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Bears off to roaring 3-0 start

Sun 12th, October 2008

(Sports Network) - The Hershey Bears, the American Hockey League's oldest active team, are off to a roaring start to the 2008-09 season, going 3-0 through the first weekend of the season.

The Bears won their opener at the defending Eastern Conference champion Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins on Wednesday before taking a pair at East Division rival Norfolk on Friday and Saturday.

Hershey has four of the top six scorers in the league through Sunday, with Keith Aucoin (2 goals, 5 assists) and Graham Mink (4 goals, 2 assists) leading the way. Mink is also tied with Lowell rookie Matt Halischuk for the early goal-scoring lead with four. The Portland Pirates Mark Mancari and the Peoria Rivermen's Julian Talbot have three goals.

The Bears' 17 goals lead the league as well as their 36.8 percent power-play percentage (7 of 19), which has been a major factor in the team's hot start.

Hershey got things started with the win over the Penguins. Aucoin scored just 96 seconds into his Hershey debut to give the Bears an early 1-0 advantage. Chris Bourque, Mathieu Perreault and Mink added power-play goals before the end of the first period to make it 4-1.

Mink and Penguins forward Ryan Stone traded goals to make it 5-2 after two before Mink completed his hat trick in the third en route to the 8-4 win.

Two days later the Bears traveled to take on the Admirals, winning 5-3. Alexandre Giroux scored a goal and an assist, Mink added his fourth goal of the season and Oskar Osala scored his first AHL goal to lead the team to victory.

On Saturday Hershey collected its third win in as many games, this one in a shootout. After battling to a 3-3 draw after regulation and overtime at the Norfolk Scope, the Bears won the shootout on goals by Aucoin, Giroux and Francois Bouchard.

Hershey will close out its season opening four-game road trip with a game at the Spectrum vs. the Philadelphia Phantoms on Friday before its home opener Saturday vs. the Syracuse Crush.

Also off the good early starts, the Providence Bruins and Binghamton Senators are 2-0 in the Eastern Conference while the Hamilton Bulldogs, Lake Erie Monsters and Crunch are 2-0 in the Western Conference.

Milwaukee (1-0-0) travels to Houston (1-0-0) Monday and defending Calder Cup champion Chicago (0-0-1) travels to San Antonio (0-1-0) on Wednesday before the schedule kicks back into gear with 12 games Friday, 14 games Saturday and six games next Sunday.