So here's the Flyers options right now during the lockout:
1- play in Europe
2- stay at home, skate with teammates by renting ice
3- find "caravan" games with NHL players in Canada.
Last week, we heard that the NHLPA was trying to put together a brand new "Summit Series" between Canada and Russia.
That makes sense given this is the 40th anniversary of the famed '72 Summit Series. But from what I am hearing from NHL players, this is not gaining much traction.
Most of the players I talked to know nothing about it which tells me it might have hit a snag somewhere.
One major hangup is who would get the TV rights? You can't expect TSN, HNIC, NBC, etc _ people who have existing contracts with the NHL to jeopardize their rights agreements for renewal by backing a union-sponsored tournament during a lockout.
Now Danny Briere told us today at Skate Zone - 10 Flyers and some others _ have rented ice there ... that Max Talbot and Bruno Gervais were trying to put together a "caravan" of players travelling throughout Quebec.
Claude Giroux would be interested, as well.
Andy Strickland, who writes for truehockey.com, first reported on the Quebec league out in St. Louis.
“They’re trying to get something going where the players of Quebec would play each other and … I was invited to see if I was interested, but I don’t think they have anything formal,” Briere said.
Joel Bouchard organized this in 2005, Briere said. There would be a team in Quebec City, another in Montreal and perhaps two more clubs - Ottawa and Toronto. Those two cities didn't have teams in 2005.
These are more or less organized pickup games once a week.
It's interesting how few Flyers have committed to playing overseas. My sense, talking to them and agents, is that they want to see whether the October sked gets cancelled before uprooting their lives.
That's why Nicklas Grossmann is hanging around instead of going to his former division 2 club in Sweden. I know for a fact a number of NHL execs think there could be a deal reached in time to save the October schedule.
But that can only happen if both sides resume formal talks and so far, we have no indication that is a certainty later this week.
Meanwhile, there remains angst among players about this lockout.
“We put a lot of thought into our offer," Briere said. "There was many days where there was work and there are trigger points depending upon how everybody would do and getting them money money if they did really well in the revenue.
“If they didn’t so well, we would give more. It was really worked on very hard. They left for 30-40 minutes and came back and it was just a hard number with no thought thrown into it. Not much work to it. I think that is where my feeling is , it was so disappointing.
"After spending so much time and work into finding something that could work for everybody, they just came back and said, no. They went from 46 to 47 percent basically. That was the deal after two years.
"Our deal there were trigger points in there … At the end of the day, just turned around and said, ‘no, this is what we want, we’ll increase one percent.’ "
Scott Hartnell organized Tuesday's player skate at Voorhees by renting ice from Skate Zone. PLayers can rent ice at public facilities. But they can't use any of the club's facilities.
“We’re skating every day this week and as the weeks go on, I am sure guys will pull out to find places to play or teams to practice with," Hartnell said.
"We’ll take it a few weeks at a time. I’m going to stay here and get my place set up and stay in shape this way.
"Kimmo and I are going to have workouts to stay in shape. You can’t get fat or get out of shape. When camp does start, whether it next week or next year, forever how long they lock us out for, we have to be ready to go."
Ruslan Fedotenko and Jakub Voracek are the only FLyers with contracts to play in the KHL. In fact, they are the only FLyers with contracts to play, anywhere.
Here's more lockout coverage on CSNPhilly.com:
click here 
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