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Saturday night’s Bears-Phantoms game at Giant Center was a sellout. “We could have sold 15,000 for this one,” John Walton told me a half hour before faceoff. The Bears are number one in the American League in attendance, averaging almost 8,500 per game — more than 700 fans more per game than second-best in attendance Wilkes Barre-Scranton.

Philadelphia is in first in the AHL’s East division, and entering Saturday night’s play they held a 10-pt. lead over the second-place Bears. But Bob Woods’ charges won at Philly Friday night, and a followup victory Saturday, coupled with the fact that Hershey has four games in hand, could have made things interesting. You have to think, too, that the return of Eric Fehr and Sami Lepisto, perhaps as soon as Monday, will strengthen the surging Bears down the stretch.

This weekend represents a rare opportunity for hockey fans in Hershey to catch the team at home for much of mid-February through mid-March. Beginning February 14 in Cleveland, the Bears went on the road for five straight, which ended with Friday night’s victory in Philly, returned home this weekend for just two games in 22 hours, then will board a plane for two mid-week games in Manitoba against the Moose. They’ll remain on the road and play four games in New England the following week. All told, over about a month’s time, the Bears during a crucial stretch of the season will have played 14 of 16 games on the road.

No one in the Hershey organization would utter anything but the goal of catching the Phantoms, but surviving this road warrior stretch still in second place would be no small feat in itself.

And no one in the Hershey organization would have scripted Saturday night’s first period any differently. The Bears raced out to a 3-0 lead on goals by Kyle Wilson, Jay Beagle, and Andrew Joudrey — the latter coming shorthanded on a superb cross-slot feed from Andrew Gordon. The first-20-minute Bears won seemingly every race to the puck, had all four lines clicking, forechecked with abandon, and got some strong saves from Freddie Cassivi.

But first-place hockey clubs don’t often go gently into the swept in a home-and-home night, and the Phantoms erased a rotten first period with a stellar second. A Bears’ official told me he’d “give a million dollars” to have Boyd Kane back in a Bears’ sweater: “He was the heart and soul of our Calder Cup run in 2006,” this team rep told me. Here was Kane’s second period Saturday night: two goals and an assist. The Phantom captain is not a swift skater — he’s just consistently in the right place at the right time, playing a heady, very leader-like game. The Phantoms scored three unanswered goals in the second period, two coming on the power play, to even the game at 3 at the second intermission. A sold-out Saturday night home crowd rather swiftly fell silent.

Incredibly, things got worse in the third. Two Phantoms scored their first goals of the season Saturday night, with Martin Grenier tallying at 5:31 when a lumbering puck-carrying Sasha Pokulok was easily overtaken in his own end, stripped of the puck, and sent sulking back to the Bears’ bench with the red lamp lit behind Cassivi and his team suddenly in a 4-3 hole. Of Pokulok it could be said, charitably, that he is having an underwhelming first full season in the American League. He did nothing Saturday night to change that assessment.

Less than a minute later, at 6:08, Phantom captain Kane would pot his fourth point of the evening, assisting on a Jared Ross marker that had the home faithful sounding like they’d wished the Bears had stayed on the road. Five unanswered Phantom goals resulted in a 5-3 revenge of Friday night. The Bears’ line of Scott Barney, Andrew Joudrey, and Andrew Gordon, while an offensive catalyst on many shifts in the first period, was on the even strength ice for both of Philly’s third period tallies. The youthful center and right wing are very promising prospects, but they suffered tough lessons late Saturday night.

At least I had the very pleasant company of Caps’ goaltending coach Dave Prior beside me for the farm team’s two-period meltdown.

One bright spot in a home sweater was Patrick McNeill, recently recalled from ECHL affiliate South Carolina and a Caps’ 2005 draft pick (115th overall). He’s listed at 6′1, 200, but his is not a physical game. He passes extremely well, gets the puck moving out of his zone with poise, manuevers agilely at the point, and Saturday night displayed some effective work along the boards at times. He put up monster numbers with Saginaw in the OHL the past couple of seasons, including 58 points in 58 games last season. He may be in Hershey to stay and develop.

Saturday night’s game came easily to the Bears in the opening 20 minutes. After that, they didn’t pay the price; they sat back and allowed the Phantoms to dictate possession and pace. What could have been a memorable and important statement against Hershey’s Pennsylvania rivals this weekend — Wilkes Barre-Scranton arrives at Giant Center tomorrow afternoon — was rudely interrupted by a persevering Phantoms club. Head Coach Bob Woods had tough words for his troops afterward.

“We sat back. We got bored with [doing] the simple things and we said ‘let’s get fancy’.”

“I don’t blame Freddie [Cassivi]. I blame the guys out there in front of him.”

“We played it to a tee in the first period . . . but [later] guys were on their own page, [and] we’ve had this problem all year.

“[General Manager] Doug’s not going to stand for it.”

The Bears on Sunday will heed their head coach’s words or face a long and most unpleasant plane ride back out on the road, out to frozen western Canada, early in the new week.