Despite beloved team, Philly’s not really a hockey hotbed

By Bob Herpen
The Phanatic Magazine

You’d think one of the top five media markets in the NHL, and a franchise that has enjoyed 40 seasons of mostly successful hockey, would capture enough young minds to eventually churn out some top-flight prospects into the college ranks and into the league.

And you’d be dead wrong.

The supposed hockey boom throughout the Delaware Valley that was supposedly created due to the Flyers’ success through the 1970s and 1980s hasn’t really panned out. In spite of the fact that the core members of those Cup Winners settled in South Jersey or the Pennsylvania side of the river, had hockey playing kids and lent their hand to some leagues, there are precious few names that come to mind when talking local product.

By my count, there are only 10. And did I ever have to rack the inner recesses of my gray matter to come up with that many.

The prospect currently generating buzz around these parts is one Bobby Ryan. He’s a 20-year-old out of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, the second overall choice of Anaheim in the 2005 Draft. His story, chronicled around that time by the Inquirer, details a life less ordinary, and shocking by all accounts. Long story short, he was a pawn in his father’s game of eluding authorities after the attempted murder of his wife - Bobby’s mother. Ryan isn’t even his real last name. Regardless, he has risen from those lurid times to become a highly-touted player out of the Ontario Hockey League and looks to be a permanent member of the Ducks’ AHL affiliate in Portland, Maine this season.

Next on the list is Mark Eaton, the area’s lone success story. A native of Wilmington and graduate of Notre Dame, Eaton began his NHL career with the Flyers in 1998. Nine years and two teams later, he’s a part-time veteran defensive cornerstone to the Penguins’ youthful proto-dynasty. At least he got to The Show, and has carved out a niche as a defensive-minded backliner with some talent on both sides of the puck.

After that, the picture gets murky. Jay Caufield was the first to come from the region and earn a reputation (with the hated New York Rangers in 1986-87), but he didn’t so much as look at a pair of skates until high school. Plus, aside from his fistic abilities, his career can be summed up as the result of a close friendship with Mario Lemieux.

Tony Voce, a Northeast Philly boy and Boston College captain, won a title with the Eagles in 2001, and was signed by the Flyers as a free agent. He spent one year at Archbishop Ryan before going the path most players need to make, heading to Connecticut’s Canterbury School for a higher level of prep school competition. After two seasons with the Phantoms which included a Calder Cup in 2005, he was “acquired” under odd circumstances by Grand Rapids this past Winter after an alleged altercation with head coach Kjell Samuelsson.

Ryan Gunderson, who continued to learn his trade at the University of Vermont, tore up the Lower Bucks league while attending Holy Ghost Prep. However, he didn’t crack the 10-goal plateau in any season in Burlington against elite Hockey East competition, and remains un-drafted following his senior season.

Vince Clevenger is probably the least recognizable name on the list, even to those who are in the know about regional hockey. A native of West Chester, he also attended Canterbury, then went on to a solid four-year career as a third-line player with Merrimack College from 1997-2001. He entered the real world upon graduation.

Two Havertown, PA products, Ryan and Matt Mulhern had their shot to make it as well. Ryan, the elder brother, was an eighth round pick of Calgary in 1992. He played collegiately at Brown, then spent time in the ECHL before becoming a fan favorite with the Portland Pirates, then the affiliate for the Washington Capitals. He had one cup of coffee (three games with Washington in 1997-98) before leaving the game in 2000. Matt had a successful career at Canterbury, then a four-year stint as a penalty-killing specialist at Boston College, but his career was cut short by knee injuries in the ECHL. He now coaches the varsity boys’ team at The Hill School in Pottstown, PA.

At the bottom of the barrel are Ryan Sittler and Ray Staszak. Sittler was not born here, but was raised here when his father, Hall-of-Famer Darryl Sittler, played with the Flyers in the early 1980’s. Philly made him their seventh-overall pick in 1992, but he only reached the Hershey Bears for 49 games over two seasons.

