More puck in '07

Yes, I admit it, this blog has been pretty lame lately. At least the Falcons have been good with the beating of the other Highway 99 rival and what not.

I hope to have more Falcons Cast's and blog posting’s in the 2007 portion of the Fresno Falcons season. In the meantime, check out the Falcon Player Blog, Falcons Musings and evil Bako’ writers Matildakay and NL.

Fresno moves on quickly

While Bakersfield still celebrates their VICTORY from Saturday night, Fresno has moved on by BEATING a tough Alaska team.

It's nice to throw Bako a bone once in a while. Makes them feel usefull.

Friday night "action"

You can always count on Bakersfield girls for being great "Slump Busters" -errr, I mean Bakersfield Suckdors...errr, I mean Condors.

Many thanks to Bako for breaking the Falcons out of their slump Tuesday night.

Hopefully, Bakersfield will give-it-up to Fresno again Friday night in Bakersfield. Ahhh, Friday night. It's a great night for a Fresnan to find themselves a slump-buster in Bako.

New Unofficial Podcast

Finally, it has come. It has been needed for quite some time. What's been needed?
A podcast about the Fresno Falcons and it is here:

Here the first ever podcast centered around being a Fresno Falcons fan. Click on this link: FalconsCast and then download the mp3 file of the first show. I hope you won't be sorry.

Something else that is new and was started by the makers of The Unofficial, is the Fresno Falcons YouTube page. Check that out by clicking: Falcons Youtube Channel.

Check them out and tell us what you think.

Strong Weekend

These Falcons are looking good. Cup contender good. Yep, it's early but man, with the win over Phoenix on Friday and beating Long Beach on Saturday and top scorerPlourde not even playing yet...look out ECHL.

Speaking of looking out, keep your head up for a new Falconscast (podcast related to the Falcons) and a new YouTube page, coming this week.

Do you have any Fresno Falcons pictures from this season - or any season? Go to the Falcons Flickr Page and join the group then post your own.

A dork is loose in Save Mart this weekend

The Unofficial/Dorktown will be at the Phoenix and Long Beach games this weekend. Be on the lookout for a dork with a lame messenger bag and a microphone, recording stuff for the Dorktown Podcast and maybe a new Fresno Falcons based podcast (in the works).

The Roadrunners will have one of their star defenseman BACK for Friday's game.

C U out their.

The VERY latest in Falcons media

This just in from Joe Babik and the cool ECHL new department:

Jack Carnefix, ECHL Vice President of Communications, (609) 452-0770, Ext. 16

PRINCETON, N.J. – The ECHL announced on Tuesday that fans can now access game scores, game summaries and league standings on their cellular telephone and wireless devices at http://wap.echl.leaguestat.com/.

The “Wireless Application Protocol” site is a plain text miniature version of the statistics information available on the official web site at www.ECHL.com which is formatted to fit on a smaller screen.

In addition to the current day’s games, fans have the ability to see scores from the previous day as well as the schedule for the upcoming day and there is a link to the league standings.

"Wireless Application Protocol", if that doesn't sound like hockey, I don't know what does.

The latest in Falcons media

Listen to the Falcons live at 1550snr.com or archived - the new radio man, Joe Babik, is great by the way.

Read the new player blog at FresnoFalcons.com - good luck bringing it up though.

Watch the Falcons on B2 Networks or on Channel 32.

Also, coming in the next couple weeks, a regular Falcons report by me on the Dorktown Podcast.

Kelly Quest begins

The Falcons overcome a bad and smokey first period to beat the Wranglers and end their winless streak against Las Vegas - maybe Vegas ate too much bad Italian food in Bakersfield.

OPENING NIGHT
There was a real buzz going through the northern concourse before the game -very cool.

Seeing the Pacific Division Champion banner unveiled was great. What wasn't was the on-ice fireworks and the ensuing smoke that setoff a coughfest throughout the Save Mart Center. The smoke didn't really dissipate till the second period.

There was no radio broadcast playing in the restrooms for the game. Hopefully that was just an opening night glitch and the restroom radio will return.

I was really hoping Murphy, after making a comeback from last season's injury, would score the first goal, but assisting on it will do just fine.

Did you take some pictures from opening night? Don't forget to post them on the Falcons Flickr Page.

Other scores from the ECHL's Opening Night.

New bee season approaches

The Fresno Bee has a spanky new redesigned website, go check it OUT. If you scroll down to the bottom of the front page, look under sports, you'll find this chippy Falcons page that brings together links to Falcons news.

Hopefully, we will see more coverage of the Falcons this year in the Bee. I wouldn't count on it though, they're barely mentioning the NHL this year. It's a good thing I have NHL Center Ice and NHL.com, otherwise I wouldn't know the season had started.

Vegas' pacific smack begins

The Las Vegas Wranglers haven't even unpacked their bags since moving into the Falcons Pacific Division and already they're trash talking.

Go check Bako writer N.L. Belardes' blog for the delusional Wrangler fan musings.

Find out why Vegas has moved into Falcon territory by clicking HERE.

Fresno, meet the NHL

Save Mart Center fans were treated to a very solid pre-season game by the Ducks and Sharks this past Saturday night. Check out a recap of it from Yahoo Sports, complete with a picture gallery.

