The Bakersfield Condors strike over Thunder

In a way, I feel like I owe an apology to those who read this blog. My reasoning for writing was to give some insight from behind the scenes. Not so much to pump team gossip (you can find that on the Condors message boards), but to tell you the little things I saw and heard from the PA booth. Honestly, I thought I would have worked more games than I have to date this season. For the lack on interesting commentary, I apologize. Hopefully someday I will have the opportunity to do so in the future.

Until that point, the overview of happenings continues.
On Friday night, the Bakersfield Condors took to the ice against the Stockton Thunder.

The Thunder, an expansion team of sorts is a team new to our league. The ownership group bought the Atlantic City Boardwalk Bullies at the tail end of last season and immediately stated that they were going to move the storied franchise to Stockton, California.

The Thunder is on the tail end of a 15 game road trip that has started their season. They have yet to play a home game and when they do, I would assume that the home game will feel as odd as a road game. This will be a new arena for them as all the others they have played in this season. Nonetheless, the Bakersfield Condors struggled against a team that has spent the entirety of the season moving from town to town.

The Stockton Thunder won a pre-season closed to the public scrimmage over the Condors earlier this year. That had to feel good to the team from the north. The Condors, however, gave the same performance they have 7 out of the last 8 games. Contrary to the "Condors PA announcers memory, " the Condors did win one of their home games in regulation, the very first one on opening night. The game against the Thunder again went to overtime.

The Condors did squeak out a win, which didn’t move them up in the standings (due to wins by San Diego and Long Beach), but it did keep them from falling further into the standings pit. All in all, a win is a win, and points add up. All the points have meaning.

The next three games find the Bakersfield Condors on the road for their first match ups against the Phoenix Roadrunners, and a game in San Diego.

The Roadrunners are an expansion franchise that I think was moved to Phoenix from a dormant team in one of the Eastern divisions. They are currently last in their division, a few points behind last year’s basement dwellers, the Victoria Salmon Kings, and miles behind the division leaders, the Alaska Aces. Looking at the Roadrunners and the Condors on paper, these should be some evenly matched games.

I, along with other fans, long for the days of last year. Since last year was the only "standout" year in team history, we are more comfortable at the place we currently sit than we should be. As I’ve said, win, or lose, we are a dedicated bunch of fans.

Oh, one more thing. I’m sure these props need to be directed at the City of Bakersfield so here it goes. Thank you for the big screens at the Garden. The improvement to the scoreboard Jumbotron is like night and day. Good job.

Have a great weekend.