Found not guilty, Hart can resume his career...but far, far from here

Photo courtesy of the New York Times

By Bob Herpen

Phanatic Magazine

Former Philadelphia Flyers starting goaltender Carter Hart is a free man.

Pronounced not guilty of sexual assault stemming from a 2018 incident in London, Ontario, Provincial Superior Court Justice Maria Carrochia on Thursday deemed Hart and fellow Team Canada teammates Michael McLeod, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dube and Callan Foote, have cleared a very important hurdle in the resumption of their lives. 

If you recall, Hart – the Flyers' latest choice to become the heir apparent to the Parent-Lindbergh-Hextall legacy – was given his unconditional release in January 2024 following news of the allegations. When the club declined to make him a qualifying offer last summer as a restricted free agent, Hart became an unrestricted free agent who could sign with anyone he chose.

I’m sure in light of the verdict, there is doubt in many minds, both in the real world and online. “Not guilty” is far from “innocent.” Hart’s actions and behavior on the night in question with the alleged victim and his teammates is a matter of public record. 

Airing out that unsavory conduct should plant a tremendous seed of doubt in the minds of National Hockey League general managers as to their suitability, both character-wise and fitness-wise, to resume his career. 

Hart and his co-defendants apparently cleared another hurdle with public support of the NHL Players’ Association, which, according to TSN of Canada on Friday, stated they should be allowed to resume their careers.

However, we all know it just takes one brave soul among 32 to stick his neck out – whether it’s for Hart or any of the other four defendants – and the rest of the league will follow along dutifully despite any initial blowback. Front offices have found redeeming qualities in players for worse.

In the Fall of 1992, another former Flyer, Dan Quinn, was arraigned on suspicion of raping a 19-year-old woman in a hotel room in a Twin Cities suburb. Worse, Quinn’s former teammate, golf buddy and future Hockey Hall of Fame entrant Mario Lemieux (during the season he missed time due to treatments for non-Hodgkins lymphoma, no less) was alleged to have been present in the room when the incident was supposed to have occurred.

Quinn was freed on bond and never formally charged, but the stain of the accusations forced the North Stars to release him unconditionally, days later. Already an established 10-year veteran, he was not picked up by any other club, NHL or otherwise, for the remainder. 

When Quinn did get the call, it was the expansion Ottawa Senators who scooped him up for 13 games in desperation in March of the following season. Lemieux, on the other hand, felt the tide of public sentiment turn for the worse only briefly before the press fitted him for laurels after battling and beating cancer.

What separates this situation from a more cut-and-dried incidence of assault or rape is Hart’s misdeed being a sin of omission – failure to act once in the room to stop anything else that happened after McLeod and “E.M’s” first encounter in the hotel – and not a sin of commission, which would place on him greater culpability. 

It was obvious once Hart was named as a defendant, he should have disappeared and not been allowed to remain in good standing with the Flyers. And that happened. 

And let’s be clear: if Hart were facing prison time for sexual assault or rape, there is no way he should be allowed to continue unabated anywhere in hockey or in life, nor could I justify any thought process to the contrary. But he wasn’t. 

I’m not advocating the Flyers welcome him back with open arms – that is, if Hart even wants to reunite with the franchise that selected him 48th overall in 2016. I’m saying for a lack of a “guilty” verdict, Hart should be allowed to start rebuilding his professional profile somewhere, but far, far away from the top professional league in the world.

I hear it’s lovely in Death Valley around 3 p.m. this time of year. If there’s a midnight beer league starting up in Norway or Kazakhstan let him stew there. Oymyakon goes from 80 above to 70 below in the blink of an eye on the Siberian plateau.

Of course, I understand the nature of social media. Its boundaries are extremes of thought, and nothing about the online discourse regarding this trial for its duration shows it can be any other way. Men suck. Believe all women. There are going to be readers outraged that I dared to embrace nuance, or failed to express sufficient anger that I don’t want Hart burned at the stake for guilt by association.

For those of you who passionately wish to damn all involved, I salute your commitment. Nobody needs to tell you this is a free country and you are free to hold that deeply-felt opinion close in your heart. Absence of nuance in thought works best on social media, not so much in the real world. There are very few moral absolutes, less so when legal posturing further blurs lines while paying lip service to seeking truth. 

If you have beef, then bring the ruckus to Judge Carrochia, a woman who failed to find the complainant’s testimony “credible or reliable.” Take it out on the absolute joke of a prosecution team whose misconduct was so egregious it resulted in two mistrials, the second one forcing the proceedings to be a judge-only bench proceeding.

