An excerpt from the HamiltonBulldogs.com game review of their first AHL pre-season game:

Wednesday, October 1, 2008 – 09:11PM

HAMILTON 3 TORONTO 1

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

St. John’s, NF – The Hamilton Bulldogs opened the pre-season with a 3-1 win over the Toronto Marlies in front of a raucous 4,859 crowd at Mile One Centre in St. John’s, Newfoundland on Wednesday night.

The Marlies and Bulldogs traded power-play goals in the first period to knot the score at one goal each. Tim Stapleton opened the game’s scoring for Toronto on the powerplay at 4:20 of the opening frame when he rifled the puck underneath the crossbar and over the glove of Hamilton starting netminder Cedrick Desjardins. The ‘Dogs responded with a power-play marker from Thomas Beauregard at 19:27. Brock Trotter dished the puck to Beauregard, who blasted a shot past Toronto starting netminder James Reimer.

Hamilton scored two goals in the middle stanza to lead the Marlies 3-1 following two periods. Trotter notched his first goal of the pre-season and second point of the game at 1:17. David Desharnais sent a pass to Trotter, who deked by Reimer and buried the puck into the back of the net. Mike Glumac added to the Bulldogs lead at 18:01 when his shot bounced off Reimer’s shoulder and into the goal. Desharnais earned a helper on the play for his second assist of the night.