Staszak had the honor of being the very first Philadelphia native to play in the NHL, but his career lasted all of four games with Detroit in 1985. Another Ryan graduate, he was one of a group of signings for the Red Wings in what became a notoriously dismal 17-win and 40-point season.

Although there are rinks that spring up in selected locations throughout the region from Reading to Vineland, the Philadelphia area is still ill-suited to producing talent like traditional spots in colder climates.

The first impediment is the lack of Division I game in the city. Penn used to have a top-level program in the ECAC until the Ivy League decided to go to I-AA and dropped hockey to club level. St. Joseph’s, Drexel, LaSalle and Temple have good second-division teams, and several smaller colleges offer competition, but it pales in comparison to Boston, Detroit, or Minneapolis.

Another oft-quoted fact is that the Wachovia Center is so distant from Center City and the city’s college campuses. It was a major factor in the NCAA’s decision to have a future Frozen Four in Washington, D.C. where the MCI Center is in a central location.

Second, hockey isn’t woven into the fabric of life like the above cities due to the climate, the relative newness of the sport to the area, and the fact that the city has always boasted basketball as its top export. When it’s 55 degrees outside in January, there aren’t too many kids who want to get exercise in a place where it’s colder. Besides, 55 degrees in January is more likely a fantasy to a kid living in Eden Prairie, Minnesota or Medford, Massachusetts. Even at the existing rinks here, there are only a hardcore few people - mostly volunteer parents - who operate leagues and sponsor teams, and these dedicated few are barely enough to keep things going. In some cases, if a former Flyers great does not have some hand in keeping the dream alive with financial or spiritual support, these things collapse.

Third, the suburban structure of the Delaware Valley doesn’t lend itself to an all-encompassing growth of the sport. In Boston, Detroit, and the Twin Cities, there are numerous autonomous outlying towns that support their own teams and schools and leagues with their own rinks. There is more sense of civic pride and involvement, and every school has a scholastic squad and every town has a traveling team.

The fact that Philly and Jersey suburbs are divided into townships inhibits growth because of distance - many kids have to cross the river into Jersey to play, and even St. Joseph’s University has to scrounge for ice time in Oaks, which is more than 30 miles from campus. Rink construction is by and large done in strategic locations, but in places like Havertown’s Skatium, up to a dozen teams call it home and a dozen more play a handful of games there each season.

Also, the sacrifices of parents and players in trying to find a good fit and some fun takes a toll and thins the ranks. I know, because I was one of them. I quit playing after 8th grade because my high school didn’t have a team, and I didn’t think it was worth it to try and shoehorn a traveling-team schedule into a tough academic one. Now I’m stuck with the Al Bundy-like remembrance of a four-goal game I had at Rizzo Rink back in 1991 at the ripe old age of 13.

Finally, the level of high-school-age competition is nowhere close to those in the New England Prep Leagues, the USHL, or Canadian juniors. There is no question that you need to leave the area to have a shot to make it - so you have players like Voce who spend five years in secondary education just to get an edge. Gunderson may have actually harmed his chances for the big time by staying at Holy Ghost, and it isn’t a surprise he was chosen by Vermont, a program just now getting to its feet after a devastating hazing scandal.

If there are only a select few kids even willing to break through all the barriers just to earn a fleeting chance, no wonder 10 names in 22 years were hard to come by.

And if you think a series of “hometown boy makes good” stories are also the best move to generate interest in your dead-last Philadelphia Flyers, think again. The Boston Bruins have made pathologically inept attempts in recent years to bring back nearly every player either born in the Boston area or who played in Hockey East, to no avail.

Nonetheless, the system can’t be knocked. There are thousands of youngsters who put on their skates at a young enough age to get hooked. Memories abound of hallway hockey on road trips, a run to the state finals, or hot cocoa after a disheartening loss. The ride lasts until they’re 18, which is a pretty good chunk of time to emulate their heroes.

Even though it’s perfectly all right to dream, don’t confuse the ability to play with the ability to become one of the best - because the overwhelming truth of the matter is, if you’re born here you’ll make your living at something else.