… So that’s it. (Bartl’s Blog)

So that’s it. That’s the end. Finis. Caput. It’s all she wrote. When the music’s over, turn out the lights, as the man once said…

… and turn them out, they did. Not only are the lights turned off but the ice is melting as you are reading this. Just like that another season comes screeching to a halt. Oh, there’s the party tonight, and there are a few days in which the players will be here before they shuffle off to their non-Bakersfield residences across the map. I’ll have to do walk-thoughs at the apartments, discovering which players apartments were the party headquarters. We’ll have to have the furniture picked up and pay the final bills. And then the paperwork begins.

How did the budget look this season? What can be done differently next season? Season-ending press releases. Tweaks to the website. Delve into the media guide. Find out what records have been broken, where guys rank on the all-time lists, etc.

In a season that featured so many new faces in prominent roles, I’m looking forward to hearing the fans’ reaction to off-season maneuvers. I’m interested to know who they want to see back.

I’m interested because it’s interesting to me to think that on a team that finished 16 points out of a playoff spot, most fans – and myself, for that matter – would like to see much of the team back.

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I will have more on the team’s tremendous finish at a later date, but make no mistake, it was a tremendous finish considering where this team was standing, 47 games into the season. Sometimes in life, a journey’s end point is more impressive in considering where you started. Here are a couple stat lines to make you think a bit.

The resurgence of this team started in the win/loss column on February 8 (the final 25 games). Six of the top eight scorers on the team during that time were rookies. Only two players that finished the season with the team were a ‘minus’ during that time.

Five players remarkably scored double-digit goal totals from that point on. Five. Think about that – 25 games is roughly a third of the season. That means 30 goals over the course of a full year. In the first two-thirds of the season, only four players had double-digit goal totals.

Ten players had at least 10 points. 47 games into the season, only 13 players on the team had 10 points.

Only seven teams had more points in the entire league than the Condors did from February 8th on. In 25 games they gained 30 points in the standings, remarkable when considering that through 47 games, the Condors had just 25.

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That’s all I have for this morning. Both Ryan Holt and I will be blogging throughout the summer. So stay tuned!

Kevin Bartl is the Vice President of Communications for the Condors and part of the broadcast team, who just wrapped up his ninth season with the team.