Syracuse Speaks

In this episode, recorded May 1, 2022, Alex celebrates the return of the Calder Cup playoffs to Syracuse! She recaps the Crunch's season-ending record and ponders the dream-like state she has found herself in since Friday's game. She discusses Syracuse's final week and what it meant to the franchise, and enthuses about the team's playoff tagline and hashtag (#All4One). She also covers the final la...

In this episode, recorded April 23rd, Alex begins by discussing the Crunch's Calder Cup playoff picture (all she has to go on are the clinching scenarios, but those are certainly promising). She discusses how special this season has become for the fans, and enthuses about how much things have changed for Syracuse over the past few weeks. Alex covers the ever-shifting landscape of the AHL's North D...

In this episode, recorded April 10th, 2022, it's almost playoff time for a team that looked DOA just a few short months ago, and Alex couldn't be more pleased. With nine games left in their season, the Crunch is riding high off of stellar performances from Alex Barre-Boulet (finally!), team captain Gabriel Dumont , Charles Hudon and his power play prowess, prospect Cole Koepke , newcomers Anthony...

In this episode, recorded March 27th, 2022, Alex and guest Patrick Williams settle in to break down the Crunch's most recent successes on and off the ice. They start by addressing the nostalgic return of Syracuse's famed old mascot, Al the Ice Gorilla ("You can't spell 'Goal!' without 'Al!'"), and theorize why hockey fans grow so attached to certain eras or characters. They also talk through AHL i...

In this episode, recorded March 13th, 2022, Alex begins the episode with a look at the current playoff picture for Syracuse with a discourse around the kind of help the Crunch is going to need from their North Division foes. The probability that Syracuse, with 23 games remaining, can make the playoffs under their own power is low,  so the team will need certain teams to start losing. Alex bri...

In this episode, recorded February 26th, 2022, Alex shares the good and the frustrating about one of Syracuse's most recent games against the Rochester Americans. The game, played on February 25th, featured a masterful penalty kill, the welcome return of Gemel Smith to the Crunch's home ice and Syracuse's score sheet, and, unfortunately, an overtime loss. With two months remaining in the regular s...

In this episode, recorded February 13th, 2022, Alex welcomes regular guest Patrick Williams to the podcast. Patrick covers the league for TheAHL.com, and has a regular column over at nhl.com. With Syracuse passing the halfway point of their season this month, the two start off by discussing the Crunch's recent rough patch. The Crunch has gone 3-6-1-0 in their most recent 10 games, and is currently...

In this episode, recorded January 30th, 2022, Alex starts off by making sure her listeners are aware of the  PURE Performance AHL All-Star Fan Vote currently being hosted by Field Pass Hockey. The Crunch has three players nominated: forward Gabriel Fortier , defenseman Sean Day , and goaltender Hugo Alnefelt . She encourages her listeners to support those three players that were a large part...

In this episode, recorded January 9th, 2022, Alex welcomes her listeners back to a new year of Syracuse hockey. And new it is: After a three-week break due to COVID issues with Syracuse and with their opponents, the Crunch stormed back onto the league schedule with a perfect week, going 3-0. Syracuse won twice against division rival Rochester and once against Hershey with a roster that was as a cl...

In this episode, recorded December 19, 2021, Alex revisits her 2021-22 Syracuse Crunch Season Preview , which she wrote for Field Pass Hockey. With the AHL just a bit past the quarter mark of their season, it's the perfect time for a check-in. Alex describes the Crunch's current record, special team performances, leading scorers, and checks on the goalies. She targets the performances of the team'...

In this episode, recorded December 5th, 2021, Alex begins by recounting the changes in Syracuse's schedule that occurred this past week. Due to COVID-19 concerns that are mostly centered around the AHL's Atlantic Division, the Crunch saw their games on December 1st, 3rd, and 4th postponed. The games were against Rochester and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. The postponements also saw the rescheduling of Sy...

In this episode, recorded November 28th, 2021, Alex welcomes back TheAHL.com contributor Patrick Williams .  Patrick has been covering the AHL for many years, and took an in-depth look into Syracuse's slow start last week. Since that article was written, Syracuse went 1-2-0-0, bringing their record for the 2021-22 season to a frustrating 6-8-2-1. Patrick and Alex begin their discussion with S...

