Date Published: 11-18-2022
Photo Credit: Shaylah Rice
“It’s the f..kin Philadelphia Flyers. The first time I went over the Walt Whitman Bridge, I’ve been stuck here in Voorhees, it’s f..kin Philly. I got so f..kin excited.” – John Tortorella
If this can’t pump up a team, I don’t know what will. The quote above reminds me of Herb Brooks talking to his American team before playing the Russian team “Tonight is your night, there night is done,” and the rest is history. Tortorella gets it, and he’s trying to build a connection with the fanbase of Philadelphia. The Flyers hired a former Stanley Cup winning Head Coach John Tortorella to a four year deal, worth $16 million. Some forget he won a Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning back in the 2003-04 season.
Tortorella is known to be a hard-nosed coach, who commands the most from his players. He is not afraid of benching or calling out star studded players either. He ran a tough camp, and made the Flyers tougher in the process, to include being mentally tougher. Now they may not be getting the results on the ice due to lack of talent recently, but this young Flyers team is actually trying giving effort for once.
Last night, Tortorella coached his 1,400th NHL game. This is one heck of a feat, even with the loss to the Boston Bruins, this should be recognized. Tortorella has given people some nice quotes recently, most notably, “We suck…we haven’t done anything right yet,” to “You can do the s*** out of us, I don’t give a s..t what people think about effort.”
One major thing Tortorella honed in on during Training Camp was building a locker room, fixing a possible fracture. Well the mission has been accomplished, as people witnessed the team being there for Kevin Hayes and his nephew Beau on Wednesday.
The whole team showed up to Beau’s house to play hockey with him on Wednesday, the whole team. Now that is a team that supports one another, they didn’t have to be there for Hayes, but this team is unified. They may not be getting the results on the ice right now, but this team cares about one another that is a fact. If anyone it’s been around this team this season, through training camp, they would realize this team cares about one another.
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This team may not be the most talented skill wise, but one thing is for certain they are fun. People can resonate with this team, this is a team you can get behind. In the above video I don’t know who was having more fun was it Carter Hart or was it Beau? This was great stuff from the orange and black, and I’m sure it meant a lot to Kevin Hayes that his comrades supported him and his family once again.
You are out of your mind if this action by players means that they are a close team. No player from a human aspect would miss something like this considering the personal issues hayes has had. This had 0 to do with tortorella btw. This is about the players being human beings.
And no, there is nothing “fun” about this team.