The Flyers are bringing Scranton to Philadelphia, with the NHL’s first theme night celebrating The Office.
On March 14 against the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Flyers will pay tribute to one of NBC’s most iconic TV shows to celebrate the network’s 100th anniversary.
The night will include clips from the show on the videoboard, specialty food and beverage offerings, Gritty tie-ins, and (probably) a giveaway or special ticket package of some kind to be announced at a later time.
The Flyers will be hosting a special “The Office” theme night to celebrate the hit NBC show.
“The Philadelphia Flyers are honored to partner with Peacock to celebrate The Office, an iconic piece of NBC’s legacy 100 years in the making,” said Flyers chief revenue and business officer Todd Glickman in a statement. “It’s happening! Everybody stay calm!”
While The Office has been off the air since May 2013, when it ended its nine-season run, it remains popular. NBC launched a spinoff called The Paper, which premiered on Peacock in the fall and stars Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Nuñez, who reprises his role of Oscar Martinez from the original series. The Paper, which follows a small Midwestern newspaper, is expected to return for a second season in the fall.
Other forthcoming theme nights include Fourth Wing Night, PGA Championship Night, and Margaritaville Night. The Flyers will also host Philadelphia’s last remaining Dollar Dog Night on March 24.
We made it, folks. After 12 years, 4,371 days, a global pandemic-enforced false start, and a little late drama about whether the rink in Milan would actually be ready in time, best-on-best men’s Olympic hockey is officially back.
The puck drops Wednesday at Santagiulia Arena with Slovakia playing Rasmus Ristolainen and Finland (10:40 a.m., USA and Peacock), and host Italy facing off with Sweden (3:10 p.m., USA and Peacock) to begin the highly anticipated Milan Cortina Olympic tournament. On Thursday, the other eight nations are in action, including the United States and Canada.
With NHL players back in the Olympics, there are storylines aplenty as the tournament commences. Here are four things we are watching for in Milan.
Flyin’ high
The Flyers weren’t exactly flying high entering the Olympics, having lost 12 of 15 games, but they will still be well represented in Milan.
Defenseman Travis Sanheim will play for gold medal favorite Canada, while Dan Vladař (Czechia), Ristolainen (Finland), and Rodrigo Ābols (Latvia) were named to the rosters for their respective nations. Unfortunately for Ābols, who represented Latvia at the Beijing Games in 2022, he won’t be able to play in Milan after suffering a severe ankle injury in mid-January. Flyers coach Rick Tocchet will also be busy in the homeland of his parents, as he will serve as a jack-of-all-trades assistant on Jon Cooper’s Canada staff.
Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim (left) will play for Canada at the Olympics.
The Flyers connections don’t end there, as some old friends will be participating, some more well-remembered than others. Radko Gudas and Lukáš Sedlák will play alongside Vladař with Czechia, while ex-coach John Tortorella, who was fired in March, will be an assistant with the Americans under Mike Sullivan.
Last but not least, Pierre-Édouard Bellemare (yes, you read that correctly) will be captaining France. Now 40, Bellemare, who made his NHL debut at 29 and played three seasons with the Flyers (2014-17), will be the oldest men’s player at the tournament as France makes its return to hockey after a 24-year wait. France’s most decorated NHL player, Bellemare, told NHL.com the “Olympics are the highlight of a lifetime … by far.”
Simply the best
While Macklin Celebrini, 19, will be making his Olympic debut, and Sidney Crosby, 38, has famously done this before given his Vancouver heroics in 2010, there are so many players in their mid- to late 20s who will be participating in their first Olympics because of the NHL’s lack of recent participation.
That includes stars like Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Leon Draisaitl, Auston Matthews, Quinn Hughes, Cale Makar, Mikko Rantanen, David Pastrňák, Jack Eichel, and so many others. Wow.
United States forward Auston Matthews takes part in practice Sunday in Milan.
Seeing a mostly full best-on-best tournament for the first time since the 2016 World Cup should provide some exhilarating hockey and drama, especially given how much the players have pushed for this over the past decade. The overall speed and skill the players possess has grown by leaps and bounds since the league last participated in 2014, and that should only enhance one of the top events of any Olympic Games, even with Russia and its star-studded roster led by Nikita Kucherov, Kirill Kaprizov, and Alex Ovechkin notably absent due to the country’s involvement in the war in Ukraine.
Heated rivalry
Last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off was designed to serve as a tasty hors d’oeuvre to the Olympics’ main course, and it left the dinner guests more than satisfied.
The NHL probably felt the tournament could be a modest success and help conjure up interest in the sport a year out from the Olympics. It exploded into something well beyond Gary Bettman’s wildest dreams, thanks in large part to three spirited bouts in nine seconds to begin a preliminary game between Team USA and Canada.
Fight Night at the Bell Centre, however premeditated it was on the U.S. side, and bolstered by the already tense political backdrop between the countries, went viral and put hockey in front of a whole world of eyes that it doesn’t usually reach. Canada would enact revenge in the final in overtime five days later, but a rivalry was renewed and the bad blood was boiled.
That rivalry, and the battle for hockey supremacy, will resume over the next few weeks in Milan as the United States and Canada seem to be on a collision course for the gold medal game. They have always been geographical rivals but never truly equals on the ice. Team USA has closed the gap on its northern neighbor, though, even to the point where a U.S. win could signal a changing of the guard to some. For the last 10 years, everyone has wanted to see the U.S. vs. Canada for all the marbles on the biggest stage. After last year’s two thrilling matchups in the 4 Nations, here’s hoping they get their wish.
United States coach Mike Sullivan skates with the puck during his team’s workout Sunday in Milan.
The American dream
Winners of two of the last three World Juniors and last year’s senior World Championship, and a few Jordan Binnington highway robberies away from 4 Nations glory, USA Hockey is sending its best-ever team to an Olympics and the message is clear: gold or bust.
On the surface, that goal might seem lofty for a U.S. team that hasn’t won gold since 1980’s Miracle at Lake Placid and that hasn’t won gold in the previous five tournaments when NHL players participated. But the Americans have been coming on for some time now and have long wanted a chance to prove they are not only Canada’s equals but have surpassed them at their own game.
After a close call at the 4 Nations, the Tkachuk brothers are back to wreak havoc as they look to unseat Canada as international hockey’s top dog.
Last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off did nothing to quell those ambitions, as the U.S. beat — and beat up — Canada on Canadian soil in the preliminary round before going toe-to-toe with the star-studded Canadiens in a nail-biter of a final. That one ended with a McDavid overtime winner that was probably a bit harsh given the quality of the Americans’ chances and Binnington’s heroics in goal. Add that Team USA’s best defenseman, Quinn Hughes, was unavailable for the tournament, and that one half of the Bash Bros., Matthew Tkachuk, was severely hobbled and mostly relegated to a cheerleader from the bench, and the U.S. has reasons to be confident. Add Canada’s uncertainty in goal and the case for the U.S. gets even stronger.
Canada is still a slight betting favorite thanks to names like McDavid, MacKinnon, Makar, and Crosby, but many think this could go either way, and with the Russians not involved and Finland and Sweden decimated by injuries in the lead-up to the tournament, this seems like the likeliest final.
Can the U.S. team get over the line this time against its archrival and claim hockey’s heavyweight title belt? If it does, there won’t be an underdog movie that begins with an “M” this time around.
There were no Christmas or birthday presents from Shelly and Kent Sanheim this year for their kids and grandkids. They combined everything into one big present for each family member.
But those tickets to Italy weren’t for a typical family vacation. Instead, the tickets for three of their kids and their families were bought early in the hope that their brother, Travis Sanheim, had done enough to book his own trip to the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics and represent Canada.
The cancellation option, added just in case, was not needed.
Around 8 a.m. Mountain Time on the morning of New Year’s Eve, the Flyers defenseman called his parents to give them the news that they needed to work on their Italian. The phone rang as they were making their way through airport security, going from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Calgary, Alberta, as they followed the Flyers on their Western Canada trip.
“I guess maybe three, four years ago, he never thought he would have a shot at this, and now he’s going to, hopefully, bring back a gold, right?” Kent said. “So I don’t know what else to say. I guess, it’s just, I don’t know, it’s hard. It brings tears to my eyes.”
There was a lot of emotion as Kent and Shelly spoke to The Inquirer a few hours later on the concourse at the Scotiabank Saddledome, the rink where Travis starred for the Hitmen of the Western Hockey League during his junior career. The emotions filled the rink, as it was a family affair with everyone, including his twin brother, Taylor, his teammate in the WHL, there to watch Travis play for the Flyers and celebrate his big moment.
This is what the Sanheims are all about: family.
Twin brothers Travis and Taylor Sanheim during their days together with the Calgary Hitmen. This season, apart from Travis with the Philadelphia Flyers, Taylor has played with the Esterhazy Flyers (Sask East Hockey League) pic.twitter.com/tswGkvNw4j
Driving through the prairies of Canada, the chartreuse of the canola fields can be mesmerizing as the sun hits the bright yellow that stretches across seemingly endless miles. Across that open land, not far from the 100th meridian and tucked into the town of Elkhorn, Manitoba, is one of those fields with some wheat intermixed. In this town of about 500 people, with no street light and one K-12 school, is where Travis Sanheim learned all about responsibility, work ethic, and dedication.
“Being out on a farm, you get firsthand … how much work my family puts in and being able to help out, at a young age, I remember skipping school for harvest, jumping in the combine, and helping mom and dad out with harvest … and just how excited I was to be able to help and be a part of it,” the 29-year-old defenseman said recently.
Born and raised a 3½-hour drive west of Winnipeg, Travis grew up wanting to be like Kent and would help him out on the farm as much as he could. He would help plant crops in the spring and harvest them in the fall and complete daily chores throughout the year. If he didn’t help, there would be no time for hockey. And for Travis, it was all about the hockey.
“Just a die-hard, loved the game — always has,” Shelly said of a young Travis. “Always excited to go to the rink and wanted to go to the rink.
“It’s funny, I see on Twitter or whatever about Trav being the last one off the ice and working on things, and I’m like, ‘This is this kid his entire life.’”
Elkhorn is where Travis fell in love with hockey. He always wanted to play, and he and Taylor even would try to scrape off the dugout, a storage reservoir on the farm, to go one-on-one. And while Kent would stay on the farm to work, they’d pile into the car and Shelly would drive them to the local community rink.
“As long as they didn’t look in the waiting room, they didn’t think they ever had to go home because I’d be knocking on the glass and pointing to my watch, and they just would never look up,” she said with a laugh.
“And then they got to stay longer at the rink. He would always be the last one on the ice, if possible. We dragged him off.”
Kent Sanheim with his twin sons, Travis and Taylor, when they played youth hockey in Manitoba.
Wheat Kings and hockey things
At some point growing up, Travis got a key to the rink, which often was open, anyway, in the town that sits near Manitoba’s border with Saskatchewan. While the temperatures could dip well into the teens in the winter months, he’d call his buddies to get games of shinny going with him and his brother.
“We did everything together,” Travis said of Taylor. “A lot of battles in the basement, playing hockey against each other. That’s kind of where my competitiveness, I would say, came from. … Was really lucky to have the opportunities that I did growing up, that I was able to skate as much as I was, and had the guys that pushed me, and obviously, my brother was a huge reason as to why.”
The duo also would hit a frozen pond on Boxing Day before watching Canada compete at World Juniors — a fitting tradition for a family that has a sign in the living room asking people not to disturb them because they’re watching hockey. And Travis remembers sitting in front of the television as Sidney Crosby crushed the hearts of Americans everywhere with his golden goal against the U.S. at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
As a 13-year-old, he just wanted to make the NHL; he never expected to now be lining up alongside the all-time great seeking a gold medal.
“Super excited,” he said. “Obviously, a dream come true. Getting to represent your country and playing in the Olympics and being an Olympian means a lot, and something that I never really thought was possible, but now that it’s here, and then I get the chance to do it, just really excited.”
Sanheim has donned the maple leaf several times before, including at the 2013 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge and the 2014 U18 World Championship, snagging a bronze medal at the latter; the 2016 World Juniors; and the 2022 and 2025 World Championships, winning silver four years ago.
Travis Sanheim celebrates after Canada’s victory in the 4 Nations Face-Off last February.
And he surprised many across Canada last year when he was named to the team for the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament, which the Canadians won. Now he’s going for Olympic gold.
“You never know, there’s so many good players in Canada. They could take a second team and probably still medal with the second team,” Shelly said. “So, you know, just the fact that he was in the mix was a thrill for us, and then to have the dream come true here just — I think I’m still shell-shocked over it. It’s hard to believe.”
‘Across the icy world’
Tampa Bay Lightning and Team Canada coach Jon Cooper isn’t one to show his hand. However, the way he spoke of Sanheim in November in the bowels of the Lightning’s Benchmark International Arena — with a Cheshire Cat-like grin on his face — there was no denying that the defenseman was on his short list.
“You see these players, you compete against these players, but you don’t really know till you have them,” Cooper said. “And I’ve always, I’ve really liked his game. I’m a big fan of big [defensemen] that take up a lot of space and can skate, and he can do all those things. But his ability to jump into plays, he’s got an offensive mind to him.”
After nearly being traded in 2023, Travis Sanheim has developed into a bona fide top-pair defenseman.
Sanheim has come a long way from being a little nervous and wide-eyed at Hockey Canada’s first practice in Brossard, Quebec, ahead of the 4 Nations Face-Off last February. And while he didn’t start the tournament in the lineup, by the end — half because of injury and half because of his performance with the versatility to play right and left defense — he was not just skating in the championship game, but Cooper had him out there for the first shift of overtime.
“He was good. … Travis got thrown in when one of the guys, when [Shea Theodore] got hurt, probably,” said Vegas Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy, an assistant on Cooper’s staff.
“Real good player, steady player, liked his pace, transported pucks, got involved. … I think both [he and Thomas Harley] ended up playing a little bit on the right side, and there was no hesitancy to get up the ice and join the rush. And I think that’s the type of team Coop wanted to build, so he fit right in.”
There will be comfort now for Sanheim, having skated on the same team as some of the game’s biggest names like Crosby, Connor McDavid, Cale Makar, and Nathan MacKinnon. And he’ll surely be comfortable because he’ll be able to look up whenever he wants to see his family in the stands in Milan, Italy.
And he’ll surely be thinking about how far he’s come from his days on a farm in Elkhorn, Manitoba, a place Shelly says “gives him some time for clearing his head and stuff.” He hasn’t been able to spend too much time there with all his hockey adventures, but it circles back to the biggest question heading into the Games, which for Sanheim will begin Thursday against Flyers teammate Dan Vladař and Czechia (10:40 a.m., USA and Peacock).
Philadelphia sports fans will soon be presented with a first — a chance to actually save money during the streaming wars.
Beginning this week, YouTube TV is rolling out a sports-specific plan featuring channels with major sports rights that will cost $64.99 a month, $18 less than what it currently charges for a subscription.
New subscribers can nab the deal for $54.99 a month for a year.
The plan will include all the major broadcast networks — ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox — and cable channels that hold sports rights, including ESPN’s networks (and full access to ESPN Unlimited beginning in the fall), FS1, TNT, TBS, TruTV (for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament), CBS Sports Network, Golf Channel, and USA Network, the U.S. home of Premier League games.
NBC Sports Philadelphia also will be included in the slimmed-down sports bundle for those who live in the Philadelphia TV market, a YouTube spokesperson confirmed. So will NBC’s other three regional sports networks in their respective areas: Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Northern California. NBC Sports Philadelphia also still will be available to stream without a cable subscription through Peacock and MLB.TV.
YouTubeTV’s sports bundle will also include league-centric channels like the NFL Network (now owned by ESPN), the Big Ten Network, and NBA TV, which this season basically just airs a whip-around show called The Association and a handful of NBA games.
While the plan gets sports fans the bulk of NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL games, there are a few omissions. Amazon’s Prime Video, which features Thursday Night Football, weekly NBA games, and playoff games in both leagues, isn’t included. It also doesn’t include the handful of NFL and MLB games streamed by Netflix, or Apple TV+’s Friday Night Baseball or MLS games.
Another notable omission is MLB Network, which hasn’t been available on YouTube TV since 2023 because of a carriage dispute.
YouTube TV is also rolling out slimmed-down subscription offerings for entertainment fans ($54.99 a month), a sports-plus-news package ($71.99 a month), and a family-focused plan ($69.99 a month).
Why now? Growth. YouTubeTV is the third-largest cable TV provider in the country and growing, with over 10 million subscribers, trailing just Charter (12.6 million) and Comcast (11.3 million). While Comcast has been shedding video customers, Charter has been able to stem its losses by offering its own skinny bundle, something fans and non-fans alike have been complaining about for years.
YouTube, the free older brother of YouTube TV, hasn’t been quiet about wanting to stream more NFL games in the near future. It could get its wish as soon as next season.
As part of its purchase of NFL Media and the NFL Network, ESPN agreed to give the league back the TV rights to four games. Those will now head to the marketplace, where YouTube is expected be among the bidders. It’s no surprise that YouTube CEO Neal Mohan was among the big names sitting with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in his Super Bowl box on Sunday at Levi’s Stadium.
“We really value our partnership with the NFL,” Christian Oestlien, YouTube’s vice president of subscription product, told Bloomberg.com in a recent interview. “Everything we’ve done with them so far has been really successful. And so we’re very excited about the idea that we could be doing more with them.”
YouTube’s biggest competitor for those four games likely will be Netflix, which is entering the last year of its three-season deal to stream NFL Christmas games. Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-CEO, was also in Goodell’s booth.
