ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 23, 1994                   TAG: 9411230152
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N. C.                                  LENGTH: Medium

CHECKERS END EXPRESS' RECORD RUN

The Roanoke Express' franchise-record 10-game streak without a regulation loss ended Tuesday night before a crowd of 7,107 at Independence Arena.

Its offense continuing to struggle for goals, the Express fell 3-1 to the Charlotte Checkers in East Coast Hockey League action.

Shawn Wheeler broke a 1-1 tie early in the second period, and Checkers goaltender Matt DelGuidice made it stand up as Charlotte (9-6-2) moved past Roanoke (8-4-3) into second place in the ECHL's East Division.

With Roanoke goalie Dave Gagnon replaced by an extra attacker, the Checkers iced it with 35 seconds left on Roman Gorev's 100-foot swipe into an empty net.

Wheeler corralled an outlet from Kurt Seher at the red line and raced into the Express zone one-on-one with defender Mark Luger. Wheeler took Luger wide, walked in on Gagnon and, with one hand on his stick, flipped the puck through the Express netminder's pads at the 1-minute, 28-second mark of the second period for what proved to be the game-winning goal.

Charlotte opened the scoring after winning a faceoff deep in the Express' end to the right of Gagnon. Gorev defelected the draw at his feet, where defender Scott Meehan tipped the loose puck to hulking winger Eric Fenton at the top of the circle. Fenton's quick, off-wing snap shot beat Gagnon through traffic at 9:16 to give the Checkers a 1-0 lead.

Ilya Dubkov tied the score for the Express barely three minutes later, as his net-side chop of a bouncing puck slithered between DelGuidice and the left post for his sixth goal of the season.

DelGuidice, last season's ECHL goals against leader while with Raleigh, stoned Derek Laxdal and Rouslan Toujikov on clean break-ins in the second and on Oleg Yashin early in the third to preserve the victory.

ICE CHIPS: The Express waived center Steve Phillips to make room for wing Andrew DIckson. Dickson recorded 11 goals and 30 assists in 39 games with Utica of the Colonial Hockey League last season. ... The Express returns home to face Richmond (13-0-3) on Thursday in a special 6 p.m. holiday start.

see microfilm for box score 


 by CNB