After a disappointing end to year two, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers geared up for the 2002-03 season. With the arrival of the 2003-04 season, the makeup of the Sound Tigers looked drastically different than the one from the year prior.

Following the end of the 2002-03 season, the Sound Tigers began the search for a new head coach. Steve Stirling, the man who led the Bridgeport Sound Tigers during their first two seasons, was promoted to the Head Coach of the New York Islanders. Replacing Stirling was Greg Cronin. Cronin served as an assistant coach for the Islanders under Butch Goring, Lorne Henning, and Peter Laviolette during the past four seasons.

Mixing the Old With the New

Coming into 2003-04, the Sound Tigers brought back about three-fourths of their roster from the year prior. Back with Bridgeport were Eric Manlow, Alan Letang, Alain Nasreddine, Brandon Smith, and Blaine Down. Justin Mapletoft returned for his third season but split the year between the Islanders and the Sound Tigers. Bridgeport also lost Justin Papineau to the Islanders for part of the season, but making up for the loss of Papineau was second-year forward Jeff Hamilton. Finally, replacing Eric Godard, who spent the majority of the year in the NHL, was Graham Belak, who spent parts of two seasons with the Sound Tigers.

Bridgeport knew they needed some more scoring to make up for expected losses in Papineau, Mapletoft, and Raffi Torres. To make up for the lost scoring, the Sound Tigers brought in Rob Collins, Derek Bekar, Ryan Kraft, and Ben Guite, who was an original Sound Tiger but was traded to the Mighty Ducks in 2002.

Another addition that turned out to be key was Kevin Colley. Colley was no stranger to longtime area hockey fans. Kevin’s father Tom was a legendary player for the New Haven Nighthawks and is considered to be “Mr. Nighthawk” His #9 was put into the rafters in the old New Haven Coliseum. Kevin Colley spent the 2002-03 season in Atlantic City with the Boardwalk Bullies and caught the eye of Steve Stirling, whose son Scott (who played in ten games with Bridgeport in 2002-03) was the starting goaltender for the Bullies. Atlantic City won the Kelly Cup and Colley was a major reason why.

A Change in Goal

A change was needed in between the pipes for the Sound Tigers. The Edmonton Oilers signed Steve Valiquette, while Rick DiPietro took over the starting goaltender job with the Islanders. To replace the star tandem that helped get Bridgeport to the playoffs, they signed University of Denver star goaltender Wade Dubielewicz. The Sound Tigers also signed Dieter Kochan. Kochan played 21 NHL games with Tampa Bay and Minnesota and was the backup goaltender with the Calder Cup Champion Houston Aeros. Scott Stirling served as Bridgeport’s third-string, and Rick DiPietro made a cameo appearance for two games.

A New Look and New Leadership

Going into the 2003-04 season, the Sound Tigers debuted a new uniform. They took inspiration from the New York Islanders’ “Orange Star” design while replacing the orange with a blue jersey. It would serve as the Sound Tigers’ alternate jersey

Prior to the season, Greg Cronin announced that Alan Letang was named the first captain in team history after the Sound Tigers just had alternate captains for the first two seasons. Eric Manlow, Brandon Smith, Alain Nasreddine, and Ryan Kraft serve as alternate captains on a rotating basis.

A Fast Start

The Bridgeport Sound Tigers arguably had their best start in team history. After starting 1-3-1, the Sound Tigers went on an unprecedented 20-game unbeaten streak with 17 wins and three ties. Before the streak, Bridgeport had won and lost in overtime, so the Sound Tigers had a 22-game point streak, earning 38 out of a possible 42 points in that span. The streak started on October 19th, the team’s first win of the season, and ended on December 17th at home against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

At the start of 2003, Jeff Hamilton was red hot, leading the AHL in goals with 25, and the Sound Tigers in points with 42. The Sound Tigers were sitting at 23-7-5-2 with 53 points, the best in the AHL. Since the Sound Tigers were leading the AHL, that meant Greg Cronin and Dave Baseggio were named to one of the coaching staffs for the 2004 AHL All-Star Classic in Grand Rapids, MI. Another high point to the start of the Sound Tigers’ season was the play of Wade Dubielewicz. At the new year, he had a 1.26 GAA and a .949 save percentage.

Jeff Hamilton and Wade Dubielewicz both had earned league-wide honors in December,

The Defining Moment

The defining moment for the Sound Tigers was the 2004 AHL All-Star Classic. For the first and only time in team history, the coaching staff of the Sound Tigers represented the team at All-Star Weekend. The Sound Tigers were also represented by three players during the weekend. Brandon Smith and Wade Dubielewicz represented Team Canada, while Jeff Hamilton was on team PlanetUSA.

Jeff Hamilton competed in the accuracy shooting during the Skills Competition. Team PlanetUSA won the Skills Competition, but in the game, Team Canada won 9-5. Wade Dubielewicz made 23 saves on 25 shots in 30 minutes played, and Jeff Hamilton scored a goal and two assists.

Following the excitement of the All-Star festivities, Bridgeport cooled down with the loss of players to the New York Islanders, before a big trade shook up the team.