YouTube streamed its first NFL game last season, the Week 1 matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers played in São Paulo, Brazil. The game drew 17.3 million global viewers, including 16.2 million in the United States, a big number boosting the streamer’s chances of landing more games.
More sports media news
ESPN will broadcast next year’s Super Bowl in Los Angeles, and you’re going to hear a lot over the next year about it being the network’s first. But it has aired on sister network, ABC. As pointed out by Sports Media Watch’s Jon Lewis, ABC has broadcast three Super Bowls since being purchased by ESPN’s parent company, Disney, in 1996 — in 2000, 2003, and 2006, with coverage featuring Chris Berman and a number of ESPN personalities. The Super Bowl also has aired in Spanish on ESPN Deportes.
Happy trails to the laptop of The Athletic’s Tony Jones, which was destroyed after it was hit by a T-shirt shot by a cannon during the fourth quarter of Sunday’s Super Bowl. Jones said the rolled-up T-shirt hit his computer, which then hit him in the face, cracking the screen and preventing him from filing a story.
NBC will air MLB games this season for the first time since 1989 and is filling out its broadcast bench, adding studio analysts (and recent MLBers) Clayton Kershaw, Anthony Rizzo, and Joey Votto. You might not see much of them during the regular season, but all three will be part of NBC’s coverage of the wild-card series, which it’s taking over from ESPN.
Super Bowl viewership numbers will be out later Tuesday. If you care about such things and have seen numbers on social media, ignore them. The Eagles’ blowout win last year against the Chiefs averaged over 127 million viewers, peaking with Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show, with over 133 million people tuning in. We’ll see how Bad Bunny and Sunday’s boring Super Bowl can match that.
Dan Vladař joked that he told Travis Sanheim that once they land in Italy, the Flyers teammates will no longer be buddies, and that he’s blocking his number.
At least … we think he’s joking.
The Flyers goalie and native of Czechia, formerly the Czech Republic, will face Sanheim, Flyers coach Rick Tocchet, and Canada in the opening Group A game for both teams at the Milan Cortina Olympics on Thursday (10:40 a.m., USA, Peacock). Defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen will be suiting up for Finland, which is in Group B and plays Slovakia on Wednesday (10:40 a.m., USA, Peacock).
“That’s going to be a fun one,” Vladař told The Inquirer about playing the Canadians. “You know, I think I know more of his weaknesses than, hopefully, they know about my weaknesses, so I’m going use that power against them.”
And the chatty goalie will 100% throw some chirps Sanheim’s way — maybe even in Czech — if he’s in net. Of course, there are no guarantees that he will be the starter at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, but there’s a good chance.
His teammate Karel Vejmelka has more games (44) and wins (27) this season than Vladař (17 wins in 33 games), but the Flyers netminder has a better goals-against average (2.47) and save percentage (.905) than the Utah Mammoth goalie and Lukáš Dostál of the Anaheim Ducks.
Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim is ready to take on Czechia with Team Canada.
“Obviously, you don’t really want to share too much, but he’s been awesome for us this year,” said Sanheim when asked what he’ll tell his Canadian teammates about Vladař.
“He’s a big reason why we’ve been in a lot of games and [I’m] not really looking too forward to going up against him. He’s been playing great — and I don’t score on him too much in practice.”
Prague proud
After toiling behind Tuukka Rask in Boston and Jacob Markström and Dustin Wolf in Calgary, Vladař is getting a chance to be a No. 1 goalie in Philly. And now he’ll get a chance to show his talents on the world stage as he tries to help his country win its first Olympic medal since the 2006 Torino Olympics and its first gold since the 1998 Nagano Games. In the final of that tournament, Dominik Hašek pitched a shutout against Russia, almost six months to the day after Vladař was born in Prague.
“I was too little to remember anything,” Vladař said, “but just watching the highlights, and basically, I think that’s one of the reasons why I’m even playing hockey, is because, you know, obviously, my parents were watching, and the whole country was watching.
“So I’m pretty sure a whole new generation of players are coming from that era. So, obviously, it’s going to be a great time for me, and I’m really proud.”
Vladař is proud of Czechia and his hometown, Prague, and it shines through on his goalie mask. Working with Langhorne’s Franny Drummond of Paint Zoo Studios, who also designed his NHL game mask and worked with the Flyers’ goalies and children on their Hockey Fight Cancer masks, he brought his vision to life — with a twist.
After having to scrap his original mask plan because the International Ice Hockey Federation and the International Olympic Committee did not approve it — Drummond told the Snow The Goalie podcast at the Flyers Charities Carnival that they originally had lions and lightning on the side — Vladař went simple with a tribute to home.
On the sides are the national crest with the skyline of Prague, including Prague Castle and Prašná brána or the Powder Tower — “It’s a piece of my heart, back home, and I’m proud that I can be from the beautiful city like that,” he said — underneath each crest.
Dan Vladař worked with Langhorne’s Franny Drummond of Paint Zoo to design his Olympic goalie mask.
The checker pattern pulled from the team’s jerseys is intermixed, and the back plate sports the names of equipment managers, athletic trainers, and team service members.
“I think they deserve it,” Vladař said.
“Overall, in hockey, they don’t really get enough credit for the time they spend around us, and whatever they do for us. … So this is just a little something that I think I can do for them to get their names out there and just maybe people start recognizing them a little bit more.”
Although he has the Flyers staff on his mask in Philly, there’s a chance he may need to cover the names in Italy based on IIHF and IOC guidelines.
“We couldn’t really go wild with that because they’re pretty strict with the Olympics. But at the same time, I think, it’s simple, but simple is power,” he said.
“I think it turned out to be a pretty cool, simple mask … and I’m always going to look up to it with hopefully a bunch of really good memories.”
Mettle to Medal
Like his friend Michal Krčmář, a Czech biathlete who won silver in the 10 kilometer sprint at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics and is competing on Tuesday, there’s a good chance the Czechs will make some noise.
