The Mourning After

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By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE — Perfectly slotted between when Sofia came home from school and when she had to leave for dance was “The Poseidon Adventure” — the original from 1972, not the remake (a practice that should be illegal in Hollywood without written permission from the Gordonville high court).

At age 7, just about six months older than my little princess is now, I saw this action-adventure flick — cut from the cloth of “Airplane” and “Towering Inferno” made during the era of shag carpets and man-perms — I saw this in a movie theater (no Net Flix back then).

Sofia came into the room at the pinnacle scene, when Gene Hackman‘s character — the heroic Rev. Scott — plummeted to his death after making the rescue possible for the other survivors (Come on! It was 41 years ago, putting me a year beyond the statute of limitations on spoiler alerts, so I don’t want to hear it.).

I warned her that it was “just pretend” and that I could prove to her by showing her one of the other 98 movies starring Hackman (not an exaggeration, he has 99 credited roles), but she was a soldier undaunted anyway.

“When is he going to come back?” she asked, as the cast of mostly “B” actors (save Hackman and Ernest Borgnine, whose interaction were a highlight) were being blow-torched out and spirited away in a helicopter as the credits began to roll.

For those who say that history doesn’t repeat, those were the same thoughts running through my young head in 1972, when the song “The Morning After” from this movie topped by the charts (who can name the singer without cheating on Google or IMDB?).

It was the first time I saw a bittersweet ending, at least to my knowledge; the first time a protagonist gave the ultimate sacrifice.

Likely the same for Sofia.

It was meaningful, in a weird way, to share it together.

And maybe it was the nostalgia, but they don’t make them like they used to, do they?

Bringing us back to the mourning after.

I’m not a real big fan of this type of movie. I haven’t been for a long time. Maybe it is because I saw the classics, and got them out of my system, at a young and impressionable age (even though it took today’s viewing to realize some tawdry tricks, like having Pamela Sue Martin and the other actresses, other than Shelley Winters, strip down to nothing early on under the guise of needing to shed clothing to climb a Christmas tree out of the dining area).

It made an impression then and now.

For all the times I click through all 678 channels and find nothing to watch, this was right on time.

At the perfect time.

Home Cookin’

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halloates

“High and dry, out of the rain
It’s so easy to hurt others when you can’t feel pain
And don’t you know that a love can’t grow
‘Cause there’s too much to give, ’cause you’d rather live
For the thrill of it all”

Hall and Oates

-Rich Girl

Bad Medicine – On The House

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By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Mananging2Edit

GORDONVILLE – And in Switzerland … the government is voting on whether to give every citizen $2,800 a month in guaranteed income.

Go ahead and yodel.

I’ll wait.

Key word there, for all you anti-immigration types, is “citizen.”

Sounds like enough motivation to get on the path to citizenship.

But we are talking about a government that is not dysfunctional. Switzerland, after all, is ranked in the top 10 in happiness and in several key economic areas.

The reality is that our alleged democracy — from which Switzerland strays a bit with a federalized yin and yang that gets more democratic on the local levels, where it really matters – features “leaders” who let we the people suffer while they can’t agree on the time of day.

Even with Swiss Army watches.

Can you handle more?

Good.

Time for some more bad medicine (Don’t worry. The pills are on the house here in Gordonville, where we have single-payer, socialized medicine.).

What Is: There is a lot of vitriol out there, blaming President Barack Obama for the shutdown.

And What Should Never Be: Straying from the point.

Only the House, not the president, has the power to shut down the government.

And that is what happened here.

They are the ones who put people out of work and kept World War II veterans from their monument in Washington, D.C.

The haters will point to Obama’s 37 percent approval rating.

Let us point to the 28 percent approval rating of the Republicans that have conspired to block him at every turn since Day Uno (yes, the bastardized Spanish is intended to annoy).

That is one percentage point more than those of who believe Sasquatch — slave name Bigfoot – might be a for-real dude.

Sounds crazy, but I actually had more belief his wandered around the forest – I saw him with my own eyes on that episode of “The Six Million Dollar Man” – than I ever approved of the modern-day GOP.

And that goes back to before it was hijacked by the Tea Party.

