And right after I leave town, look what happens.

In what appears to be two separate incidents, the Bakersfield Condors have suspended their coach and assistant coach for an “internal matter,” and one of their players was arrested.

First, the coaches. From the Bakersfield Californian:

Condors coach Marty Raymond has been suspended for seven days and assistant coach Mark Pederson has been suspended indefinitely over “an internal matter,” team President Matthew Riley confirmed Monday.

The organization has issued a gag order on all employees, including players, and the only comment, other than “no comment,” has come from Riley.

“As an organization, we value our coaches, players and staff, and respect their privacy,” Riley said. “Therefore, no other comments will be provided.”

So basically, no one knows anything. The Condors aren’t talking to anyone, but this is the minors. The fans are right there, and have a close relationship with the team. The GM of the team was sitting about six rows in front of me for both Condors games I attended. I doubt he will be sitting there tonight.

From the same article:

Former Condors Scott Hay and Sean Venedam will serve as interim coaches and run practices for the next week, Riley said. Hay is general manager of the Bakersfield Ice Sports Center and the team’s goalie coach. Venedam is a former team captain whose career ended last February when he suffered a severe break of his left leg.

Hay was on my team for the Hockey-thon, and was a goalie for the Alumni game. I’m sure this is the last thing he needed.

As for the player that was arrested, also from the Bakersfield Californian:

Recently-acquired Condors forward Danny LaPointe was arrested Monday morning and charged with two felony counts and two misdemeanors.

Bakersfield Police Department officers arrested LaPointe at 6:40 a.m. He was charged with felony counts of willful cruelty to child, assault, and misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest and vandalism.

There is a lot that can be speculated on just from that last sentence. Nothing is really known yet, but I’m sure details will follow soon.

If you want to see a pissed off fan base, wait until this guy retakes the ice. The Condors fans I met take their players into their hearts and communities. The Hockey-thon was set up by a former player, some former players still live in town and contribute to the hockey community. They were participating in the hockey-thon. One story I was told had the coach taking a player to task for brushing off a kid in a grocery store. This is a team that means a lot to the city and the hockey community. You can imagine there is going to be fallout.

This is not how a hockey fanbase is going to want to remember what was (and now it could be firmly in the “was” category) and amazing weekend of hockey and community.

If I were to do this in chronological order, I would be posting a Bakersfield Hockey-thon post first, But that is not how I roll. Well, occasionally, I have been known to roll that way, but not this time. Anyway…

The first game of a back to back two game series between the Bakersfield Condors and the Victoria Salmon Kings was spirited and chippy, but problematic. You will see why in a moment.

First, the Rabobank Arena, which doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, nor lend itself to easy typing. It’s attached to the Convention Center, which was attached to my hotel. Very convienient, unless you have a convention going on, and certainly if you have a convention involving an interesting set of characters. I won’t get into that, except to say that it made for a strange cross-set of people in the hotel lobby.

The arena:

With a good sized upper bowl, there is a good capacity for this scale of arena. In fact, I would say that the size of the arena was a bit of a surprise. I was expecting a smaller scale, and maybe even a little rattier conditions. But the place was nice, the services were good, and the concessions were decent.

The Condors created several specialty jerseys over the last few season, including the prison jerseys worn in a Las Vegas Wranglers game, as well as a country music themed jerseys, and an Olympic jersey. They also have a Ducks stye jersey (in celebration of their affiliation):

Before you complain about those prices, think about how much the RBK EDGE jerseys cost. These are much nicer. Still, I wouldn’t be caught dead in the prison jersey.

Bakersfield is not a huge city, but there are plenty of people worth honoring. Here is their sports hall of fame:

On to the game!!

How many mascots do they need?

Luxury seating at it’s finest.

One of my teammates from the Hockey-thon games saw me in the hallway of the arena and invited me to sit with his family. Of course I took him up on his offer.

That’s Paul Willett on the right, one of my teammates from the Hockey-thon, and Condors all-time leading point scorer. He made the goalie look silly during this intermission shootout. The jerseys they are wearing here were used for the Alumni charity game. You will see those better in a later post.

More action!

Not the tallest team, these Salmon Kings:

Wrong Bonk:

Condors were up 3-2 with a little over two minutes left in the game. When this:

Led to this:

Notice the arm in the air? Yeah. This was a textbook bad penalty to take. Hey, any guesses who I saw walking around in the concourse for the next game in his suit? That would be number 10, Matt Pope. You know where this is going. It’s almost fate at this point. It lead to a six on four:

Which led to this:

Because, you know, who wanted to win a hockey game anyways?

Raise your hand if you’ve ever seen a hockey game.

Huh, could have fooled me.

SHOOTOUT!!
Click on any of the pictures to see them larger. I’m doing this for your bandwidth.

That’s a save, folks.

More shootout!


Hey, where are you going with that thing?

Yeah, not so much. Victoria wins it in the shootout, and the fans, while disappointed, were telling me that this was one of their better games all season. Ouch. They all needed a little rest, since they had one more tomorrow. And so will you. More Condors action soon.

Your final: