Practice game lights up Wells Fargo Center
PHILADELPHIA » They played a semblance of hockey on Wells Fargo Center ice for the first time in 22 months Sunday night, to a steady roar of approval from EA Sports’ fake crowd noise scientists.
In-house PA announcer “Sweet” Lou Nolan was back and better than ever for his 80th or so consecutive season, and anthem singer Lauren Hart practiced her pre-game pipes to fake-crowd approval, and promptly waved to the building full of empty seats.
Hence hockey in the coronavirus era, South Philadelphia style. It was only a practice game, an intrasquad scrimmage between “Team Orange” and “Team White,” respectively coached by Phantoms head man Scott Gordan and his assistant, Kerry Huffman.
So there was even some retro Flyers flavor there in what turned out to be a 2-2 Orange and White jubilee of almost regular hockey.
Ties used to be optional in this league, but for good measure they played the last five minutes of the third in 3-on-3 fashion, giving Scott Laughton the chance to strip a puck away from unsuspecting defensive hopeful Mark Fried
man and score it. Moments later James van Riemsdyk scored off another breakaway, so give them the win for the White.
Now get on with the season.
“I really felt for the first time in real game conditions we accomplished everything we wanted,” Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault said. “The game got better as the periods went by.”
Along the way, the players may have missed the fans, though they didn’t have the chance to miss Gritty, who hovered over the empty seats. Sadly. the NHL indeed lost the battle to ban mascots.
But with only one week of practices and one sort-of exhibition game behind them, the players have other more important matters to tend to. Their irregular season kicks off Wednesday night in this very empty building against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Presuming, that is, that the Penguins stay healthy until then. The team had to cancel practice Saturday, with the presumption that possible positive test worries were of issue. This after both Columbus and Dallas had similar issues during the week.
But the Penguins had their own intra-squad scrimmage Sunday night, and have declared they were on for both Wednesday night and Friday night games in Philadelphia this week.
All players are going to have to get used to daily status reports and flexible schedules and tests, tests and more tests.
“Everyone is in the same boat here and no one is trying to make any excuses,” van Riemsdyk said. “We are excited to have the opportunity to play and excited to get started here.”
Unlike when the teams played in so-called “bubbles” during the summer playoffs, all clubs are likely going to be more vulnerable to the likes of positive virus vibes. At least until vaccines become more readily available.
“You can’t just bury your head in the sand,” van Riemsdyk added. “You have to realize there are things going on in the world, things going on, obviously, in our league in regard to some of this stuff. First and foremost, with some of these protocols, we are just trying to maintain the safety of everyone and their families and that sort of stuff. We are doing what we can as far as wearing masks around the rink and maintaining distance from people as best we can.
“Obviously when you see these things happen, you just want to hope that everyone and their families are staying safe and that sort of stuff. With that being said, we also have a job to do, as well.”
Perhaps a key part of the offense’s job this season would be a reshuffled second line, with Kevin Hayes centering left wing Claude Giroux and sophomore Joel Farabee on the right. That trio has practiced together a bit and clicked for the first two goals of the scrimmage Sunday night, Hayes scoring both of them off sharp feeds by both Giroux and Farabee.
Other goal scorers were Nik Aube-Kubel and reclaimed young center Nolan Patrick for the White team. He hadn’t played a game of any sort since a game was last played here.
“It’s been nice to be back,” Patrick said with a reference to his battle with migraine issues. “It was a very long time and no one ever wants to be out long. ... I made a couple of mistakes out there but the energy level was good and we created a couple of chances and it was fun.”
As for the goal, he added, “It felt nice, but it was just an intrasquad game. It’ll feel better on Wednesday.”
Nevertheless, what is regarded (at least by them) as one of the deepest Flyers teams in years is happy just to get any kind of shot at playing out a season with the virus raging across North America like never before.
“To be honest, there hasn’t been a ton of talk about it yet,” van Riemsdyk said. “Maybe casually ... but at this point, obviously we went into the bubble, so we have a little bit of experience with it.
“It is the world we live in right now, and to be able to play and get our season going, we realize there are some different things that make things unique and present some different challenges. But you just have to be able to roll with it and be professional and do your job and go from there.”