What Is: Yawn … They are still playing baseball.

And What Should Never Be: Anyone caring.

I mean, if you live in those metropolitan areas with teams still involved, fine.

Here, in Philly, where the Phillies were pretty much caput when they went into the tank right after showing a pulse before the all-star break?

Nah.

I know none of our teams are much to write home about, but we have three others going.

We have college football and college hoops on the horizon.

I can understand loving baseball, even though I only like it as a friend, but I don’t get all these Philadelphia people getting so hyped up about the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Seemed like there was more of a need for suicide watch hotlines in the Delaware Valley than the western part of the state, where they are rightfully more football-obsessed, when the Bucs got bucked from the field by St. Louis from the playoffs.

If the shoe were on the other foot, do you think anyone in the Pittsburgh area would be losing sleep over the Phillies?

What Is: One of the sad byproducts of the shutdown is that real issues, namely gun control, are not being addressed by our misleaders.

And What Should Never Be: The eye off the ball, kind of like it is when the Second Amendment is misunderstood.

There he goes again? Yep, there I go again.

This is one of those issues I won’t debate for the sake of it and walk away agreeing to disagree. I was always for gun control, but the massacre in Newtown, Conn. – which miraculously prompted GOP leaders with NRA monies in their war chests to suddenly to take note of black kids in Chicago and Baltimore – is where I drew the line.

Put this in your pipes and smoke it: We account for 5 percent of the world’s population but 80 percent of the deaths in the planet’s 23 richest countries.

Rich, despite our current recession/depression? Yes.

Morally bankrupt? Affirmative.

What Is: Many who call themselves “Christians” (said with a southern twang for effect) weigh down the GOP with “morals” issues.

And What Should Never Be: Conservative Christians.

I’m mean, they can be. It’s a free country. Just don’t be in my face.

The two concepts – Christianity and conservatism — just don’t equate.

It’s like that short dude from “Game of Thrones” trying to play center for the 76ers.

OK, they could probably use him down low. Bad analogy, but it’s early in the morning and I’m a night person.

You get the point.

It’s like stating that all men are created equal and then having to pass a Civil Rights Act to start to make it happen nearly 200 years later.

OK, that happened.

But you get me here.

How about this one? These conservative “Christians” are among those standing firm against Obamacare (also the Affordable Care Act for the ignorant among us).

Forget the supernatural stuff about dying and being resurrected. Take the historical Jesus and what he is purported to have represented.

Ask yourselves, did he heal for profit?

If the answer is no, you are “Christians” in name only.

What Is: A chap named Peter Baker has a book coming out claiming that George W. Bush, presidential disgrace that he was, had a tepid relationship with Dick Cheney that turned completely cold after Bush refused to pardon Scooter Libby (no one called “Scooter” should be pardoned, just on principle).

And What Should Never Be: Thinking anyone is all evil.

I guess Bush has some redeeming qualities after all, as Cheney is all evil.

If the book is accurate, that is.

Baker, a reporter for the New York Times, did work in Moscow. They could have brainwashed him and sent him back as a spy.

What Is: John McCain was quoted as saying his party, the GOP, has done the American people a “disservice.”

And What Should Never Be: Finding a GPS that helps you back to being yourself.

Once upon a time in America, I used to say that McCain would be that one Republican I would consider voting for as president.

I didn’t agree with everything (whisper: I don’t agree with everything Obama stands for, either), but he was a maverick.

And that label, while sounding cool – and American – is not something to be taken lightly.

Those were stripes he earned.

But then, after W. backstabbed McCain out of the way in the 2000 primary, he did himself a “disservice” once he got the chance to run for president in 2008.

He picked Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate, letting the Tea Party genie out of the bottle.

Now he is trying to stuff it back in.

It’s nice that he sees the errors of his ways, but once it’s out …

Good night, John Boy.

What Is: Haven’t heard much from Syria lately, have you?

What Should Never Be: Forgetting to knock wood.

Seems like the process of quelling the violence and eliminating chemical weapons, without putting one American in harm’s way, is working.

Give Obama some credit, or would you rather harp on the murky Benghazi scenario some more?