In this episode, recorded November 7th, 2021, Alex discusses what makes the current iteration of the Syracuse Crunch so tenacious. She discusses their two-week record of 4-1-0-0, a record that contains one shutout, two overtime wins, and one shootout win. She breaks apart the current roster configuration and highlights the top seven scorers for the team, beginning with veterans Gabriel Dumont and...

In this episode, recorded October 24, 2021, Alex begins the episode by recognizing the Syracuse community and the Crunch Faithful who came out in droves on Saturday, October 23rd to support their hometown team. Syracuse had passed 603 days without fans in the Upstate Medical University Arena at The Oncenter War Memorial, and the team was welcomed back in style by a sold-out crowd of about 5,000 pe...

In this episode, recorded October 8th and October 10, 2021, Alex begins the episode by recapping Syracuse's preseason so far. She briefly discusses the Crunch's game against the Utica Comets, a 2-1 victory that saw goals from Shawn Element and Gabriel Dumont. She also offers discourse on the joys of being back to (mostly) normal as a fan who hadn't been inside of the Upstate Medical Arena at the O...

In this episode, recorded September 24th, 2021, Alex welcomes Patrick Williams back onto the show. With a little under a month left before the AHL season gets underway, the two of them discuss everything from COVID-19 pandemic fatigue to the question of Syracuse's captain. Specifically, Patrick and Alex cover the following topics: How the league itself has changed over the past 19 months, and the...

In this episode, recorded Sunday, September 12th, 2021, Alex serves up all the news that has happened since the previous podcast. She briefly addresses the team's decision to only allow vaccinated individuals into games this season (something she covered more fully in her last article for Field Pass Hockey ). She then moves onto some important dates coming up in the life of Crunch fans, including...

In this episode, recorded August 23rd, 2021, Alex keeps it lowkey. It's the end of August, so hockey is in its usual doldrums before training camp and preseason madness start. Alex welcomes these quiet days after the uncertainty of last summer, and uses this episode to get Crunch fans caught up on all the news relevant to the start of the approaching season. First she discuses the Tampa Bay Lightn...

This episode, the first of season four, is a little different than Alex's usual episode format. It comes to you in two parts: The first, recorded August 11th, 20201, features a chat with Matthew Esteves of Raw Charge . Matt and Alex discuss the Tampa Bay Lightning's recent string of success and how Syracuse has contributed to that success.  They discuss the importance of the coherence between...

In this episode, recorded July 19th, 2021, Alex welcomes back AHL writer Patrick Williams. The two of them cap off the final episode of season three of the podcast with a chat about where the league has been, where it might be going, and a range of other topics. Throughout the episode, the two touch on how much the AHL accomplished by just surviving 2020-21 and the biggest obstacles facing the lea...

A bit of a disclaimer: Monday, July 5th was when this episode was recorded. It was also the date of the fourth game of the Stanley Cup Finals, a series that the Tampa Bay Lightning was leading 3-0 at the time of recording. Obviously Alex would have preferred to wait until after the game before publishing this episode, but unfortunately that wasn't possible. Please just know that the result of that...

In this episode, recorded June 22nd, 2021, Alex covers what is known about the upcoming 2021-22 season for Syracuse and the American Hockey League. She discusses this from a few different angles. She starts with players who, barring an off season trade, are still under contact with the Tampa Bay Lightning, including potential captain Daniel Walcott , forwards Simon Ryfors , Gabriel Fortier ,...

In this episode, recorded June 8th, 2021, Alex begins to break down Syracuse's potential roster for the 2021-22 season. With NHL Free Agency scheduled for July 28th, she looks at the big questions for the Crunch through the lens of the unrestricted free agents (UFAs) and restricted free agents (RFAS) of the Lightning organization. Of those questions, Alex figures the biggest are those concerning c...

In this episode, recorded May 25th and 26th, 2021, Alex starts off by taking a look back at the 2020-21 regular AHL season. She recaps the major storylines that impacted the team - storylines that didn't actually involve COVID-19 that much, surprisingly - and marvels at how similar to a normal-sized season it all turned out to be. She covers the emergence of the Taylor Raddysh - Otto Somppi - Bori...

In this episode, recorded May 6th and May 12th, 2021, Alex welcomes photographer Scott Thomas to the podcast. Scott has been shooting the Crunch since 2012, but has a long history of taking photos at various sporting events. Since starting with the organization, Scott has been all around the AHL, shooting Crunch games at multiple arenas. He's also been to several big events with the team, includin...