Editor’s Note: To welcome play-by-play announcer Ian Tasso to the world of Wranglers blogging, “Off The Ice: Behind the Ice with Rachel Wright” has become “Two Minutes For Blogging” to best encompass all the subjects that Rachel and Ian will be writing about. Enjoy!
by Ian Tasso
If you’re not from the Boston area, or anywhere else where the winter temperatures can reach -20 degrees on a warm afternoon, chances are you’re not familiar with who I am.
My name is Ian Tasso, and for the past few months, Ive been manning the play-by-play booth up in section 117 of the Orleans Arena. Before I moved to Las Vegas, I was spending my days contributing to the Boston Globe sports section, on top of filling the Beantown air waves with enough radio sports talk to blow out a brand new pair of Dr. Dre headphones.
But it turns out, -20 degree winters can be a bit bothersome, especially when youre trying to move, breathe, smile, or any other task you can think of that would be more difficult if you were frozen. That’s why in August of 2011, I decided to take my talents to the City of Sin, and I couldnt be happier. I’ve landed in an amazing sports franchise, with a terrifically talented team and even better fans.
And as much fun as it is manning the ship behind the microphone – and believe me, it’s probably more fun than it should be - I’ve decided to take an even deeper look at the Wranglers. From now until whenever you get sick and tired of reading this stuff, I’ll be breaking down all kinds of Wrangler action, both on and off the ice.
Suggestions? Email them to me. Comments? Tweet them to me at @Tasso_Sports. Constructive critisicm? Keep it to yourself – I don’t respond well to negativity. But after this weekend’s 3-0 domination of a homestand, I decided it was time to put down the mic and headphones for a second, and take to the paper and pen.
And what a weekend it was for the Las Vegas Wranglers.
Friday night, a freight train of a team came blistering into the Orleans Arena, and all Las Vegas did was snap a streak that, at the time, seemed almost un-snappable.
Sports are kind of like that, though.
When a baseball player’s on a hot streak, he’ll be the first to tell you the game changes.
Things slow down – the game, the pitcher, the cheers from the crowd – to the point where you can almost count each and every stitch on the ball as it inches towards the plate. It feels like you’re standing up there with one of those Mark McGwire vortex wiffle ball bats as the pitcher is under-handing beach balls to you.
But the opposite also holds true – when a hitter’s gone cold for a few days, or even a few weeks, the ball seems to shrink to half its size, and it feels like trying to square up a 90 mph marble with a fly swatter.
In hockey it’s more of the same; for a goaltender, the hotter you get, the smaller your net gets, and the more it seems as if players are slap-shotting stuffed animals at you rather than whizzing pucks. If you’re a goal scorer on a hot streak, the net might as well be twice as big – and completely empty – as you feather pucks into the goal almost at will, sun-burning the crowd as the red light flickers on and off.
It’s a game of ups and downs, peaks and valleys. Every sport is. In When you’re up, it seems like you might never come down, and the game becomes almost childish. Videogame-like. When you’re down, it feels like you’ll never get back up, and you almost want to hang up the jersey and walk away.
That’s what makes this past weekend’s series against the Ontario Reign so impressive for Las Vegas.
Ontario came into the weekend red-hot. And I mean red-hot. Red hot like, “Don’t touch that stove or you’ll never get the feeling back in your fingers,” hot.
The Reign hadn’t lost in their past seven games and goaltender Chris Carrozzi was guarding a mouse hole of a net, having not allowed a single goal in 2012. Ontario was in the midst of a rampage through the ECHL, outscoring their opponents 22-1 in their past four games.
Las Vegas found out exactly how hot they were on Jan. 11, as the Reign trounced the Wranglers 6-0 in Ontario. The win extended Carrozzi’s shutout streak to two games and kept his 2012 goals against average at a perfect 0.00.
But all that changed on Friday.
Trailing Ontario 1-0, with only four minutes to go in what would be Carrozzi’s third straight shutout, defenseman Michael Busto took it upon himself to strap on his Wayne Gretzky boots and get down to business. The British Columbia native undressed the Ontario defense and feathered a perfect feed onto Adam Miller’s stick, resulting in a tic-tac-toe “Mona Lisa” of a goal to tie the game at one.
Somehow, Las Vegas had found a way to squeeze a puck into Chris Carrozzi’s miniature net.
And with that, Las Vegas had cracked the Reign’s armor. Just a small crack, but a crack nonetheless. And sometimes, for a team as vicious and pestering as this Las Vegas squad, that’s all it takes.
Only a short five minutes later, alternate captain Barry Goers snapped off a sizzling wrister from the slot that wound up in the upper 90 of Carozzi’s child-sized goal, winning the game 2-1 for Las Vegas in overtime.
Saturday was more of the same, another tightly contested grinder of a game where the Wranglers found themselves up 2-1 on Ontario late in the third. That was until forward Adam Huxley hammered home an empty netter, sending the home crowd of nearly 7,000 into a flurry, and the Ontario Reign – along with their hot streak – packing.
Perhaps it’s the mystique of the Orleans Arena, where the boys in black and white have posted a sparkling 16-3-2 record. Or perhaps it’s the gel in the locker room, which after a weekend like this, seems almost Elmer’s Glue-like.
Whatever it may be, this team’s got some spunk. They’ve got some fire. And with guys like Jeff May coming off the injured list, they’re also getting healthier.
Just ask the Ontario Reign, who saw their perfect ice-cream cone of a streak dumped on the ground right in front of them on Friday and Saturday. Or the Colorado Eagles, who exited the Orleans Arena with their tail feathers between their legs after having an Adam Huxley fist sandwich shoved down their throats in a 5-1 loss.
This Wranglers team is clicking.
And if Alaska isn’t careful, they might find out exactly how hot the ice can get in Las Vegas when they come to town in February.
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