Flyers Hockey, Give The People What They Want

Photo Credit: Rebecca McCormick

It is finally here: The Flyers 2022-23 NHL season is upon us. I’m going to cut right to the chase and predict that the main story line of the season will be Flyers new Head Coach John Tortorella. There’s just no way around it. The team is going to fly or die based on what he can do to pull it together into a cohesive unit. It is a huge challenge even for a coach with a proven track record of success. This town bleeds orange and black, but somebody has to stop the bleeding. For years now, when the puck drops on opening night none of the players wearing the logo will have been born the last time the Flyers won The Cup. In fact, Jaromir Jagr was the last Flyer still playing to have even been alive when the team last won it all… Jagr was three years old at the time. Some of the new players may not yet realize what they’ve gotten themselves into here. For many Flyers fans, the impact of those cup years and The Broad Street Bullies is still very much alive. We have passed that spirit and the stories of those days down like folklore to our younger generations. When the Flyers hired John Tortorella as their new head coach, he said that one of the things that drew him here was the logo. A strange answer to some I am sure, but to many Philadelphia Flyers Fans who have made that logo part of their everyday lives, that answer hit home.

Flyers Fans are often misunderstood, we’re not asking for the organization to “live in the past”. We’re asking the organization to draw on long-standing traditions and make things like hard work, loyalty, and giving everything you’ve got part of the current culture. Tortorella says he wants to make the team harder to play against. That’s perfect, that is what we are looking for. Every player accountable for every shift, every game, every night. We don’t want to watch our hockey team get pushed around anymore. Yes this is something we’ve had in the past, but that doesn’t make it an antiquated ideal that should not be strived for today. The team’s history and the expectations of its fans should never be considered a downside.

Philadelphia is known around the league as being one of the great hockey towns. I have heard players say that one thing about playing here is that the fans know the game well enough to recognize when you are not giving it your all. In other towns you might get away with coasting through a few shifts on an off night, but in Philly the fans know what you are up to and you are going to hear about it. Flyers Fans expect a lot from their hockey team and at the very least they want to know that you are giving it all that you’ve got. The Broad Street Bullies pushed their way into our lives in a way that made hockey part of who we are, part of who our families have become. Our young people know who Bobby Clarke and Bernie Parent are (as they should) and they also know what that logo stands for, they’ve been raised on it. You have kids all over the area who are already deeply involved in the sport because of the excellent work of the Snider Foundation hockey program. The Stanley Cup Flyers are still The Stanley Cup Flyers because no one else has added their names to that list. Flyers Fans young and old still have that same bunch of heroes. I am not discounting all the great moments in between that team and the present, I’m just saying, that is the team that taught this town how to love hockey. They stood up for themselves and they stood up for each other, and in doing so they were standing up for us. Flyers history shall not be forgotten and to make that request to the fanbase sounds more like an excuse than a realistic option. Fans still have the same “Never say die” attitude, and they want their team to share that with us. This unique type of generational mindset is not going to change overnight whether the organization wants it to or not, and it shouldn’t.

Moving forward it will take a lot to put the ghosts of last season behind us. A season that ended with no playoffs, no coach, no captain, the line up shredded with injuries, and way too many empty seats in the arena. At one low point after a loss against New York, we were outnumbered by Rangers fans in the hallways of our own building. They were all singing their Rangers chants at us, in our house? You kiddin’ me? Mr. Snider would have hated that. It started to feel like every night was going to end with one last goal in the Flyers empty net. They led the league in that stat last season. One night as the final seconds were ticking off the clock, the puck was on it’s way yet again towards the Flyers empty net. As the puck slid towards the goal line, right behind it was Captain Claude Giroux. He was diving across the ice wearing one glove,­ he lost the other one in a collision at center ice, he was giving everything in an attempt to keep that puck out of the Flyers net as if it actually mattered. And it did matter, there were moments like that and countless others where Giroux just kept plugging away even when all seemed lost. The gem of last season was clearly Giroux’s 1,000th game. It was intense. The building was packed and the excitement level was through the roof. The Nashville Predators were absolutely not polite party guests, they dogged Giroux all night long, and made the Flyers work for every square inch of ice. The Flyers battled back over and over again to make that win happen. That game obviously really mattered to everyone in the building. That level of intensity from the players and the fans was something we had not experienced in quite some time, it was beautiful. Unfortunately, it was a finale.

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With Giroux gone even more lands on the plate of the new coach. Giroux spent many years putting patches on so many holes for this team. The captain and the coach may have ended up butting heads this year if Giroux had remained a Flyer. I say that because the new coach needs to pull off all of those scabs and fix all of those holes, and he seems to be well aware of that. The process is probably going to ruffle some feathers, oh well, there’s no time like the present. Tortorella is saying all the right things. He seems like a pretty good match for this town, he is outspoken, passionate, and demanding. Let’s face it, he is the kind of guy that drives Philly Fans nuts until that Flyers logo lands on his jacket. Now we can’t wait to see him driving other teams nuts because now he’s our guy and that’s just how we roll. I’m glad that logo says something to our new coach. I hope he can bring that spirit out in every player that wears that logo on their jersey.

The odds makers are not feeling very positive about the team’s chances this year but Philly has always had a soft spot for underdogs, and that is exactly what the orange and black are right now. It’s an underdog team with a pit-bull of a coach who believes he is the guy who can turn it around. He is not starting from scratch, there is a lot of talent here and a lot of young players looking to prove themselves. Tortorella wants a Flyers team that other teams do not look forward to playing against. He wants a team that represents the passion and history of its hometown. I am really looking forward to watching how this all plays out. Moreover, I think we may be in for some surprises along the way. It is going to be a long haul, don’t expect a magical transformation overnight. Maybe there needs to be more options than just “fly” or “die”, I don’t think it is time to give up, I think it’s time to get to work. Summer is finally over, it’s hockey season again for crying out loud! LETS GO FLYERS!