I made myself go to Barnes and Noble tonight and pick up the one copy they have of The Final Call: Hockey Stories from a Legend in Stripes by Kerry Fraser. It’s been on my list to read and review since I started here at Flyers Faithful. Unfortunately, unlike those lovely picture books I reviewed many weeks ago, this is a novel-sized book. Which means it will take time. So this week is a teaser. Because as I was waiting for my appointment, I read the first chapter entitled, “Holding On: The Final Game.” I hadn’t realized this, but Mr. …
The ‘How’ of Homer
When Paul Holmgren took over as the general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers on October 22, 2006, I received numerous messages from my friends who grew up as fans of the Hartford Whalers. Those messages ranged from, “Good luck with that,” to “What a terrible choice” to the simple but poignant, “Bwahahahahaha.” These were people jaded by the abysmal record that the Whalers posted during his tenure as Hartford’s coach and his brief stint as GM in the years that eventually led up to Hartford’s relocation to Carolina. (His DUI and stint at Betty Ford likely did not help matters …
Flyers Shred Blue Jackets 9-2
What a doozy! In Jeff Carter’s return to Philadelphia… Er, anyway, even Carter couldn’t have helped his new team survive the Flyers’ 9-2 thrashing of Columbus last night. The game, which the home team controlled from the start, was a real crowd pleaser. It featured a little bit of everything and a whole lotta scoring. The Flyers started off the first period fast, scoring two within the first 3 1/2 minutes, and worked up a staggering 5-0 advantage before it was all over. Among these were a pretty power play goal by Jaromir Jagr, a great dexterous goal by Max Talbot and a goal from the blue …
Print Media
On my very messy desk (it gets bulldozed on the weekend, sometimes), sit two issues of The Hockey News. My very first two issues in truth. Being a subscriber to Gamecenter Live means I get a lot of advertisement emails from NHL.com and the like and this was the fifth email about getting 10 issues of The Hockey News for some low price. I’d just been asked to write here on flyersfaithful.com and I thought, I need to know more about hockey, why not? I like magazines and catalogues. It might be more the joy of getting something in the …
Preparing for Saturday Night
Yes, this is a repeat for some of you. But I thought it was appropriate. The Lulz feature was originally inspired by the lolcats site but features hockey pictures with funny, quirky, ironic or just plain mean captions. This feature should run weekly on Fridays; TGIFWL (Thank Goodness It’s Friday With Lulz).
Atlantic Watch: 10/26-11/1
The week opened up roughly, but it ended smoothly as the Flyers seem to be moving towards playing better after a 5-1 win at home against the Carolina Hurricanes. Giving up 14 goals in back-to-back nights, the Flyers lost in inexplicable fashion to two currently horrendous teams, who are both experiencing difficulties in play and personnel. Rebounding back from those two horrific losses, the Flyers spanked Carolina with both Danny Briere and Chris Pronger out of the lineup. The Flyers began the real Halloween horror show by suffering a 5-1 defeat in Montreal last Wednesday, giving the lowly Habs their first road win …
Flight Plan Week of 10.30.2011
The Philadelphia Flyers split their four games this week. After a big win over the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Flyers dropped a bad one to the Montreal Canadiens where they looked all sorts of out of sorts against a team who was desperate for a win. Then, the Flyers continued looking discombobulated up until the end of the second period against the Winnipeg Jets in a crazy 17-goal back-and-forth shoot out at the Wells Fargo Center, the Jets barely getting out of dodge with a win they should have had locked up. Wrapping up the week, Philadelphia was able to …
Poll: Which set of players will be more successful?
It’s not practical to accurately predict the future but why not try anyway? The last three generation of stars in Philly have come in pairs: Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, Claude Giroux and James van Riemdyk, and now Brayden Schenn and Sean Couturier. Let’s assume it is 20-years in the future and we can look back on the careers of these players. How would you rank them? Note: You’ll have to rank them in the comments section.
Atlantic Watch: 10/6-10/11
Philly started off the season with a 2-1 win against the defending Stanley Cup Champions, the Boston Bruins in Beantown, then recorded a dominant 3-0 shutout in New Jersey to end a 101-game drought during the regular season and playoffs combined. After giving up the first goal of the NHL season to Brad Marchand, the Flyers scored two goals in the final minute of the first period. Claude Giroux dangled his way to a goal with 50 seconds left, while Jakub Voracek scored with only three seconds to go on a turn around shot in the slot. Fortunately for Philly, this would be all they needed as Ilya …
3 on 3 for the week of 10.9.11
Welcome to 3 on 3, a new weekly column I will be doing for flyersfaithful.com. It will be a statistical breakdown of the past week’s games and a look at the three best and worst Flyers of the week. The Flyers have started out hot, going 2-0 in their first 2 games, beating Boston 2-1 on Thursday and shutting out the Devils 3-0 on Saturday. Everyone is playing well for the most part so lets go to my three “Hot” players for last week: 1. Wayne Simmonds- Wearing #17 and having to fill some of Jeff Carter’s goal scoring shoes …