This season continued a tradition of winning and development for hockey’s longest-running NHL-AHL affiliation.

Change is in the air this spring for the AHL’s most historic franchise, as the Hershey Bears find themselves sitting out the playoffs.

Rochester Americans head coach Chris Taylor is fully aware of the tradition that comes with his post.

More than a year of preparation for the Belleville Senators ends Wednesday when they host Syracuse at sold-out Yardmen Arena.

Some 11 hours before Ottawa Senators head coach Bryan Murray collected NHL win number 600 in Tuesday evening’s 4-3 shootout win over the Edmonton Oilers at Scotiabank Place, the wily bench boss harkened back to his days with the Hershey Bears.

Hockey lore has it that no less than Gordie Howe once remarked, “Everybody who is anybody in hockey has played in Hershey.” Howe’s words certainly apply to Martin Brodeur.

Good luck trying to find an American city whose hockey fans are more angst-ridden than those in Philadelphia, where the big checks that Flyers general manager Bob Clarke dished out last summer amidst much hope now give way to grey gloom and doom, Philadelphia-style.

More than a few AHL observers raised an eyebrow when the Los Angeles Kings and New York Rangers engineered an AHL-style blockbuster just prior to Clear Day.

Did leaving the hot zone that is Leafs-Habs at the Bell Centre on a Saturday night for the quiet confines of New Jersey’s Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey benefit Pat Quinn’s Leafs?

No charter flight awaited to whisk Ottawa Senators defenseman Filip Novak back to the nation’s capital and to the NHL’s good life after the Philadelphia Flyers flattened Novak’s Sens by a 6-3 count Saturday night at the Wachovia Center.