As for what happens in Syria, and these other Arab countries allegedly going through spring, I’m not overly interested.

Let’s say I’m neutral.

Like Switzerland.

 

 

Defusing The ‘Cruz’ Missile

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By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

“All are mad but me and thee, and sometimes I question thee.”

-My Uncle Sylvan

GORDONVILLE — There goes the advice our elders gave us about making fools of ourselves in public.

Put another one on the “I don’t know what to tell me daughter now” list.

Sen. Ted Cruz spends 21 hours begging to be taken away by the men in the white coats and the White House in 2016 beckons – at least until the novelty wears off.

According to the Washington Post, Cruz’s 21-hour filibuster against Obamacare funding, which included reading a Dr. Seuss book but no bathroom break, has “leapfrogged” him to the front of the pack of rabid wolves in a Public Policy Poll.

The poll also revealed that GOP primary voters – an odd mix of corporate benefactors and trailer trash — suddenly have more trust in Cruz than other party leaders on Capitol Hill.

That says all there needs to be said about Cruz, the other party leaders or the same GOP voters who gave us George W. Bush twice upon a forgettable time and actually pulled a lever for a ticket that had Sarah “Palm Reader” Palin as the vice presidential candidate.

The lead for the Texas senator was not a big one, but don’t take much heart in that.

Following Cruz, who pulled in 20 percent of the nods, had pulled ahead of recent front-runner – and equally steadfast in draconian beliefs — Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who checked in at 17 percent.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie – about the only name in the mix I can stomach (partial pun intended) – followed at 14 percent. Next, from the Royal House of Bush, we had former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

“Ted Cruz this week established himself as the grassroots hero of the Republican party,” said Dean Debnam, president of PPP. “The party has more faith in him than (its) more official leaders like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.”

His pre-shutdown schtick clearly, and amazingly, had an impact on the numbed-down and dumbed-down voting populace on the tea-bagged right.

He is up eight percentage points since July. The rise came from those who consider themselves “very conservative” (code for a lot of words, not many of which are in sync with the same 10 commandments they want to see plastered in public places) and by those who favored the shutdown by a margin of 75 percent to 10.

“Our numbers also suggest that Cruz is now viewed more broadly as the leader of the Republican Party,” the poll analysis said. “He now has more credibility with the GOP base than the folks who have been leading the party for years.”

The poll, which surveyed 743 Republican primary voters on Sept. 25 and Sept 26, carries a margin of error of 3.6 percent.

Make that margin for error 100 percent.

This hero is a zero.

Cruz as a presidential nominee would only serve to make America a more hateful and divided place than it has already become since his Tea Party, instead of manning up and forming a third party, hijacked any remaining modicum of rational thought within the GOP.

While his 21-hour charade may equate to being this clown’s 15 minutes of fame, we should still prepare for the worst and hope for the best when considering presidential scenarios for 2016.

We should see Cruz more than a guy blessed with an expansive bladder.

We should lift the hood and take a look at what is inside.

This dude needs more than a tune up. He needs an engine, circa the 1950s – when Dwight D. Eisenhower was the last of the sane Republican presidents.

What is most illuminating, especially when one considers he is standing on the shoulders of many “birthers” (those trying to make President Barack Obama illegitimate because they insist he was born in Kenya), is that Cruz really was not born in the United States.

And for those haters out there who took fiendish pleasure in saying our president’s full name – Barack Hussein Obama – with flames shooting out of their dragon tongues, one wonders what the response will be when they learn “Ted” is really named “Rafael.”

His father was from Cuba – you know, just like Obama’s absentee biological father was from Kenya – and it is unclear about his American citizenship. Like good Texans, both of his parents were in the oil business. Mom – an “American” originally from Wilmington, Del. — were living in Canada when the stork delivered little Rafael’s egg in Calgary, Alberta.

Honestly, this really shouldn’t – or wouldn’t – be an issue if so much weren’t made of Obama’s lineage. John McCain, defeated by Obama in 2008, was born out of the country as well, but only because his father was in the military.

Ditto for the fact that Cruz is well-educated, having gone to Princeton and then Harvard Law School — except that Obama was termed an “elitist” for also rising from obscurity to achieve that level of schooling.

