Flyers ready to roll again at Skate Zone

If there’s one real downer about the resumption of the NHL season, such as it is, it’s that this isn’t taking place in the good ol’ days.

With the coronavirus essentially on hiatus in Canada — of course, everywhere else is a hiatus compared to how it’s magically re-appearing in the U.S. — the NHL will house its Eastern Conference teams in Toronto and its Western Conference teams in Edmonton for two respective minitournaments to essentially determine a Stanley Cup playoff field. After that, a nearly full complement of playoff games, also held in those respective cities, will take place.

The Flyers, by virtue of their nine wins over their last 10 games before the season was “paused” on March 12, have gotten themselves into a top-4 spot in the East. That means a mini-tourney with Boston, Washington and Tampa Bay to determine the conference’s top seeds you know, for television money-making purposes only — while eight other conference teams battle for four remaining conference playoff spots in a separate series of games.

Ah, the regular season never really meant much in this league, anyway.

Yet if this were the bad old days of, say, a decade or more ago, this thing would really be fun. That’s because health and financial concerns have the league really housing its teams in a bubble.

For example, the Flyers will share tight-knit Toronto hotel space with players from the Lightning, Bruins, Caps and Penguins.

Wouldn’t you have loved to have seen a 1990ish version of this, say with Washington’s Dale Hunter mixing it up in the hotel coffee shop with Craig Berube and Pittsburgh’s Jay Caufield? Rick Tocchet could jump in for good measure, whether he was wearing a Flyers or Penguins uni.

Ah, but the league is comprised of only nice, educated hockey kids now, all sharing their love of the game in unionized consort and brotherhood. Even when the NHL comically creates a 24-team “playoff” season.

For the Flyers, their Toronto festival will kick off Aug. 2, when they take on the Bruins. That’s the same conference favorite Boston team that dealt the Flyers a 2-0 defeat in their last game on March 10, ending what had been a nine-game winning streak. Not a bad way to return. First, however, comes a twoweek training camp setup at the Skate Zone in Voorhees, N.J.,