funnier.
The Crunch need to worry about beating weaker teams than the Amerks before they even think about getting past the best team in Upstate NY.
I don’t watch or keep up with the AHL much, but this is an entertaining dialogue between sports writers to say the least. I just finished Patrick Roy’s biography and it was really interesting to read about things Roy did and said (nothing horrible but very subtle) to get into his opponents heads. I say if Salak can get by with it, stay out of trouble and plays in a manner to back it up … more power to him!
The post-to-post-and-out goal sounds kinda odd. Although I didn’t see it or the game, it seems improbable that it would be able to cross the goal line under those circumstances. Any comments from anyone who watched the game? Do they not have a video review in the AHL?
Nope, no review in AHL. Here’s the highlight reel from that game:
http://ahl.neulion.com/team/console.jsp?catid=2&id=3758
I believe he said it was the first Syracuse goal that was in question but that one is CLEARLY in the net, and they show 2 fewer goals than the final tally so I’m guessing due to time constraints, they left that one off since it wasn’t of the “he shoots, he scores” nature.