Welcome to Syracuse Speaks, a podcast for Field Pass Hockey!

Now in its fifth season, Syracuse Speaks aims to cover the Syracuse Crunch, its organization, and the AHL from the stands. Host Alexandra Ackerman has been covering Syracuse on the internet since 2008, and desires to share her passion for the team and the league with her listeners.

In this episode, recorded February 26th, 2023, Alex welcomes Raw Charge contributor Lee Wright back to the podcast. Lee has been covering Syracuse this season, and brings a wealth of insight into today’s episode about Syracuse and the Tampa Bay Lightning/Syracuse/Orlando organization as a whole. To begin the episode, the two discuss Lee’s recent trip to watch the Orlando Solar Bears in person. Lee discusses his observations from the game, including how prospects/call-up fodder Jaydon Dureau and Tyson Feist performed. The two banter a bit about the differences between the AHL and the ECHL, and the challenges that are unique to teams like the Solar Bears. 

As the episode evolved, the discussion shifted from Orlando to the in-game experience that Syracuse offers, with high praise to the team’s in-game promotional department and executive staff in charge of selling tickets. The team’s community involvement and initiatives, as well as the Crunch’s social media and engagement strategies, are also highlighted.

Returning to the actual game, Lee makes an interesting observation about Syracuse’s tendency to take penalties and how losing seems to be heavily connected to those moments of undisciplined play. Lee takes a look at the penalty kill stats, and also outlines the telling disparity between the penalty minute-takers on the team (starting with Gemel Smith, who was loaned to Henderson not that long ago). Smith becomes a short topic of conversation before Alex and Lee move to talking about the influences of other players like Gabriel Dumont, Trevor Carrick, P.C. Labrie, and newcomer Daniel Walker.

To end the episode, Lee offers his opinion on Syracuse’s eclectic March schedule, and how that might actually help the Crunch as the playoffs approach. Alex and Lee also take a brief look at the upcoming NHL trade deadline and how it might affect the team.

Syracuse Speaks is hosted on Anchor, but is distributed to many of the major podcast platforms including Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Audible, Google Podcasts, Breaker, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Spotify,  and Stitcher. The royalty-free music featured in this episode was by Purple Planet Music and Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

Thanks for listening!

Follow Alex on Twitter for all the latest news and notes regarding the Syracuse Crunch! Don’t forget to also follow Field Pass Hockey on Facebook and Twitter for all the latest AHL, ECHL, and SPHL minor league hockey news and analysis!