If, somehow, Hart gains the good graces of the Flyers front office – or any other NHL front 

office – I fully support any fans’ or otherwise concerned citizens’ desire to protest his signing or any subsequent on-ice appearance.

Anywhere. On any platform. And by any means they deem fit without resorting to violence or property damage. Same goes for the other four smacked-asses who shared the “not guilty” verdict if they are allowed to play again.

Unlike the other four, Hart projected the biggest profile and is likely to be given greater and quicker consideration for a shot at resuming his career in the NHL. The rumors swirled online practically the whole month of July that the Oilers had (or didn’t have) interest in the 26-year-old native of suburban Edmonton. 

Even if you put it out of your mind in favor of touching grass, putting a drink in your hand and toes in the sand, or shut off all online behavior to enjoy real life before football jolts us all back to reality: be prepared for, and not shocked by, Hart’s inevitable return to our TV screens and a rink near you. 

The further away from anywhere good, the better.

Cool, calm and collected: Cote continues championing cannabis

Courtesy of CBC News

 by Bob Herpen 

Phanatic Hockey Editor 

According to former Phantoms and Flyers player and assistant coach Riley Cote, the moral arc of cannabis use among hockey players is long and it seems to favor justice. 

In a relatively short span, perception of marijuana in hockey culture – against decades of intertwining with alcohol as the main method of stress relief, team bonding and celebration – has morphed from lessons more apt to be gleaned from the original “Reefer Madness” to a substance viewed as a viable option for pain relief and recovery.

“Even when I was coaching the Phantoms (from 2010-17 in Glens Falls and Allentown), we had suspended a few guys for cannabis use who got popped vaping after the game so it was still very, very taboo,” Cote revealed during a July 7 Zoom call with the Phanatic. “And if you got popped with it, it was like, ‘the Devil’s lettuce,’ you were looked at as a drug user and everything else.”  

Oddly enough, that need for secrecy meant there was no peer pressure from teammates to quit the green and sink some golden brown. 

“So I was always, up until I retired, absolutely quiet about it outside of the group of guys I could trust,” he continued. “Because that would essentially be career suicide.”

But the tables have turned. Once freed from the discretion required of employment with a multi-million-dollar enterprise that is a National Hockey League franchise, Cote went full force into not only talking about his brand of self-medication, but also promoting that million-dollar enterprise in the same spaces that once required stifling.

Just a few years after haltingly introducing the potential professional benefits of cannabis-related products in his final years as Phantoms assistant, Cote says he was openly hawking his interest in a company specializing in cannabidiol products directly in the Flyers locker room where he found interested parties among the strength and conditioning coaches.

Born in Winnipeg, Cote left home to pursue his dream when he was 16 years old. Shuffled off to northern Saskatchewan, his experiences with non-alcoholic substances were a couple tries with marijuana that left him confused and paranoid. 

You can’t blame him. There’s no catchy rhyme to guide the young and inexperienced with cannabis as there is with booze (“Liquor before beer, you’re in the clear, etc.).

What followed was four years with Prince Albert in the Western Hockey League of Canadian juniors, 108 games and a Turner Cup championship during a brief tour in the second tier of professional hockey, 183 appearances in the AHL including a Calder Cup title in 2005, then 156 NHL contests exclusively for the Orange and Black between 2006 and 2010. 

As he rose through the ranks, Cote’s relationship with cannabis grew and became more comfortable, all at a time when there was little guidance except the lessons learned through trial-and-error titration, along with adjusting location and mindset during consumption.

“I think I connected with it more on a level that most people would describe their relationship with cannabis, in lower doses, for managing anxiety because you feel the ‘softness,’” he said. “I found a little grove, again, without science to support it, any literature.”

His one shining moment in The Show came against the Montreal Canadiens, just prior to his 26th birthday – a goal in the dying seconds of a 5-3 home defeat on Feb. 17, 2008. That season also marked Cote’s high-water marks for games played in a single NHL campaign (70), along with the most points (4) and penalty minutes (202). 

It may be surprising, though, that Cote says he really didn’t remember celebrating. And it’s something he says he definitely can’t blame on the Demon Weed, instead chalking it up to being a good teammate who just couldn’t cut loose after a loss.

“I didn’t even celebrate on the ice, so I know I didn’t go out and say, ‘Hey, look at me! I scored my first NHL goal!’ but I would almost put money on that,” Cote recalled. “It was at home, so I probably went out for some pops after. And that’s generally where it would go. It would be alcohol, right?”

