Yes, for those of you not keeping up with it, the Bears fell to Bridgeport 4-1 thisafternoon, giving Varlamov his first solo AHL loss. Due to the immense amount of suck currently emanating from his team, GM Doug Yingst threw himself off his roof. (In all honesty though, YIKES, Yingstmeister… glad to hear he sounds just beat up and not comatose.)

The most amusing part of the game, (for those not listening on the radio,) had to have been John Walton’s righteous indignation over the fact that Andrew Gordon had a 10 minute misconduct called on him for “abuse of officials.” As Walton put it, “if there was a candidate for an AHL Lady Bing, it’d be Gordo.” Supposedly #10 was having himself as good a time as any in the box though, as it was reported that he was laughing with his jailer about something partway through the penalty.

Your one goal scorer for tonight was Karl Alzner with his second of the year, assisted by Mink and Giroux. Beagle was out with an injury, and G. McNeill moved up while P.McNeill dressed for the first time in a while. (and by “a while” we mean like, a week…. end.)

The current hope is that this is the Bears’ mid-season slump come early, but it’s not ridiculously confidence-boosting when you have 4 players in the top 20 all-AHL stats wise and you can’t win a game to save yourself. What this says to me is that the forward lines aren’t where it’s falling apart…. granted, they may still be trying to fancy it up too much, but when you’re double the number of shots that the other team has taken and still trailing by one, it’s your defense falling apart. With Deano out nursing his midsection again, Sloaner up to the big boys, and Machesney falling apart on a nightly basis, someone in the back ranks needs to step it the heck up and either motivate the rest of them or show them how its’ done. Alzner’s goal was a nice start tonight, especially for a guy who’s usually more stay-at-homey than the love child of Shaone Morrisonn and Martha Stewart, but I’m looking for more, and I’m not pleased to see that the authority back there now is Helmer and Amadio, as I’ve been underwhelmed by both of them in the live games I’ve seen.

P. McNeill, Collins… it’s your turn. Step up and play.