I was disappointed that Cheechoo didn't play (resting up) ,also fellow Shark and Hanford native Scott Parker didn't see much action either. To compound the lack of local flavor, former Fresno Falcon and current San Jose Shark - Nolan Schaefer didn't get to play due to an injury.

Hope the Sharks keep coming back but next time let's get my team, the Vancouver Canucks, to play them.

The Evil Condors

It's never too early to talk about beatin' down some Bako Condor - Hell, forget about talking about it, let's watch it:

Message Board Duel

One message board is not enough forum for Falcons Fan, Falcons Fan needs two! In what may be a ECHL record, Fresno Falcon fans have two, count'em TWO forums.

Disgruntled with the Falcons official board, one fan went rouge and started his own board and it has got some people coming over. It's called The Official Unofficial Message Board - In no way affiliated with this blog The Unofficial...Officially.

I Don't know if the Falcons' "official" Board Moderator is offended by this rival board.

Post Your Falcons Pictures

You can't take enough pictures of your favorite team the Falcons (or favorite rival in Bako's case), can you? But what the hell do you do with them? Even your mom doesn't care, she doesn't even know what 'bad ice' is. Well, maybe your mom doesn't care, but Falcons fans do.

Here is your chance to share your Falcons photo's with the rest of the fan base. If you have a flickr account, just click this link: Fresno Falcons Group, join the group and post your Fresno Falcons pics to the group. If you don't, join up! It's free and not that hard to use: Flickr.com (then join the group and start position'!!!

New Falcons Site - No Forum Yet

You may have noticed a newly designed Falcons website. It looks good so far but some of the features aren't working yet - namely the Fan Forum (The Unofficial will review the new site once it's done).

For all you Fresno Falcons forum junkies, here is a quick fix Old Falcons Forum. I don't think you can post anything on it though, just wander through.

For those needing to do some Falcon related posting, while we wait for the new forum, just click the comment link in this post (or any post) and comment away.

Start Planing Your Falcons Games

The 2006-2007 ECHL schedule is now out and about. The Falcons open with the tough Vegas Wranglers; that's a solid opener. Check the new schedule out by clicking HERE.

Unfortunately, Fresno doesn't play Bakersfield until November 28th. Does that mean The Unofficial has to wait till the end of November before we can talk smack to Condor Blogger NL Belardes?

Doesn’t matter, we ain’t waitin’ – CONDORS PLAIN SUCK.

New Radio Dude - It's Official

Sorry for the long bloggin' break. I Just got over that overtime Alaskan heartbreaker. So, back to it.

Just in case you get all your Fresno Falcons news from The Unofficial (What are you thinking if you are?), here is the latest from Kattie Smith:

GOOD BYE "CLARKY" HELLO JOE
Fresno, Calif. – Fresno Falcons CEO John Tull announced today that the team has hired Joe Babik as Director of Media Relations. Babik will be responsible for all of the team’s media relations efforts, in addition to serving as the radio play-by-play broadcaster for all Falcon radio broadcasts.

“Joe brings five seasons of play by play experience to Fresno and we look forward to starting a new era of Fresno Falcons hockey on radio,", said John Tull.

A native of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Babik graduated from Syracuse University in 2001 with a degree in broadcast journalism. While at Syracuse, he served as an intern with the American Hockey League’s Syracuse Crunch for three seasons.

Babik spent four seasons as the Director of Broadcasting and Media Relations with the ECHL’s Pee Dee Pride from 2001-2005. During the 2003-04 season, he was selected as one of three broadcasters for the radio broadcast of the ECHL All-Star Game in Peoria, Illinois. Last season he worked with the Adirondack Frostbite of the United Hockey League.

“I’m excited to join the Falcons organization. I’ve heard nothing but good things and am excited to start,” said Joe Babik.

Season tickets for the 2006-2007 season are on sale. Guarantee yourself great seats to 36 action-packed Falcons home games at the Save Mart Center! Starting as low as 3 easy payments of $108 per month for three months. For more information contact the Falcons front office at (559) 485-PUCK.

Too Big Of A Talent - One Amazing Game Seven

Second longest game in history. What an incredible game,comeback and effort by the Falcons. I almost had to change what I began writing at the beginning of period three. Unfortunately, I didn't have to change it:

Alaska goaltender Cris Beckford-Tseu is too damn tall; It's not fair to the rest of the league.

A six foot three goaltender with Spiderman like reflexes - How is this guy not in the NHL? I know a certain Vancouver Canuck team that could use him.

The Falcons went further than they should have. The Unofficial takes its hat off to them. But how can you expect the Falcons to win four games against some guy whom should be blocking shots by Shaq instead of shots by Luke Curtin.

Congratulations to the Fresno Falcons on a great season. And to American Conference champ Gwinnett: Have fun getting one past Beckford "Spidergiant" Tseu.

Only In The ECHL

NEWS FLASH: DREW, the Falcons Zamboni driver, is suspended for game five.

I'm not making that up. Apparently, after game two, Drew got into an altercation with Alaska Ace player, Kimbi Daniels (number ten). As a result, Drew won't be drivin' the Zamboni for game five.

So, it will be up to Falcons fans to booo Daniels every time he touches the puck.

And it will be up to Falcons fans to buy Drew a drink at Shooters, after the game.