It is well established that hockey culture centered around alcohol has existed for decades and with it, the residual disdain for other “hard” drugs. It is also now well established that enforcer culture, which revolves around players groomed or selected specifically to fight opponents, lends itself to anxiety and depression. 

Aside from the catch-all panacea that beer offered, increasing use and subsequent abuse of opioids to combat pain became the order of the day. The honor of The Code might have been blown up for good with the deaths of former heavyweights Derek Boogaard and Wade Belak attributed in part to substance abuse as a result of mishandling the mental and physical toll fighting took on both players.

Cote felt it too, admitting the level of stress and performance anxiety, knowing he had a near-mandate to fight when necessary, was overwhelming and persistent. He said cannabis often blunted intrusive thoughts of hockey as a battleground.

“When Georges Laraque comes to Philly the first time, certainly my anxiety is through the roof,” he added. “I’ve gotta earn my keep and let everybody know I’ve got my street cred.”

One of the benefits of marijuana use after a particularly tough night, was an effect as immediate as words of reassurance.

Cote recalled one night as a Flyer, being tasked with fighting venerable veteran Donald Brashear. Following a particularly brutal bout and defeat, Cote said he smoked “more to soothe the mental pain and my wounded pride than to ease the physical pain” of getting rag-dolled by the Quebec-raised pugilist.

For a long time, Cote was part of a secret society, a de-centralized cadre of conspirators which existed at every level of the sport. 

“No matter what league I played in there was always a handful of guys that used cannabis, whether they knew it was medicine or not, that’s a different story,” he said. “There was always a few regulars and you naturally find those guys.”

Now, the amount of legitimate medical information at the fingertips of players, coaches, agents and staff, alongside the evolution of strength, conditioning and recovery has altered opinions, and forced the matter into the open, Cote admitted. 

If he were involved with management in pro hockey, it would be a ‘no brainer’ to allow athletes the opportunity to embrace any edge they can to compete better. All the better to keep the “meat suits” in top shape.

“It’s changed so much,” Cote acknowledged. “I know there’s not (many) current guys speaking about it but management’s very well aware of guys using cannabis now.

“I think unless you’re living in a hole in the ground somewhere, it’s safe to say that even the most old-school mind would tell you cannabis is safer than alcohol and a better recovery tool.”

For more on Cote's cannabis crusade, hit the link.

Flyers can’t be up to their old tricks picking at No. 6

Courtesy of the Morning Call

By Bob Herpen

Phanatic Hockey Editor

On Friday night, the Philadelphia Flyers will select at the No. 6 position in the first round for the first time since 1991, when then general manager Russ Farwell took a gamble on a Swedish prospect who ended up playing all of 100 regular-season games in this city, 11 years after his NHL debut.

Now GM Danny Briere has the chance to pick within the top 10 for the third time in the last four seasons, the first time since Keith Allen was afforded similar luck from 1969 to 1972.

While an overwhelming majority of the talk every year at this time centers on an obsession with prospect profiles, who the Flyers could pick early, I just want to remind you that there’s a bit more at stake beyond the basic scouting leg work. Fifty years since the last Cup and 13 years since the last playoff series win, fan attention and anger should center on the how and the why, NOT the who. 

It doesn’t matter whether the pick is Jake O’Brien or Brady Martin from Canadian juniors, James Hagens from Division I U.S. college hockey, the mysterious One-Armed Man or Taro Tsujimoto of the Tokyo Kitanas. It doesn’t even have to be the “right” one touted by scouts or network hacks. It does need to be the “right” one in terms of managing the player’s physical attributes and skill set, with minimal interference or malfeasance in his development.

The acquisition of Trevor Zegras earlier in the week should take some of the pressure off Briere and the braintrust, for a franchise constantly in search of a reliable 1C. But Zegras is a restricted free agent with his 3-year contract at $5.75 million AAV set to expire next July, so there is clear urgency to have an heir apparent or two at the ready. 

Yeah, there’s Jett Luchanko in the on-deck circle flush with start-of-year experience for the Flyers bookended by end-of-year experience with the Phantoms, but the cupboard is bare. 

The recent history of the organization is flush with examples of offensive-minded skaters who are centers made forwards, forwards made centers, and up-front guys simply left to grow into amoebas, playing whatever, whenever. Scott Laughton and Nick Cousins. Jason Akeson. The dear, departed Morgan Frost. An under-the-gun Owen Tippett.