David Pastrňák (Boston Bruins), Martin Nečas (Colorado Avalanche), Tomáš Hertl (Vegas Golden Knights), and former Flyers Radko Gudas (Anaheim Ducks) and Lukáš Sedlák (HC Dynamo Pardubice) will play in front of Vladař as he goes for his first medal since the 2014 IIHF Under-18 World Junior Championship.
At that tournament, he was the backup to Vítek Vaněček when the Czechs lost to the United States in the gold medal game. That same year, he earned another silver as the starter against Canada in the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament, giving up four goals, with one scored by his Flyers teammate Travis Konecny.
Flyers goaltender Dan Vladař uses his stick to stop the puck against the Ottawa Senators on Feb. 5.
The netminder last played for Czechia at the 2025 IIHF World Championship — his first appearance since the 2017 World Juniors — posting a 3-0-0 record in four games with a 1.09 GAA and a .951 save percentage; Vladař relieved Vejmelka in the Czechs’ quarterfinal loss to Sweden.
“I’m just proud I can be there,” he said of being in Milan. “Obviously, we have a lot of goalies that are successful, whether they are playing in NHL or in the top leagues in Europe.
“So for me, it’s a big honor that I can be part of that group. And, obviously, I’m probably going to have a little tattoo on my body, too, because after 12 years, you just don’t know if you’re going to ever have the opportunity to go.”
Flyers fans are “starving” for a superstar player. That’s what’s driving a lot of the angst around Matvei Michkov, former team captain Chris Pronger said.
On Monday’s episode of the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast, Pronger, a hockey Hall of Famer who spent the last three years of his 18-year career with the Flyers, shared his thoughts on the team’s rebuild and Michkov’s development as a professional.
The never-ending rebuild
The current regime spearheading the Flyers’ rebuild, led by president Keith Jones and general manager Danny Brière, has been in place since May 2023, just under three years. But Flyers fans are still reeling from the failures of previous regimes.
“They’ve been in what’s called a rebuild for what seems like 12 years,” Pronger said. “I think they’re frustrated and they want the rebuild to be over, but they didn’t go about the rebuild properly in the early days.”
The Flyers haven’t made the playoffs since the COVID bubble in 2020, and have advanced past the first round just once since the 2012-13 season — during that bubble playoff run, which was played in an empty building in Toronto.
The most important keys to any successful rebuild are finding a star center and a No. 1 defenseman, two things that have eluded the Flyers so far. It takes lottery luck, which the Flyers haven’t had much of lately. But those who believe Michkov, a winger, becoming a star will be the difference between a Stanley Cup-contending Flyers team and the draft lottery aren’t being realistic, according to Pronger.
“I don’t know any team — any team — that rebuilds with a winger,” Pronger said. “I don’t know one good team who rebuilt with a winger. You don’t rebuild with a winger, you rebuild up the middle — center, defense, goalie. I know you [draft] the best player available, and clearly he was the best player, but as it relates to that, sometimes you have to luck out, too, in a rebuild and get the right pick when the right player is available.”
In January, Pronger posted on X that those centerpiece players are the hardest to find, and the Flyers need to be patient and deliberate about compiling assets to make those moves if they become available. But he also suggested that the best way to rebuild is to tear it all the way down, like San Jose and Chicago have done, for a chance at landing a player like Macklin Celebrini or Connor Bedard.
Flyers right wing Matvei Michkov has struggled in his second season with the team.
How to help Michkov
Michkov came into camp out of shape, something Pronger admitted he’d also done early in his career, in his second and third NHL seasons. Teams don’t get a lot of practice time, Pronger said, so it’s extremely difficult to play yourself into shape during the year. Pronger’s coach at the time, former Flyers boss Mike Keenan, was extremely tough on him, to the point where Pronger joked that even his teammates started to feel bad.
He also pointed to the language barrier between the Russian Michkov and the coaching staff as a hurdle.
“The fact that he doesn’t speak the language very well, if at all, that’s part of the problem, because it might not be translating properly what he’s going through, what he’s dealing with,” Pronger said. “… You’ve got to be hard on young guys, but it’s not 1995, either. That’s not how this world works in today’s hockey world, in today’s NHL. You have to find a connection with the player. There’s ways to be hard.”
The Flyers do not employ a full-time Russian translator for Michkov, instead relying on Slava Kuznetsov, a skating coach who also works with Olympian Isabeau Levito, to translate for him.
Now, the Flyers need to teach Michkov how to be a pro, Pronger said, and that includes setting the example of him coming into camp in shape, and learning to be more responsible with the puck.
“I saw a few of their games last year with [John Tortorella], and he played [Michkov] a bit differently,” Pronger said. “He got him on the power play, to me it looked like he was putting him in more positions for success. It looked like he let him do a little more, but wasn’t — I don’t know if teaching him is the right word, but showcasing his abilities and not digging into the other parts of the game where he needed to improve.”
The Flyers are off for the Olympic break and will return to the ice on Feb. 25 against the Washington Capitals.
Standing in the hallway outside the Flyers’ locker room in the bowels of Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio, Rasmus Ristolainen confessed that he isn’t the most emotional person. But for a few fleeting seconds, as he chatted with The Inquirer, a smile radiated from his face.
“Means a lot. I haven’t had the chance to play the last couple of Olympics, so [it] means even more,” he said, confirming that he had that rare smile when coach Antti Pennanen called to welcome him to Finland’s squad.
“And then, obviously, think about all the players who wore the jersey and when you watched them play when you were a kid. So that means a lot.”
For the first time since the 2014 Sochi Olympics, NHLers will be back on the world’s biggest stage. At that time, Ristolainen was 19 years old, splitting time between the Buffalo Sabres and Rochester of the American Hockey League during his first year in North America.
On Jan. 5, a few weeks before Finland would win the bronze in Sochi, he scored one of the biggest goals in the nation’s history. In overtime, the physical defenseman hopped over the boards, carried the puck around Sweden’s Robert Hägg — the Flyers’ 2013 second-round pick — cut across the crease, and tucked in the golden goal to clinch the World Junior Championship.
