Hello again Monsters fans and welcome to our first edition of our “Calls Of The Week”, a new weekly feature we will give to our great fans and followers. We will gather our best highlights and audio clips from our radio and television broadcasts for you each week and put them right here on our website for you to enjoy.

After a tremendous month of January there are a lot of great moments and highlights we want to share with you, the Monsters finished the month with a 10-6 record and climbed from 7th place all the way up to 3rd place and are now right in the thick of the 2011 Calder Cup playoff hunt.

Let’s kick off our first edition of our “Calls Of The Week” with some action from Saturday, January 22nd at the Q in a game against the Houston Aeros. The Monsters were going for their franchise record 6th straight win. Early in the game, red-hot Monsters goaltender John Grahame had a great sequence of saves. Here’s how that sounded.

 Later in the game, with Houston leading 2-1, Monsters forward and alternate captain David Van der Gulik pulled the Monsters to within 1 goal on this play.

The Monsters unfortunately dropped the game 2-1 against the Aeros, finished the season series 2-2 against the Aeros. The next day, Sunday, January 23rd, the Monsters welcomed the Peoria Rivermen to the Q for a matinee contest. With the game scoreless, 2nd year pro Justin Mercier gave the Monsters a 1-0 lead early in the game with a bank shot goal that he scored from the goal line. Here’s how that highlight sounded.

On Wednesday Night at the Q, the Monsters looked to rebound after dropping two straight games, after equaling a franchise best with five straight wins prior to the two game slide. The Monsters welcomed in the Toronto Marlies in what was a huge North Division matchup. Lake Erie’s top line of Ben Walter, Greg Mauldin and Julian Talbot was very impressive in the 4-2 Monsters win. With the score 2-1, that top line was called upon to increase the lead to two goals and here’s what they did to help the Monsters cause.

After the Marlies came back with a 5 on 3 power play goal late in the 3rd period, Monsters All-Star Mark Olver gave the Monsters some breathing room with another of his highlight reel goals to seal the 4-2 win.


Thursday night the Monsters beat Hamilton 2-1 at Copps Coliseum to pull to within 6 points of 1st place and North Division leading Hamilton. Justin Mercier and Mark Olver had the Monsters goals and John Grahame was great in goal in the victory.

After having Friday off, the Monsters and Hamilton met at the Q before more than 11,000 fans on Saturday night. With the game tied at 1-1 early in the 3rd period, Mark Olver struck again for his team leading 20th goal of the season when he drove the net and beat Curtis Sanford over the catching glove on what proved to be Olver’s 4th game winning goal in the month of January.


With the score still 2-1 in the 3rd period, Monsters captain Ben Walter stepped up to increase the lead to two goals with an amazing bank shot from the goal line that beat Sanford to give the Monsters a two goal lead.


The Monsters also got an empty net goal from Patrick Rissmiller, who had two goals in the win, and the Monsters skated to a 4-1 win over Hamilton. That capped off an incredible month of January for David Quinn’s team, they played 16 games in 29 days and won 10 of those 16. Way to go guys!!!

We hope you enjoyed this debut edition of our “Calls Of The Week”, we will do it again next week!