THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 22, 1997 TAG: 9702220628
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KEVIN RECORD, CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: TALLAHASSEE, FLA. LENGTH: 54 lines
It was just another crazy night on the road for the Hampton Roads Admirals.
Coach John Brophy had a couple of beers thrown on him from the stands, Aaron Downey delivered roughly 20 punches to the face of Tallahassee's Louis Bedard and, oh yes, the Admirals notched their 17th road win of the season.
Center Andy Weidenbach, playing just his second game after returning from Cleveland of the IHL, had two goals in regulation and then scored the game-winner in a shootout to give Hampton Roads a 3-2 victory before a crowd of 7,241 at the Leon County Civic Center.
``We haven't had much success in this building, but we did tonight,'' said Brophy, whose teams had won just one of five previous meetings with Tallahassee. ``We played very smart tonight. I thought we played very well as a road team. We were very good in our own end.''
Hampton Roads is now 17-8-2 away from home, best in the league, and 35-15-3 overall.
The Admirals were coming off a 4-3 loss at Mobile on Thursday night, but they looked strong from the beginning Friday, taking a 1-0 lead in the first period and holding a 2-1 lead after two periods.
Weidenbach, who now has 18 goals as an Admiral, scored off his own rebound with 7:41 left in the first period and gave Hampton Roads a 2-0 lead when he scored off an assist from Randy Pearce with 10:43 left in the second period.
Less than 30 seconds later, Tallahassee's Kevin Malgunas cut the lead to 2-1. And less than a minute after that, Downey bloodied Bedard in a brutal fight near center ice.
``I wanted to fight him again,'' said Bedard, who needed stitches to sew up the wounds in his face. ``But he got thrown out of the game. I have no respect for him now. We didn't see who was the toughest guy. He fought with his helmet on and I didn't fight with mine.''
Downey was ejected early in the third period for jumping into a fight between Dennis Maxwell and Hampton's Alexei Krivchenkov.
Tallahassee tied it 2-2 with 15:23 left in the game on a goal by Rob Dumas, but Hampton Roads picked up two points and the victory by winning the shootout 3-1.
In addition to Weidenbach, Hampton Roads got shootout goals from Alain Savage and Victor Gervais.
``It's a really good win for us,'' Weidenbach said. ``We played a little lethargic (Thursday) night and let in some weak goals. We concentrated on defense tonight. You have to do that on the road. We were really patient.''
The fans booed Brophy each time he took the ice and two were removed from the arena by police after they spilled beer over the glass and onto Brophy.
NOTE: Prior to Thursday night's game, the Admirals learned that All-Star defenseman Chris Phelps had been been recalled to Portland of the AHL. But he was injured in the game and will not report to Portland. Instead, the Pirates called up defenseman Alex Alexeev, who played for Portland on Friday night in Springfield, Mass.