His game-winner gave Finland its first World Junior medal since 2006 and first gold since 1998.
“Obviously, it was a big one, and, you know, sometimes I used to make plays and play a little offense,” he said with a chuckle.
“World Juniors is a great tournament, and it’s the first time you get to play on the big stage,” he added. “So much excitement, and obviously, I have good memories when we won it.”
Worth the wait
Ristolainen manned the blue line two years later at the 2016 World Cup for a Finnish squad that went 0-3-0, was shut out by Sweden and Russia, and scored just one goal against Team North America.
But then that was it.
There were several reasons he hasn’t represented Finland since, but the biggest was a dark injury cloud that seemed to follow around the native of Turku.
Last February, the Flyers defenseman was all set to play at the 4 Nations Face-Off, but right before the tournament, he was knocked out with an upper-body injury. A month later, he underwent surgery on a right triceps tendon rupture. That came after two surgeries in 2024.
“So basically, three surgeries in the same elbow. Obviously started with a pretty bad infection, which I played with for multiple weeks until I couldn’t anymore,” he disclosed in December of the injuries that cut his last two seasons short and had him start this season late.
“And then we found out there is some infection and a torn triceps tendon. So obviously, did those two things separately, and then tried to get back.”
He returned — probably too quickly in hindsight, he thinks — “and then it suddenly snapped, and not sure when or where it happened again.”
“Obviously, second time the same tendon [was] torn,” he said. “So saw a different doctor this time, and his timeline and recovery were a lot longer, which I think was the key and helped. And, yeah, right now I’m here and feel pretty good.”
‘The more pressure, the better’
In the last few weeks, Ristolainen missed a handful of games for the Flyers, and everyone held their breath, hoping he wouldn’t have to skip yet another opportunity to don the blue and white of Suomi. Nobody held their breath more than former Dallas Star Jere Lehtinen.
Defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen checking Tampa Bay’s Zemgus Girgensons on Jan. 10. He adds a physical presence to the Flyers.
“We know he’s a big, big body,” Lehtinen, who is Finland’s general manager, said in a telephone interview from Milan. “He moves quick, a physical guy, and in the defensive zone it’s tough to play against him.
“But at the same time, he gets up to play and has a good shot. … So, the main thing is he brings us size and speed and physicality. And if you want to succeed as a team, you need those types of players in your defensive zone, [who] may play against the top players.”
The 6-foot-4, 208-pound blueliner credits his physicality to his days growing up in Turku. Joking that he’s old enough that he didn’t have iPads growing up, he spent his days playing street hockey. As he recalls, he “was always the youngest one, so I had to kind of fight my way through and earn the spot to play with the big boys.”
Ristolainen, 31, is one of six players from that successful World Juniors squad, which includes goalie Juuse Saros of the Nashville Predators, Stars defenseman Esa Lindell, forward Teuvo Teräväinen of the Chicago Blackhawks, Colorado Avalanche forward Artturi Lehkonen, and ex-NHLer Mikko Lehtonen. And Lindell, Teräväinen, Sebastian Aho of the Carolina Hurricanes, and Mikael Granlund of the Anaheim Ducks played with the Flyers defenseman at the World Cup.
Lehtonen believes the players’ connections and experience, whether having success like in 2014 or disappointment in 2016, are important. But, while Ristolainen says watching Finland win silver at the 2006 Torino Olympics as a 12-year-old is his favorite Olympic moment, he’s looking to do one better.
So, any pressure, especially since Finland is the defending Olympic gold medalist?
“The more pressure, the better,” Ristolainen said. “Everyone wants to play the pressure games; obviously, they are all must-wins. So I’m very excited.”
The ones that tie a skate or hold up hockey pants. And the ones that some jerseys have near the neck.
But then there are the invisible ones that matter all the same — maybe even more. For Flyers coach Rick Tocchet, there’s an invisible string pulling him across the ocean.
“My parents emigrated from Italy, and I’m really excited to go back there,” said Tocchet, who understands poco, or a little, Italian. “I love the food. … I’m excited to go over there and see a beautiful country.”
Tocchet’s late parents, Norma and Fortunato ‘Nato’ Tocchet, immigrated to Canada from outside Venice. They settled in Scarborough, Ontario, bringing a blue-collar work ethic — Norma was a seamstress, and Nato a mechanic — that Tocchet carried with him across his 621 games with the Flyers and 1,144 in the NHL.
A member of the Flyers Hall of Fame, he accumulated 232 goals,508 points, and a franchise-record 1,815 penalty minutes across two stints in Philly while being beloved and revered by the fans for his grit and in-your-face style.
It is the same work ethic he has carried with him as a coach, including the first 56 games of his tenure behind the Flyers’ bench. And the same one he will carry 173 miles west of Venice, as an assistant coach for Canada’s men’s team at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics.
“Yeah, an unbelievable moment. To be a part of that, to coach for your country, with the talent that we have, it’s going to be a lot of fun,” Tocchet told The Inquirer in Utah after a recent Flyers practice. “So it’s a great honor, and I’m really excited.”
‘Sense of pride’
Across his 61 years, Tocchet has always watched the Olympics. He remembers Sidney Crosby’s golden goal at the 2010 Vancouver Games and captain Mario Lemieux leading Canada to its first gold in 50 years at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. And, for the dual citizen, he’ll pop on Miracle, about the 1980 U.S. Olympic team that stunned the Soviet Union before winning gold in Lake Placid, to get motivated.
But the most impactful Canadian hockey moment for the Scarborough kid wasn’t on the Olympic stage. In the 1972 Summit Series, as the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie would sing in Fireworks, Paul Henderson scored “a goal that everyone remembers.”
In Game 8 of an eight-game series, pitting Canada’s best against the Soviets’ best, Henderson clinched the series. The Flyers’ Bobby Clarke — who infamously slashed Valeri Kharlamov during the series — was linemates with Henderson, but was not on the ice because Phil Esposito stayed on for an elongated shift.
