Bridgeport earns home ice, sets playoff date with Hershey Bears

Bridgeport enters the Atlantic Division first round with something Hershey cannot manufacture, no matter how many banners the Bears have raised: the series opens at Total Mortgage Arena, where the Islanders turned a late-season surge into home ice and a franchise-record 10-game winning streak. In a best-of-three playoff format, that edge is everything, because one hot night from Henrik Tikkanen or one costly special-teams lapse can swing the entire matchup before the series ever settles in.

The Islanders earned that position by beating Hartford 4-1 in their final regular-season home game, a result that clinched their berth in the 2026 Calder Cup Playoffs and extended a remarkable run in front of their own crowd. They also showed they can bother Hershey directly, beating the Bears 4-1 on April 1 in Bridgeport while holding them scoreless in the third period. Tikkanen stopped 31 of 32 shots that afternoon, the kind of goaltending performance that can tilt a short series and force the Bears to chase from behind.

Hershey still arrives with the loudest postseason resume in the AHL. The Bears clinched their playoff spot with a 5-1 win over Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and will make their 73rd postseason appearance since joining the league in 1938. Their record includes 13 Calder Cup championships, 25 Finals appearances and 71 postseason appearances, all league marks, which is why no one in Bridgeport will mistake this for a routine first-round draw.

The teams split the regular season in a 2-3-0-1 head-to-head battle that hinted at how tight the margins could be. This is the third playoff series between them, and Hershey won both previous meetings, in 2010 and 2019, each in five games. That history gives the Bears credibility, but it also puts more pressure on Bridgeport to use its home ice immediately, before the series shifts to GIANT Center for Game 2 on Thursday, April 23, at 7 p.m. Eastern.

Game 1 is set for Tuesday, April 21, at 7 p.m. in Bridgeport, with Game 3, if necessary, back at Total Mortgage Arena on Saturday, April 25, at 3 p.m. Eastern. Hershey’s home playoff tickets were scheduled to go on sale Monday at 10 a.m., but the bigger market-moving story remains the same: Bridgeport finally earned a postseason stage at home, and now it has to cash in fast against the AHL’s most decorated franchise.