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A Brand New Coach and New Goalie...So Philly. Feels so Right; Tues Buzz

December 18, 2018, 11:53 AM ET [88 Comments]
Eklund
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This blog may seem like another Flyers blog…and it may have started out that way…but I quickly realized that while I was writing about the crazy circumstances surrounding the Flyers, there was a theme that felt far more important and is completely universal to all NHL fans in 2018…all fans of sports actually.

So we all live in the year 2018, and we are constantly bombarded with information. We can find out anything we need to find out in a matter seconds. As a kid who studied journalism in the late '80s at university, I can't tell you how frustrating it was to do research before the Internet.

Actually many of my sources came as a result of a time before the Internet when you had to find the right expert and talk to them to get answers to a specific question. There was a process. It was time-consuming. It often ended in dead ends which made you question why the hell you were doing this in the first place? And because of all those reasons the only solace you could find was that the work justified the time. Even when it didn't. Even when you hit a dead-end, because dead ends are in fact: results. They point you to other directions. Slowly…over-time you’d become more of an expert in your field.

And more than anything you knew that most people had the same question that you were researching weren't going to put in the amount of work it took to find the answer. They would just go on with their own lives, and look to you at some point perhaps because they knew you studied that crap.

Today we live in two worlds. For those of us who spend a lot of time on the Internet, the Internet world can seem to be 90% of the real world. If we have a question about something we Google it and generally get close to something or some kind of an answer that is acceptable to satisfy our curiosity. But chances are you live only in part of the Internet world, for example the hockey Internet world, and you feel like you've become a pretty good expert about the inner workings of the sport of hockey and what one should or shouldn't do when running a hockey team. You have access to a ton more knowledge than anyone years ago who ACTUALLY was running a team had...

And you know what? You may have become an expert at this. I am not kidding. One of the things I tell my writers is that there are 500 people reading your stuff who know every bit as much about the sport, the intricacies, the politics, the history… as you do. So when you go to work everyday your job is to not just to cover the sport, but do so in a way that other experts will want to read. And if you're wrong with facts, always remember the giant conglomerate of your readers won't hesitate to tell you how they collectively know more than you do. Because comment sections aren’t a fair fight.. it's 1 versus 10,000… or more depending on the popularity of your particular column.

But we also live still (partially at least) in another world …A world that is made up of actual conversations and meetings… A world where you have friends who aren't living on the hockey internet. They may follow Bob McKenzie or @NHL or listen to sports talk radio, but they don't really follow the minutia of every minute or every second on hockey twitter.

So when a hockey story breaks, in Philadelphia where I live, I get two kinds of texts.

Mostly I get texts from friends of mine who don't live on the hockey internet asking my opinion, because they know this is my job, and I know they haven't read my blog that I just wrote about this exact question (which is fine) so I respond to them with my opinion as a friend would IN THE REAL WORLD and not with "Well of course that's obvious I just wrote about it and it's all over the hockey Internet.”

Take my friend Joe for example. Joe loves the Flyers, but if he lives in any internet world football would be it. Joe is a Philadelphia Eagles season ticket holder. His daughter is a great soccer player whom I've coached on my daughter's team for many years. So as many of you know when you have a kid on a sports travel team you become very good friends with the parents of the other kids on the travel team because you spend a great deal of time with them. You visit this great land with them.

Here is word for word my texts with Joe a day before Carter Hart had been called up by the Flyers:

Joe: “This whole Carter Hart ordeal is BS. If you can stop the puck you can stop the puck.”

Me: “Yes and No. Goalies take time. There is a major aspect to becoming a pro, and goalies are all about confidence. I agree with bringing up slowly. Not as slowly as Hexy wanted to.. but slowly.”

Joe: “I guess. Hexy was such a disappointment. Loved him as a player expected more fight from him. Didn't think he would be afraid to make a move.”

Me: “He had a plan. Set them up for a long time.”

Joe: “Yeh well I had a plan to watch more games this year but I can’t get through a period of this slop…”

So all of that was word for word. before Carter Hart was brought up…

Then…Hart gets the call and I get a text from Joe…“SEE I WAS RIGHT! HART IS A FLYER!”

Ok, since I am writing this on Planet Internet many of you will run to the comments and tell me what an idiot my friend Joe is, even though I’d bet my house every commentor knows more fans like Joe in the real world then they can count. Joe has an opinion. He knows enough to be dangerous, gets really pissed off when the team loses, thinks he knows the answers, but at the end the day hockey is something to do between Eagles games. You know Joes….

On the other end of the (pardon the pun) Flyers Spectrum….My niece is a Flyers fan who lives on the Flyers hockey internet…She lives and breathes this team. She has a partial season ticket plan…Her texts after Carter Hart was pulled up….

