Date Published: 11-24-2022
Photo Credit: NBC.com
Today is turkey day in the United States, Thanksgiving, and with that it’s time to give some thanks to new Flyers Head Coach John Tortorella. Just saying thanks for his honesty, wonderful quotes, and these little things he does candidly really resonates with the City of Philadelphia. It’s a breath of fresh air in Flyer land, although the orange and black haven’t been getting the results on ice recently.
“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. He’s trying to change the culture, and that will not happen overnight. 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, while that has not been the case for the past few seasons in Philly. Most logical fans know the writing was on the wall for the team to bottom out eventually, but they have become a watchable hockey team in the process.
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Tortorella coached his 1,400th NHL game over a week ago. This is one heck of a feat, even with the loss to the Boston Bruins he 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.”
Effort and hustling was a major focus during Training Camp, hence the reason why Tortorella conditioned and skated the team a lot during those sessions. He was preparing them for what was to come and that is never giving up, just give your all. His team may not be the most talented, but they are well conditioned to give 100% effort night after night. And people just have to except that for who they are. Hopefully they break this losing skid sooner rather than later. All one can say is this team works hard.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone, thank you for all your support.
Can anyone truly say that they didn’t see this coming? I’m not going to re-hash my problems with the Front Office…I’m just shocked that Chuck is still here. Not sure why the Powers That Be are silent on this…as they are on most issues.
That said, I’m in no way blaming Torts for this. He deserves to coach a Contender. I won’t say ‘Pretenders’ to describe the Flyers…they’re way below that.
Injuries keep piling up also. Why is this happening on a yearly basis? Why is this tolerated?
Thru this disaster of a season thus far, I’m very happy to see that Torts is holding the Deadbeat segment of this team accountable. Someone has to.
The front office of the Flyers couldn’t care less about losing. They just care about selling tickets. They have tolerated losing for the past 10 years. Why change anything now? The Flyers are about to hit their 3rd 10-game losing streak in a year. The Legion of Gloom are still in charge. And they will all be rewarded for their incompetence. They just focus on selling tickets to the plus 50 crowd that can kind of remember the Flyers winning the Stanley Cup. That’s the only reason Torts was brought in. They don’t care about winning. They wanted a mascot for the people who hate Gritty.
No playoffs, no cap room, no minor league development system, no prospects, no second round picks.
Well said, Mr. Klatt (if this is THE actual Trent Klatt who played for the Flyers in the 90s, thank you for your response).
Besides Chuck obliterating our draft prospects (who, most of them becoming career minor leaguers), all those Ex Flyers taking up space in the front office (with Bob Clarke being #1 on that list) add no value to the team, and have no business being there.
If there is an area on this club that needs a long, overdue upgrade, it’s the Flyers front office. The real question: who has the intestinal fortitude to do this? No one immediately comes to mind…and that’s a ‘low down dirty shame’