“So I was 8 or 9 years old and in school, and they actually brought a TV into our classroom to watch that; that’s how the whole country’s eyes were on that series,” Tocchet recalled.
Rick Tocchet is renowned around the league for his one-on-one instruction with players.
“But when he scored the goal, the sense of pride — the whole country went crazy, obviously. But what a series. … You go down the list of great players and it impacted my life, because I loved hockey even more when I saw that, and I started to train and wanted to be an NHL player.”
Fast forward to the present, and on Thursday, like many of his players, including Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim, Tocchet will make his Olympic debut when Canada plays Dan Vladař and Czechia (10:40 a.m. ET, USA Network). But like all of his players, he has worn the maple leaf before. The forward played in a World Championship and two Canada Cups, winning gold each time.
“It wasn’t about money. It wasn’t about status. It was about playing for your country,” he said. “To be part of that, I was very lucky as a young kid to play with Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Paul Coffey, guys that I idolized and learned a lot from.
“And then playing in front of the Canada crowd, how loud it was. Just the sense of pride, it was incredible. Had nothing to do with anything, it wasn’t about individual goals, it was about playing for your country.”
Tocc-eye
Tocchet is no stranger to coaching for his country, either. Last February, he was part of Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper’s staff at the 4 Nations Face-Off. The Canadians, which included Sanheim and Flyers forward Travis Konecny, won gold by beating the U.S. in overtime.
Rick Tocchet hasn’t coached any of the current #Flyers in the NHL but he did coach Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim at the 4 Nations Face-Off in February. Canada won the title. pic.twitter.com/BcYl3NbRI1
At that tournament, Tocchet was a jack-of-all-trades, focusing on the structure, faceoff planning, and in-game adjustments. But what impressed Cooper the most was how he would often meet with players one-on-one or in small groups to watch videos — over a garbage can.
As Tocchet explained, he would put his laptop on a garbage can and go over things, as he did when he was an assistant coach with the Pittsburgh Penguins and his Flyers’ assistant coaches do now.
“I couldn’t have surrounded myself with a better guy,” Cooper told The Inquirer in late November. “I will tell you this, because his eye for the game and what happens in real time, having that talent is a real thing. And Tocc has that. He sees it, he processes it, and then gives you the information.
“And there were countless times at the 4 Nations that he made me think of things, or I saw things in a different light, or I missed something, and he caught it. And so many little adjustments we made in between periods, because of what Tocc did.”
He’ll have the same role in Italy with Cooper rolling over the same staff in Tocchet, Vegas Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy, former NHL coach Pete DeBoer, and former NHL assistant coach Misha Donskov.
After winning last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off, Canada enters this year’s Olympics as the favorites.
Tocchet will assuredly have one eye on the Flyers, who get back to work on Feb. 17 at 2 p.m. in Voorhees, five days before the men’s gold medal game is scheduled. But he may not have his eyes on the Flyers, outside of Sanheim, in Milan. As Vladař said with a laugh, he’s blocking numbers right now.
He’ll also be taking in other events like speedskating, Canada’s women’s hockey team, and figure skating, which includes South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito, who is co-coached by Slava Kuznetsov, the Flyers’ Russian translator.
But, with it being 12 years since Canada last won gold in Sochi, Russia, Tocchet’s whole focus will be finishing with a string around his neck and a gold medal hanging from the end. After all, as the winningest country in men’s hockey at the Olympics with nine triumphs, it is the Canadian way: Gold or bust.
Because of the Winter Olympics, the Flyers won’t play again for another two-and-a-half weeks, not that anyone is all that broken up about their impending absence. They’ve been a lousy hang for a while, losing 12 of their last 15 games, falling out of the playoff picture, and drawing attention primarily for the six degrees of debate around Matvei Michkov’s playing time.
The Michkov issue has been fascinating and revealing. Everyone acknowledges that, after his often-impressive rookie season, he came into training camp out of shape. That reality has precipitated a months-long discussion about how he has played, when he has played, how much he has played, and whether coach Rick Tocchet might be mishandling him and sabotaging Michkov’s career before the kid has a chance to become the star the Flyers and their fans hope he will be.
Tocchet, general manager Danny Brière, and team president Keith Jones have made it clear that they are taking, or trying to take, the long view about Michkov’s development. They have also made it clear that they consider it valuable to put him through a kind of rite of passage, to compel him to learn and practice good habits on and off the ice.
One can make a case that such an approach is too old school, won’t be effective, and risks angering and alienating Michkov. That’s possible, I suppose, but it’s just as reasonable to think the Flyers’ methods are correct and will work.
There are plenty of 76ers fans and former members of the franchise, for example, who wish their team had treated Joel Embiid and other since-departed players with a firmer hand earlier in their careers.
It’s safe to say, though, that within at least a portion of the Flyers’ fan base, a measure of paranoia has arisen when it comes to Michkov and the organization’s handling of him.
Earlier this season, anodyne comments about him, by team captain Sean Couturier, were taken out of context and treated as a major controversy. Tocchet then offered a frank assessment of Michkov’s conditioning and performance during a recent interview with PHLY Sports. And while it wasn’t the smartest media-relations strategy for the head coach to criticize such an important player so brusquely, the reaction to Tocchet’s comments suggested that people were afraid Michkov would be so offended that he would catch the first flight to Little Diomede and hike the Bering Strait back to Putinland.
That fear is irrational, of course, and it’s easy to chalk it up to the longtime overzealousness of the Benevolent Order of the Orange and Black. But in this case, it’s understandable that those fans who have stuck with the Flyers over the last 15½ years — that’s how long it has been since that 2010 run to the Stanley Cup Final — would be a little on edge about Michkov. Even more than a little.
Danny Briere addressed the noise about drama between Rick Tocchet and Matvei Michkov.