Maybe one could make an argument that the focus on bulking up defensive prospects in the mid-2010s left a blind spot. That laissez-faire attitude doesn’t cut it anymore for a franchise looking to pull itself out of the doldrums. 

It should also make you want to tear your hair out that Briere pulled off the deal with Anaheim to bring in Zegras – who did not respond well to suggestions he should play wing and not his natural center with the Ducks – only to say he “hoped” Zegras could make an impact at center and then publicly punt the decision on his assignment to new head coach Rick Tocchet.

If the Flyers can so brazenly fail to come to a consensus on an established player, what’s to make you think they can’t or won’t pull the old switcheroo with the prospects?

O’Brien is a center. Martin is a center. Hagens is a center. There’s absolutely no reason for Briere et al to start toying with the haul. It may already be too late for Luchanko, a likely Mark Recchi clone who was told in April, as reported by the Inquirer, to be less selfish with the puck. The Flyers never drafting and developing a bona-fide pure goal scorer is another rant for another time.

Obie’s draft profile places him closest to what Sean Couturier could have been if Claude Giroux wasn’t the top dog on the top line. Don’t turn him into an Eric Lindros. Martin’s bona fides read more like a Joe Thornton prototype and, of course, certain outlets are already pinning him to the Lindros mold. No bueno. While through only one season at Boston College, Hagens may resist molding because the organization cannot read what one college season at age 18 means compared to two in juniors, or due to lack of exposure. He is one of BC’s gaggle of young, eager, skilled forwards who need to develop much more edge and resilience.

If the choice is Hagens, he simply cannot be allowed to turn into another James vanRiemsdyk. I still wonder if the front office has learned anything from a decade-plus of wandering through NCAA Division I prospects. If only Ray Shero still walked the Earth.

A refresher:

VanRiemsdyk was taken with the infamous No. 2 selection in the 2007 draft, one behind future Hall-of-Famer Patrick Kane. He spent two seasons flitting around on an Olympic-sized ice rink at the Whittemore Center for the University of New Hampshire. Long-time Wildcats head coach Dick Umile brought in a spate of smaller, quicker, skilled forwards to take advantage of the wider playing surface, but the Snider-Clarke-Holmgren think tank axis did little else than constantly tapping their watches impatiently for two years waiting for JVR to declare his status. 

Once loosed on the world in March 2009, the organization immediately tabbed JVR as a power forward, envisioning him mucking down low at even strength and on the power play. Development? How about all of 7 games of pro experience with the Phantoms. He was given a chance to make the NHL roster in camp the following September – which he did – and proceeded to stunt his growth.

Hilarity ensued, including injuries, inconsistency, more front office complaints about on-ice prowess, a 6-year exile to Toronto followed by a 5-year Philly reunion during which JVR *finally* grew and aged into a body which could execute the role the franchise hoped for in the first place.

If we learned anything from the William C. Gauthier fiasco, it’s that Briere might have caused affront to the young upstart in merely suggesting the club didn’t want him to leave after his freshman campaign and burn a year off his entry-level contract. The ironing is delicious given the spate of one-and-done’s coming from the NCAA. 

Briere would be wise to take that tack again with Hagens if the club hasn’t had their Eagles-eye view tainted, since he’s not quite the player sprung fully formed from the head of Zeus that Gauthier was.

And besides, if you’ve read or followed me at all over the last 15 years, you know which side of the stay-or-go scenario I favor.

Editor's note: With the 6th overall pick, the Flyers skipped the top D1 prospect in Hagens, choosing Porter Martone -- a right-handed-shooter from the Steelheads of the Ontario Hockey League. The 18-year-old finished his 3rd year of juniors with 98 points (37G, 61A) in 57 games on the wing.

By trading two later first-round picks, they moved up to No. 12 and chose a center, left-handed shooting Jack Nesbitt whose second OHL season yielded 64 points (25G, 39A) for the Windsor Spitfires. The fact the club bucked the trend to take a forward then grabbed a center within the top 15 selections dramatically underscores the point about development that takes into account each player's natural position and skill set, at slots where each player is presumably 1-2 years away from competing for an NHL roster spot. 

Can I offer any solutions after all this bleating and babbling? No, save for once again screaming into the void that the Flyers hockey operations just learn from the past and not repeat the same mistakes.

That’s a big enough ask for now. I can also ask the fandom from here on out, to think one or two levels up, to hold those who cover the team and those responsible for the decision making to account.

One man, one position. One solution. One vision. Gimme, gimme, gimme fried chicken.