 

The End of the Season

Going into the Trade Deadline, the Sound Tigers sat at 32-18-9-4 and were battling for the top spot with the Philadelphia Phantoms. The New York Islanders wanted to reacquire a big piece to their team who had been apart of the Islanders for seven seasons. On deadline day, the Islanders traded Alain Nasreddine to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Steve Webb. Webb had split the season with the Penguins and in the AHL, while Nasreddine played three games for the Islanders in his two seasons. The Sound Tigers played well without Nasreddine as they had a solid defense core.

At the same time, Jeff Hamilton was looking to become the AHL’s leading goal scorer. Towards the end of the season, Hamilton reached 40 goals, the first Sound Tiger to ever accomplish the feat.

Sound Tigers Take Home Hardware

The Sound Tigers had a ton of representation with regards to the AHL Awards. Wade Dubielewicz was named the 2003-04 AHL Rookie of the Year and a member of the Second All-Star Team. Jeff Hamilton had earned the Willie Marshall Award for the league’s top goalscorer and was named to the AHL’s First All-Star team. Graham Belak was awarded the Sound Tigers recipient of the Man of the Year award. Jody Robinson won the Mastercard seventh-man award, and Kevin Colley was voted Fan Favorite. Off the ice, The Connecticut Post’s Mike Fornabaio was named the Newspaper Recipient of the AHL’s James C. Hendy award, which is given to the individual with the most outstanding media coverage of the AHL.

The Playoff Run

Heading into the 2003-04 season, the AHL changed the playoff format to a divisional style, meaning the Sound Tigers would be the second seed going up against the third seed, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. A major story in this series would be some of the players being sent down from their respective NHL teams. The Sound Tigers were loaned Steve Webb and Sean Bergenheim, while Wilkes-Barre/Scranton received the first-overall pick in the 2003 NHL Draft, Marc-Andre Fleury, as well as Ryan Whitney, Konstantin Koltsov, and Brooks Orpik.

Early Momentum

In Game 1, Sebastien Caron and Dieter Kochan got the start in goal and it was a barnburner at Harbor Yard. Bridgeport went out to an early 2-0 lead off of goals by Derek Bekar and Jeff Hamilton. Alan Letang gave the Sound Tigers a 3-1 lead at the ten-minute mark of the third period. The Penguins scored two quick goals to tie it before Jeff Hamilton received a pass from Luke Curtain and beat Caron. Three minutes later with Caron on the bench, the Penguins tied it off of a Toby Petersen goal with a minute left. At 11:11 of the overtime, Derek Bekar ended the game and the Sound Tigers held a 1-0 lead.

In Game Two, the teams switched goaltenders. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton went with Marc-Andre Fleury, while the Sound Tigers countered with Wade Dubielewicz. The teams traded goals as Cail MacLean and Sean Bergenheim found the back of the net for the Sound Tigers. In the third, Rob Collins fired home a powerplay goal, but Wilkes-Barre came back again. Tomi Pettinen scored his first playoff goal, but Ryan Whitney found Tomas Surovy to tie the game. The game was headed to overtime, and Brandon Smith buried a shot over a minute in past Fleury. The Sound Tigers took 2-0 Series lead headed on the road.

The Turning Point

In Wilkes-Barre, the overtime trend continued. Rob Collins and Sean Bergenheim scored to give Bridgeport the lead, but Eric Meloche scored two including the overtime winner to put the Penguins back in the series. It was a lost opportunity for the Sound Tigers as Brooks Orpik was ejected after a five-minute major boarding penalty. Game 4 was the Ryan Kraft show as he scored two quick goals in the second. Add in a Kevin Colley third period goal, and the Sound Tigers took a commanding 3-1 series lead.

The turning point was in Game 5. Andy Chiodo, a former Islanders draft pick started over Fleury and Caron as coach Michel Therrien wanted to give his team a spark. Chiodo played fantastic for the Penguins. Jeff Hamilton’s second-period tally was the only thing that got past Chiodo as he made 18 saves in 75 minutes played. At 14:33 of Overtime, Tomas Surovy beat Dieter Kochan and forced Game 6 the next night.

Game 6 was all Penguins as Wilkes-Barre shutout the Sound Tigers, setting up for a Game 7 on Sunday afternoon in Bridgeport.

The Invasion

On Sunday, April 26, an army of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins fans took over The Arena at Harbor Yard. Of the 4,051 attendance, over 2,000 of the fans at the arena were cheering for Wilkes-Barre Scranton. The Penguins were keen on showing their fans that they wanted to get to the next round. Penguin captain Tom Kostopoulos scored 13 minutes in before Jody Robinson tied it up heading into the intermission. Konstantin Koltsov gave the Penguins the lead heading into the third. Rob Collins did his magic again though and the series was headed to its fourth overtime.

In overtime, the Sound Tigers 2003-04 season was ended. At 11:44 of overtime, Konstantin Koltsov picked up a puck turned over by Blaine Down and beat Dieter Kochan to send the Penguins to the second round. For 16 years, the Sound Tigers have never overcome this goal. A curse from this game has been hanging over the head of Bridgeport players and fans to this day.

The Aftermath

The Penguins went on to the 2004 Calder Cup Final, only to lose to Milwaukee. In the summer of 2004, the Sound Tigers were sold to the New York Islanders. With that purchase came an interesting 2004-05 season for the Sound Tigers. The Sound Tigers 2003-04 season was definitely one of the best in team history, and one to remember.