Pucked Up

The Flyers Are Revealed as a Franchise in Free Fall

IN THE grim fallout of one of the darkest days in Flyers history, a day that saw their Hall of Fame GM and Stanley Cup-winning coach lose their jobs, Ed Snider praised the former, his protege, Bob Clarke, for having the stones to walk away on his own. I do believe that Clarke gave his heart and soul to the orange and black, and he deserves accolades for keeping the Flyers competitive for many years. But while other teams were adapting to new styles and hoisting gleaming silver hardware, the Flyers have spent three decades trying to recreate glory by channeling a brand of hockey that simply isn't played anymore. And much much of this lumbering failure occurred on Clarke's watch. More, he admitted Sunday that he had delegated critical decisions last off-season to his lieutenants because his heart was no longer in the task of running the day-to-day matters of a pro hockey team. And so instead of repairing the holes that showed up so vividly in last spring's first-round playoff loss to Buffalo, the Flyers ambled through an uneventful off-season, then tripped over the skates as the 2006-07 season got underway.

For his inability to adjust, Clarke should have been given his gold watch and gently eased into another job with the club years ago. As for coach Ken Hitchcock, it seems a little unfair to cashier the man after eight games, given what he had to work with. However, he is said to be a difficult man to play for, while his replacement, John Stevens, is known as a developer of young players, something the Flyers have desperately needed improvement in for a long, long time. So maybe this really does signal a new direction toward youth, speed, and skill, and away from injured veterans with fumbling hands and aging legs. If Snider and the Comcast empire have any kind of long-range plan that involves something more substantial than throwing money at problems -- if the team really intends to play hockey as if it's 2006 instead of 1976 -- then Sunday's purge, as sad as it was for the franchise, was necessary and overdue.