Sports

Dream falls short

Alaska Aces hockey fans snatched up tickets to the final game of the season in record time, but any of them who showed up to Sullivan Arena on Friday thinking their team would take care of business with similar speed clearly spent too much time on the wet side of the arena the night before.

Anyone expecting less than a thriller in Game 7 of the ECHL's Kelly Cup Finals hasn't been taking notes. Five of the first six games of this best-of-7 series between the Aces and the South Carolina Stingrays were decided by one or two goals.

And so it was little surprise that for a sixth time in seven meetings, the teams kept things tense until almost the very end.

And we do mean almost the very end.

South Carolina's Kelly Cup-clinching 4-2 victory wasn't decided until the final seconds.

With 1 minute, 45 seconds left, the Aces made it a one-goal game on Matt Stefanishion's slap shot.

The Stingrays picked up a penalty 33 seconds later and the Aces pulled their goalie for a 6-on-4 advantage that produced some decent scoring chances. But it ended with a South Carolina empty netter that decided things with 24 seconds left.

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Such parity and unpredictability is, of course, is what you want from playoff hockey. That, and cheering your team as it skates one last lap around the rink, this time while carrying a giant silver cup.

Aces fans got their drama, but not their dream.

Instead of the Aces hoisting the Cup for the second time in four seasons, the Stingrays celebrated their third championship since 1997 in front of a mostly silent crowd of 6,610.

In a hockey game played on a long summer night, the Stingrays would not be denied.

Not by an Aces team that defined excellence during the regular season and that cruised through the first three rounds of the playoffs with 12 victories and only two losses.

Not by an Aces team that showed tremendous resiliency once it finally faced adversity in the form of the Stingrays, who stole home-ice advantage by winning the series' first game way back on May 22 in Anchorage. The Aces rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to force just the third Game 7 in the ECHL's 21-year history, winning Game 5 on the road in overtime and winning Game 6 at home with a tie-breaking goal that came with less than four minutes left.

Not even an Aces crowd known for its ear-splitting passion could stop the Stingrays. The wave didn't cause a ripple. The ever-clanging cowbells didn't silence the Stingrays. The frozen fish carcasses tossed onto the ice after their team's first goal didn't give jinx the Stingrays. The best the fans could do was exit as quickly as possible, leaving the Stingrays with a nearly empty arena to celebrate in.

The Aces needed only 40 minutes to sell out the Sullivan for Game 7.

When Thursday's game ended with an Aces victory, about 3,200 tickets were available for sale. About a thousand fans rushed from the arena across Gambell Street to the team's office on 15th Avenue to buy tickets for the finale, but most came away empty.

About 95 percent of the tickets were sold online in the minutes after the game. Only about 20 or 30 people in a long line that snaked all the way to the Crazy Horse got a chance to buy tickets at the Aces office. By Friday, Craigslist was filled with ads from people seeking tickets.

The 40-minute sellout was a team record, said Brendan Desjardin, director of ticket sales for the team. The previous record was 18 hours, back in 2005 when star Scott Gomez played for his hometown team during an NHL lockout. Gomez took a bad hit in a game in Bakersfield and missed the rest of the season with a broken pelvis. The team returned home for a rematch with Bakersfield, and Aces fans bought out the arena in 18 hours, eager to let the Condors know how they felt about what happened to Gomez.

This week's sellout came from fans eager to celebrate a championship, not to exact some kind of high-decibel revenge on a team that done them bad.

They left without a Cup to sip from, but with voices hoarse from cheering and ears ringing from all those cowbells. Many will no doubt find solace soon enough on a fishing bank or in a drift boat.

And if they're lucky, they'll put enough fish in the freezer to come back to Sullivan next year armed with frozen carcasses just waiting to be tossed onto the ice in celebration of an Aces goal.

Find Beth Bragg online at adn.com/contact/bbragg or call 257-4309.

By BETH BRAGG

bbragg@adn.com

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