Sunday, Bloody Sunday

By: Patrice L. Leonard

Some news you just don’t want to wake up to. But, today’s bombshell was a welcomed distraction to my usual morning chaos. The single fact that Bobby Clarke is no longer the “puppet master” of this team was the best news I had heard in a very long while. The carnage from the announcement that he and Coach Ken Hitchcock were no longer holding their positions within the Flyers organization was minimal. Mostly in part because it was a long time coming. Hitchcock was a bit of a surprise though.

To a team on an apparent downward spiral, new head coach John Stevens will be a breath of fresh air. I believe he will be able to get this train back on track. He has a winning attitude combined with tenacity, youth, a will to win that will benefit a team that has seemingly forgot how to show up for games. Hitchcock was not the ideal coach for this team, I knew it for some time now. He was too quiet and had no real fire to him. This Flyers team morphed into him over the past few years and with players that had true emotion gone from the fold, no one has been there to uphold the standard that we have become accustomed to with this team.

There is no heart, no muscle, no desire to go out and sacrifice yourself and your body to get the win. Stevens will bring that back. He has a proven track record with the Philadelphia Phantoms and has already coached most of the young guys on the team. This can only benefit them in the long run. As they respond to his coaching and their initial doggedness returns others on the team will surely feed off of that.

This team is not short on talent by any means. They just have to start utilizing all of that talent and adding some grit and heart to it. With Craig Berube as his assistant coach that will no doubt take place.

Clarke resigning was great news. Although, I think that his “resignation” was a farce. How can someone who has failed so miserably over the years not have been fired? Listening to his press conference this morning he made some statements that upheld some beliefs that I have had about him over the years. He told us that he became tired of the General Manager job. That was more than evident this past off season when several opportunities came his way and he had the option of making a deal that would help this club. He watched every one of those opportunities pass him by with no effort whatsoever.

We all know that the assignment of Paul Holmgren as the interim GM will only last as long as it takes to find a suitable replacement for Clarke. The logical thing to do would be to lure former Flyer and current Assistant GM to the LA Kings, Ron Hextall. I am slightly biased here of course due to the fact that he is my all time favorite player. But, what he brings to the table is ferociousness unmatched by any other. Those of us who had the extreme pleasure to watch him play know this already. With a combination of Stevens, Berube, and the possibility of adding Hextall we would be assured that the fight would be put back in the Philadelphia Flyers.