Ice Notes

This week - the Ice Bears picked-up a new addition to the team ... Knoxville claimed off waivers former Richmond defenseman Clay Lewis.

Coach Hillman says "we have a few days to decide what we want to do with Clay - he actually has some medical work that needs done before he leaves Richmond so that gives us an extra few days to really examine our roster."

Lewis is 6-feet, 4-inches tall, and weighs 220-pounds - through 25 games this season with the Renegades, he scored 2 goals, 2 assists and was a minus-6 in the plus/minus category.

On Saturday, the Ice Bears signed defenseman Chris Brannen to a third 3-game tryout contract. Hillman says "Chris will definitely be signed after the game on Thursday night, and some other type of move will have to be made to open up a roster spot for Chris."

On Tuesday, coach Scott Hillman opened up that roster spot for Brannen by releasing forward Caleb Moffat. Moffat had been out of hockey for 2 years before joining the Ice Bears this season - he recently sat out 30 days on injured reserve with a hip injury - Moffat's role on the team was enforcer.

Defenseman Kevin Harris missed 3 games with a strained muscle, and returned to Knoxville's line-up on new year's eve. Kevin Harris said "I'm feeling alright, definitely not 100-percent but it feels good to get back out there and playing again. Sitting and watching 3 or 4 games is not really what I want to do, so it feels good to be out there."

Forward Frank Furdero is now wearing a cast on his right leg, after crashing into the boards going for a loose puck a week ago Friday. Furdero said "I went to the doctor Monday, and he said it was a hairline fracture the back of my leg and I did some tendon-ligament damage."

Furdero says he could be out of the line-up 6 weeks. "I'll have the cast off second week of January, and I'll be ready to go back second week of February."

The SPHL named Ice Bears captain Kevin Swider December's Sher-Wood Player of the Month - Swider scored 10 goals and notched 12 assists for 22 points in 13 games last month. This marks the 3rd time the league's recognized Swider as player of the month.

Last week, he lengthened his lead in the southern league scoring race helped by Sunday's 5 point afternoon at Richmond. Swider scored his first hat trick of the season, and added a pair of assists, he now has 52 points through 30 games, and is a dozen points ahead of his nearest competitor in the scoring race. Coach Hillman says "night in, night out - Kevin Swider's a leader for this team and actually just found out that Mike Carter's the SPHL Player of the Week for this weekend."

Swider line mates Tim Vitek and Mike Carter have now moved into the scoring race's top 5; Vitek also had a 5-point game Sunday against the renegades. Hillman says "it was incredible, he was a plus-7 for the night - which is just amazing - I've definitely never seen anyone do that before."

The Ice Bears were able to move into first place despite 5 or more players affected by sickness. Forward Ryan Moore says "seems like a lot of guys are coming down with a little something - just got to battle through it - looks like we're going to be all right, though."

Ice Bears athletic trainer, Bill Murray has been on top of the situation. "We had several guys going down with some mild flu-like symptoms several days ago and have to be creative especially in a closed environment on a bus, so that you don't get the rest of the team going down with it. In fact, a couple nights ago we had a couple players travel separately by car so that they didn't get the rest of the team sick." Murray says "we're medicating them and hoping for the best with proper rest and forcing food and fluids, as well."

The civic coliseum's old scoreboards came down on Monday to make way for the Ice Bears new video scoreboards. Mike Murray, the Ice Bears GM thinks it will add another element of interaction for fans enjoying the game. "Having their face up after they score a goal, or some kind of human interest story we could put up on the board between periods.”

The Ice Bears Chris Rebernik was injured Thanksgiving night in Columbus, and placed on the 30-day injured reserve list - Rebernik came off the IR on December 29th,although he was physically not quite ready to re-enter the line-up.