this is as good as its getting in hockey this year. its a shame this isnt the flyers, but what im really mad about it having tickets to game 5. oh well, we won!

http://www.tsn.ca/ahl/news_story.asp?id=127598

Phantoms complete Calder Cup sweep


Canadian Press



6/10/2005 10:04:04 PM

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Philadelphia sports fans finally have something to celebrate.

The Philadelphia Phantoms swept the American Hockey League's Calder Cup finals Friday night, beating the Chicago Wolves 5-2 in front of sellout crowd of 20,103 fans at the Wachovia Center.

Jon Sim and Patrick Sharp each scored two goals, and Antero Niittymaki made 28 saves for the Phantoms, the Philadelphia Flyers' top farm club.

''Philly likes champions, and this is a championship team,'' Sharp said after skating around the rink with the Calder Cup. ''This may be the minor leagues, but we're still champions. It's an incredible feeling.''

The Phantoms also won the 1998 Calder Cup.





''I went through it as a player and I know how special it is to win the Calder Cup,'' said Phantoms coach John Stevens, the captain of the 1998 team. ''This team had to battle through a lot of injuries but they kept fighting. I've very proud of this group.''

None of Philadelphia's four major professional teams has won a championship since the 76ers captured the NBA title in 1983, and those pro franchises have won only nine titles in more than 120 years.

While a parade down Broad Street will have to wait for a major title, the Phantoms will hold their celebration at the Wachovia Center on Monday.

''It's going to be a great party,'' Sim said.

Niittymaki was sensational throughout the playoffs. He made a pair of glove saves in the opening period, and stopped five more stops in the third period when the Phantoms were short-handed for five minutes.

''This is an amazing feeling,'' said Niittymaki, the playoffs MVP. ''We always believed that we had a special team and we went out and proved it.''

After a scoreless opening period, Philadelphia broke the game open with four goals in a 14:15 span. They outshot the Wolves 20-5 in the second period.

''That was an important stretch in the game,'' Stevens said.

Sharp opened the scoring with a four-on-four goal at the 5:32 mark, Sim and Ben Stafford made it 3-0 with goals less than six minutes apart, and Sim added his 10th playoff goal with 13 seconds left in the period on a five-on-three power play.

''The building was going crazy and we kept the pressure on them,'' Sim said.

Steve Maltais and Lonny Bohonos scored for Chicago.

''I thought we had a great year. It would have been nice to cap it off with a championship,'' Chicago coach John Anderson said.

Notes: The Flyers' Trenton affiliate won the East Coast Hockey League title this season. ... Philadelphia has won an AHL-record 11 straight home playoff games. ... The crowd of 20,103 fans was an AHL playoff record.

beat ya to it... http://www.theskyiscrape.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 297#445297

anyway, congrats to the Phantoms, and i CANNOT believe this game was not televised. Comcast really dropped the ball on this one.

yeah i dunno why it wasnt on tv either. its not like people didnt wanna see it. i thought i heard earlier in the week they were going to have it on tv, but i guess not. oh well, looks good for the flyers in the years to come.

I was there.

It was a sellout 20,300 crowd i believe.

The game itself wasn't great, the first 3 were much mroe exciting, but the energy once they won was INSANE, my hands were pure red from all the clapping.

The wolves just didn't play this series. Lehtonen did everything he could, but when your defense fans on easy rebounds its hard to win a series as a goalie.

But whatever, great job phantoms. They have so many great prospects taht are going to be on the flyers next year. I can't wait to see 82 games of jeff carter and mike richards on CSN, after watching them play a handful of games in this past playoffs god they are great. Esche better watch himself, niity has the potential to take his job.

this is the only possible negative i see. esche more than proved he's able to lead this team to the cup last year in the playoffs, but niity looks like he's going to be just as good. i remember when we had hextall and snow and not knowing who was going to start in the playoffs, i dont wanna see that happen again but they both should be starting for nhl teams in 1-2 years.

flyers have a great future ahead of them...with there "AAA" team winning the calder cup and there "AA" team winning the kelly cup(trenton titans). i can't wait to see jeff carter progress, he is a true stud. He didnt' play for the phantoms during the season cause he had juniors. he is only 19 years old and he led the calder cup play offs in scoring.