Niece: “idk where this team is heading. Why not have Lyon and Neuvirth in goal? Bringing up Hart makes me think management thinks this team can still make the playoffs. They are delusional. Gordon is the coach until the end of the year…this team is doing so many things wrong. They had the opportunity to change things and they failed.”

Me: “Quenneville doesn’t want to coach until next year. Therefore the interim tag. But Gordon is really not a bad option and he is a very smart hockey guy who has been coaching Hart. Hart is an ultra mature kid. Gordon would know better than anyone if Hart wasn’t ready.”
Niece: “I know, but putting him behind this defense is bad for his confidence. He’s only been good for the Phantoms this past month”

Me: “All true, but the AHL plays very differently. Some NHL players never do well in the AHL. It's a crap shoot, but I don’t think Hart will be permanent scarred by anything at this point. This is a kid who is played in several high level tournaments for his own country and junior teams and always been cool as a cucumber.”



On TuneIn Radio




So I am sure many of you out there agree with my niece …it all makes sense based on the norms of hockey society…and if you read the well versed other fan-sperts on twitter you would be in the majority with these well learned opinions…No one will call you an idiot online for this stance…Worst-case scenarios are good to plan for.

The point is…IT'S ONLY HOCKEY. There is no absolute right or wrong. Some experienced teams are great on paper and fail…and some are the Vegas Knights...every player on the Vegas Knights was let go by a team and 95% of those moves were agreed with on the hockey internet at the time…

Time will tell…

Time will eventually determine what they should have or shouldn’t have done with Carter Hart, and while it's easy to second guess this now, Carter Hart starting tonight is really just a small piece of the puzzle that will be Carter Hart’s pro hockey career. Putting a goalie into this mess could be disastrous, OR the goalie could look at this like a “I have nothing to lose type of game” and believe me goalies LOVE playing in those games.. I was a goalie, my daughter is a goalie, and we talk about this all of the time. The position can suck because your job is 99% of the time “trying NOT to lose the game for the team.” Every mistake you make has dire consequences. Most the time as a goalie people are saying, “As long as the goalie doesn’t screw up we should win this game.” No one alive will blame Carter Hart if tonight goes poorly. That's a fun way to live believe me! Give me a chance to steal a game every time over a game I am supposed to win. WAY LESS PRESSURE on Hart tonight than we are projecting.

So this move of bringing in Gordon and Hart together is a risk. But why not? (a question you should NEVER put in a blog) But seriously…have you seen what has been happening in Philly for last twenty years in goal. Can you really blame them for bringing one of the best goalie prospects of last decade half a season earlier than they were planning on?

Over the past several years Hextall did a lot of good with the Flyers. He built the farm system. He fixed the cap issues. He will get another job in the NHL…but Hextall absolutely sucked at one thing: Selling hope. He conditioned Flyers fans to be conservative and wait for everything to pan out. After all, it is the only RIGHT way to build a team…I grew up with this team. I went to almost every home game from 1980 until I entered the press box in 2004…. I would not have expected Flyers fans to buy what Hextall was selling…

But they did buy it…the ones online at least..They bought it probably because the hockey internet exists and EVERYONE else in the hockey world mocked the Flyers and Ed Snider for making so many changes and trades and giving up too soon on prospects…Mistakes which they sometimes did indeed make… but some of those mistakes actually worked out too, and when they didn’t at least Ed Snider, Bob Clarke and the rest sold the fans on hope.. Ed Snider sold hope in bunches and one of those things he sold Flyers fans on was the concept that a rough and tough player with a bit of skill could actually be developed into a solid coach, GM, and team president…Anyone who watched Paul Holmgren play, like I did, would have never expected he would be the one running it all in the future when we took our kids to the games.

But Holmgren remembers that other world. He remembers the Flyers way prior to Hexy…and based on what we’ve seen wants to bring some of it back...right or wrong it's better to wage everything on a game of chip n putt and LOSE it all…or whatever that saying is…(It's it internet, you will tell me…I am sure)

The bottom line is this:

To the rest of the Hockey Internet Carter Hart starting tonight is wrong in every way. He will be screwed up forever…The Flyers always rush their goalies…Flyers fans who were around pre hockey internet and pre Hextall will take pride in the Ed Snider concept of doing whatever it take to win NOW.. Somethings you can plan…some you can’t. Remember Darren Jensen?

And I remember that other young goalie Mike Keenan started over the veteran…what was his name? Hextall or something?

Tell me what you think….I know most people love to comment with logic and tell everyone why they are so wrong…but maybe this once we can let the fans be OK with being excited about Carter Hart and not just lost in judgement…this is supposed to be fun after all…in sports anything is possible…
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