DO YOU REMEMBER ME?

HIDALGO — No matter what anybody around the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees says, Saturday night has the potential to be an uncomfortable evening for the franchise.

The Bees (10-24-6) will start the game well out of the Southern Conference playoffs. Meanwhile, the visiting Rocky Mountain Rage will be trying to maintain their lead in the Northwest Division and continue one of the CHL’s most impressive turnarounds.

When the two teams met last January in Hidalgo, the Bees were 14-17-5 and on their way to the postseason. The Rage were at 8-21-4, and struggling badly in their inaugural season.

Now, over one year later, the Bees are closer to last place in the CHL than third in their own division, while the Rage have a .769 winning percentage.

And, the man responsible for that turnaround is Rage coach Tracy Egeland. In his second year with Rocky Mountain, Egeland has turned the second-year franchise into one of the CHL’s best, earning 60 points (through Thursday) after picking up only 41 last season.

Meanwhile, the team he coached to two playoff appearances in three seasons has sputtered to the bottom the the Southern Conference, having just two wins since Dec. 7.

Egeland, who was bought out of his contract just one week after the Bees lost to eventual champion Laredo in the first round of the 2006 playoffs, certainly has some reason to be bitter toward the franchise, at least the former ownership group.

“I thought it was brutal the way we parted down there. It was a joke,” Egeland said. “You know, we turned the team around from a terrible second year, they basically ran me out of town because of why, I lost to a team that won the whole thing in six games in overtime, and a week later they’re buying me out of my contract? It left a bad taste in my mouth because I was there from Day 1. I really wasn’t shown any loyalty.”

Yet, maybe because of the success he’s had with the Rage, it doesn’t sound like he has much animosity at all toward the current Bees ownership.

“I don’t wish what I went through last year and what I went through in (2005) on anybody,” Egeland said. “(Bees coach) Paul Fixter is a good man, and so is (Bees assistant coach) Sean Gillam. I was an example that losing seasons happen. I can look myself in the mirror from last year, and even down there, and know that I did everything I could to have a good team. And they’re doing the same things there.”

But Egeland, who is almost two years removed from his time in the Valley, has some more pointed comments toward the culture around the team.

When Egeland left the Bees, there was little outcry about his departure. In three seasons with the team, Egeland won 84 games and had two winning seasons. But, as he acknowledges, he lost his job partly because he was unable to get past Laredo and the frustration from some segments of the Bees’ fanbase and old front office.

“Too many times down there the negative voice has too loud of an opinion,” Egeland said. “I do know that 99 percent of the people down there want to come and support the team, but the negative voice there sure seems to be louder than the 5,000 other people that love the game.”

Since Egeland left the team, the Bees have changed owners, with Troy Nelson taking control of the franchise in November of 2006. One holdover from the administration of former owner Joe Sakulenzki is general manager Grant Buckborough.

Buckborough insisted that there is no animosity between him and the former coach. The only reason Buckborough said Saturday night’s game has extra meaning is the Rage’s record (28-7-4), not who their coach is or the Bees’ tenuous situation.

“We’re playing the best team in the league,” Buckborough said. “The only difference between the game last year and the game this year, we’re playing the best team in the league. And, hopefully we come out on top. We played them tight the last time we played them, and I expect no different this time.”

While Buckborough said he has a positive relationship with Egeland, the former Bees coach wondered aloud what could have happened if he had gotten a fourth season.

“That third year, we were a player away. We didn’t have a Brent Cullaton. But the disappointing part about down there, was that people said my team, or the Killer Bees, wasn’t successful. We had two pretty good years there, and we lost to the team that won the whole thing twice,” Egeland said. “People blew that out of the water, not realizing how good a group of players we had there, especially that third year. Let me do it for one more year, and how do we know that this year Brent Cullaton’s not playing for us down there?”

The 2005-2006 Bees featured forwards Daymen Bencharski (now Rycroft), Trevor Weisgerber and defenseman Nathan Rosychuk. Rycroft, who signed with Egeland in Rocky Mountain this season after spending last year in the ECHL, leads the CHL with 34 goals while Weisgerber and

Rosychuk have combined for 79 points with the Rage.

Rycroft said he left the Bees after the ’06 season to pursue a chance in the AHL, not because of any ill-feeling toward the franchise. He does wonder, though, what the Bees could have done if the core of that ’06 squad had stayed intact.

“We think about that, we did have a good team. But, obviously, we were a few guys short at the time,” Rycroft said. “Who’s to say we would have went past the first round? It’s just

one of those things. You don’t really dwell on that.”

Brian Sandalow covers the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4436. For this and more local stories, visit www.themonitor.com.