Flyers Find Time For a Bonding Camp
(from the Philadelphia Inquirer)
By Sam Carchidi
Inquirer Staff Writer
October 13, 2009 - In what has become an annual tradition, the Flyers will hold a bonding camp this week, trying to get the players to learn more about their teammates.
The hope is that better chemistry off the ice will translate into more production on it.
After yesterday's practice in Voorhees, the 3-1-1 Flyers boarded a flight to sunny Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where they will eat meals together, compete in a team fishing tournament, and participate in a team sailboat race on the Atlantic Ocean.
They will also hold practices every day and work on conditioning, but the focus is on the off-ice activities and blending together the nine new players with the old standbys.
The Flyers play just one game - Friday against the Florida Panthers - in an 11-day span.
"It's an unusual break we have and we have to take advantage of it, and I think we can really push our conditioning here and really go over our team play and spend some time together," said coach John Stevens, who kiddingly called the coaches' boat the favorite in today's regatta. "The time we did that in Whistler [British Columbia] in-season, it was remarkable the effect it had on our team. They really had an opportunity to get some quality time together, have some fun together and work hard together at the same time."
Ian Laperriere, a veteran forward in his first season with the Flyers, has played most of his career in the Western Conference, whose teams have longer road trips than those in the East.
"In the West, you don't really need [bonding trips] because you travel quite a bit and you have time to get to know each other," he said. Five days in Florida is "going to give me a chance to know these guys a little more and it's going to get them to know me, too."
And what will they learn about him?
"That I'm a boring guy," he said with a laugh.
Laperriere added that he hopes the sailboat he and some of his teammates are racing doesn't capsize because, "I swim like a rock. Hopefully, they've got a life vest."
Chris Pronger, another first-year Flyer, remembers going go-kart racing and to a shooting range to try to build unity when he was with Anaheim.
"Just to get the guys together, have some fun and get some good camaraderie and chemistry," he said. "It worked pretty well; it seems to get the guys together in a little different atmosphere and away from everything."
Laperriere, Pronger, Ray Emery, Brian Boucher, Blair Betts, Mika Pyorala, James van Riemsdyk, Danny Syvret, and Ole-Kristian Tollefsen are the Flyers' newcomers this season.
"It's good for the guys, especially being new to the team like myself, to get a chance to kind of get to know everybody and have some laughs," said Emery, who added that when he was with Ottawa, the team stayed at a resort for the sake of unity. "You spend all year together, so it's not like you're unfamiliar with each other, but guys have families and maybe you only see them at the rink, so this is a chance to have a boys' vacation and mix in hockey as well."