Hard to imagine, but Hershey will play its final weekday home game and final non-East Division game overall Wednesday when the Toronto Marlies face it off here. The puck drops at 7:00 p.m., and tickets are still available for the festivities. Here’s what happening tonight.

-The BIG news as reported in this space earlier is that the Bears can clinch a 2009 Calder Cup playoff berth this evening with a win and a Binghamton win against Philadelphia. While just getting in to the postseason has been mostly a formality the last couple of years around here, it is still a pretty big benchmark to get to. Especially when you consider there’s still an eighth of the season left going into tonight’s action. Get over the hump tonight, and it’s time to move on to bigger and better things. Like, you know, winning the division for instance.

-Chris Bourque will be in the lineup here tonight, one night after getting limited ice time for the Capitals in Toronto against the Leafs. He’ll be on the second line tonight with Kyle Wilson and Andrew Gordon.

-Gotta say I’m liking the defensive pairing of Dean Arsene and Staffan Kronwall. You know Kronwall will be fired up to play his old team tonight, and Deano was nails on the road trip in winning two out of three. Patrick McNeill returns to the lineup to give Tyler Sloan a game to rest. P-Mac will be with Bryan Helmer this evening. Karl Alzner and Sami Lepisto are the third pairing tonight.

-The Marlies are in quite a fight for the postseason up in the North Division. Toronto is winless in three in a row coming in tonight, allowing fifth place Syracuse to creep within one point of the four spot. The Crunch are in Manitoba tonight, and I’m sure they’ll be doing quite a bit of scoreboard watching prior to puck drop in Winnipeg. You have to think the fierce urgency of now coupled with the fact that Hershey throttled this team in their barn 6-1 back on March 7 means the Marlies will be fired up tonight.

-In all the Giroux hoopla, most people haven’t been watching Keith Aucoin’s run toward 100 points that much of late. Coiner needs 13 points in his last 10 games to become the first Hershey player since Christian Matte (1999-2000) to notch 100 or more points in a single season. Aucoin has never had a 100 point season, but he did have 99 for Albany two years ago when the Bears faced his River Rat brethren in the first round.