“(Tocchet) wants Matvei to succeed. He wants to develop him to be the best player he can be. Along the way, there’s tough lessons that comes with that. It’s like raising a child.”
All anyone has to do is look at the Flyers’ draft history over the last quarter century to understand why their fans want Michkov treated like a prince and shielded from any emotional boo-boos. Because that history is … ugh.
Let’s start with 2001. The Flyers’ first-round pick that year, defenseman Jeff Woywitka, played 278 NHL games in his career, none with the Flyers. Their third-round pick, Patrick Sharp, turned out to be a terrific player … after they traded him to the Chicago Blackhawks.
With the fourth-overall pick in 2002, the Flyers took defenseman Joni Pitkänen. Eh. Their subsequent six picks in that draft played a combined total of one game in the NHL.
The 2003 draft was a red-letter one: Jeff Carter and Mike Richards in the first round. After those two, the Flyers took nine other players. Alexandre Picard, a third-round defenseman, turned out to be the best of the bunch.
If, in 2004, the Flyers were actually trying to tank the draft, no one could tell. They picked 11 players who appeared in a total of 23 NHL games.
Over the ‘05 and ‘06 drafts, they selected 16 players, two of whom had lengthy NHL careers: Claude Giroux and … Steve Downie.
For three straight drafts, 2008 through 2010, the Flyers picked 17 players. Just nine made it to the NHL and two others played only one game. The player who played the most games for them was Zac Rinaldo.
The Flyers took Couturier with the No. 8 overall pick in 2011. Excellent. They found Nick Cousins in the third round. OK. None of their other four picks that year played for them.
Left wing Oskar Lindblom was drafted by the Flyers in 2014.
From 2012 to 2014, the Flyers drafted Travis Sanheim, Scott Laughton, Shayne Gostisbehere, Anthony Stolarz, Oskar Lindblom, and Robert Hägg. They did not draft anyone who could reasonably be called a star.
When the Flyers took Ivan Provorov and Travis Konecny in the first round, 2015 looked like a draft they could take pride in. But Provorov’s gone, and goalies Felix Sandström and Ivan Fedotov couldn’t cut it.
Two words about the 2016 draft: German Rubtsov. Two more words: Carter Hart.
With the No. 2 pick in the 2017 draft, the Flyers selected Nolan Patrick. There are no words for how that decision turned out. But hey, Noah Cates!
The Flyers’ crown jewels from the 2018 draft were Joel Farabee and Sam Ersson.
In 2019 and 2020, the Flyers got Cam York (cool), Tyson Foerster (promising but injured), Bobby Brink (we’ll see), and Emil Andrae (don’t you need more from a second-rounder by now?).
So far, the Flyers’ best pick in the 2021 draft has been Aleksei Kolosov. Which tells you all you need to know about the Flyers’ 2021 draft.
We’re up to 2022. The Cutter Gauthier draft. Best to move on quickly and quietly …
The Jones-Brière regime has overseen the 2023-25 drafts, and yes, it’s early yet to judge the results, and yes, the Flyers were bold in ’23 in taking Michkov. But it’s worth noting that, of the 26 players the Flyers picked over those three years, just three have suited up for them so far: Michkov, Denver Barkey, and Jett Luchanko.
It’s not just that the Flyers have had opportunities to mine the draft for elite talent and failed. It’s that they haven’t even stumbled into a late-round pick or two who ended up becoming cornerstones.
A team that does not draft well cannot win. The Flyers have been proving that maxim true for a long time. No wonder their fans are so protective of the one player who represents even a glimmer of possible greatness.
Muriel Crescenzo finally earned her United States citizenship Tuesday morning, after more than three years of waiting and more than seven with her husband, James. On Tuesday evening, they celebrated by watching the Flyers take home a 4-2 win against the Washington Capitals.
The Crescenzos met at the Okemo Mountain ski resort in Vermont in 2018. Muriel was working there for the season, and James was on a snowboarding trip. He’d fallen down on one of the hills, and Muriel came to help him. They instantly clicked, and James asked her out. They went on their first date at a bar called Mr. Darcy’s, in Ludlow, Vt., which Muriel said she felt was a sign — Pride and Prejudice is her favorite book and Mr. Darcy is a main character in it.
So when Muriel returned to her home in Santiago, Chile, in the offseason, James, an Egg Harbor Township native, traveled to see her.
“For me, it was no more winter,” he said. “In the winter, I would go to South America for three or four months, and I was working on a golf course, so you were laid off in the winter anyway. It actually worked perfectly.”
The couple took turns visiting each other every year, with Muriel coming up to New Jersey and James heading down to see her in Chile. The two also took a number of international trips together, to London, Prague, Amsterdam, and Buenos Aires.
But when the pandemic hit, those annual plans were upended, and the Crescenzos decided to start the process of getting married and getting Muriel permanent residency in the U.S. They got married in Las Vegas, and have been living in the Philadelphia area ever since. James is a lifelong Philly sports fan, and he has turned Muriel into one as well since their move back to the area.
“When we first moved here, everything was just magical right away,” said James, 43. “That first year we saw [Michael] Lorenzen throw his no-hitter. Every Flyers game we went to, they would win in overtime, sudden death. It was always a magical, special game that first season. It’s been a little rough since, but we still believe.”
Flyers national anthem singer Lauren Hart (left) meets James and Muriel Crescenzo at Tuesday’s game.
So when Muriel, 34, got her naturalization interview date, they knew they wanted to celebrate at a Flyers game.
“It felt different because I could sing the song,” Muriel said. “Before, I didn’t know it that well, the anthem. But now, I could sing it and I’m a part of it.”
The Crescenzos even met Flyers anthem singer Lauren Hart, and of course, Gritty. They also got to take in a Flyers win.
The next step will be going back to Chile to visit her family. During the citizenship application process, she was not allowed to leave the country, so the Crescenzos haven’t been able to take any international trips for more than three years.
“We’re not worried anymore,” Muriel said. “I finally feel secure. We finally can be together. Nothing’s going to stop that happening.”