Laughable irony aside, Cruz – who conveniently says “I’m Cuban, Irish, and Italian, and yet somehow I ended up Southern Baptist” — has enough red flags without playing gotcha about where he was born.

Consider his textbook Tea Party report card, which shows no creative thought or problem-solving skills:

-In March of this year, three months removed from the Newtown massacre, Cruz stood with Paul in stating he would filibuster any and all gun control legislation. His grade from the NRA is an A-plus. Not sure how one gets more than A without genuflecting in front of Charleton Heston, but there you go.

-He flatly opposes same-sex marriage. What else can you say? An emerging leader – a cult “hero” — with such a closed mind is not where this country should be headed, but that is the state of today’s GOP.

-We know how he feels about the Affordable Care Act (the same thing as Obamacare, despite what viewers of the Jimmy Kimmel Show think), but really offers no option for society’s most vulnerable. This guy is Scrooge, before those pesky ghosts gave him a character adjustment.

-He is a Bush disciple. Enough said. Once you swim in that cesspool, there is no getting clean. Cruz joined the campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser and played a key real role in the legal team that sealed the stolen election. Bush returned the favor, naming him associate deputy attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice and later director of policy planning at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (two posts that he likely considers trim-worthy fat in the Obama administration).

It may surprise even long-term readers to learn that I am not theoretically opposed to voting Republican. I have done so, on the local level, close to 50 percent of the time. I always voted for Arlen Specter, despite that irksome magic bullet thing, but I have yet to step to the right for president.

Doing so, eventually, is kind of on my political bucket list.

How so?

I have core belief that neither party should own in the Oval Office for more than two terms, so it goes against the grain.

But the GOP, with the likes of Cruz as its face, makes it difficult.

And so it is.

And on it goes — this underlying, and destructive, civil war of ours.

You want to elect Jefferson Davis II, be prepared for the consequences.

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Reality Check What Doctor Ordered For Birds

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By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE — Is there a silver lining to getting routed, 52-20?

The majority would say no.

But I say it is so.

Call me a lone wolf howling at the moon, but there is a bright side from the drubbing the Eagles took at the hands of the Denver Broncos last Sunday.

Yes, it was their third loss in a row. Yes, it was the first of those three losses where they were not in the same hemisphere as their opponent.

Not going to say it’s a good thing, or a fun experience to endure, so don’t reserve me a padded cell someplace.

It’s just not as bad as some are making it out to be.

And this is neither spin control nor nit-picking to say that this player or that player made an isolated play here or there to be excited about.

I’m not an Eagles cheerleader.

My name isn’t Dave Spadaro.

It’s about the overall picture, and the quest to get to where new coach Chip Kelly and Co. project to be down the road. “Down the road” could mean by the end of the season of change and experimentation, or 2-3 seasons down the road.

It is said, wisely, that we learn more from our losses than our victories – even if we don’t realize it.

And there was much to be learned from Sunday’s loss, and not just that we should wave the white flag and purposefully finish 1-15.

After the Eagles stunned the Washington Redskins in the first half of their opener and held on for dear life in a 33-27 win, they fell by three points to San Diego, 33-30, and by 10, 26-16, to former coach Andy Reid and his Kansas City Chiefs.

And the largest public outcry, along with losing a media-created revenge game with Reid, was that the Eagles have gone more than a calendar year since last winning at home.

Within the team, from the front office on down, was an outlook that was equally off-point and unfocused.

There was the sense that the San Diego game was wrought with opportunities to win, and that Reid’s Chiefs merely took advantage of mistakes – namely a barrage of turnovers – to eke past the Birds in a game that was actually tighter than the final count. And in both contests, as in Denver, suddenly ineffective placekicker Alex Henery missed a field goal that could have changed momentum.

Surely, a lot of the Eagles’ players, wearing  badges of invincibility while sipping their smoothies and trying to rejuvenate their bodies from playing three games in 11 days, were telling themselves – and each other – that they should and could and would be 3-0 after three games if they weren’t their own worst enemies.

In reality, they were looking in the mirror and running a con game on themselves.

If they lost those games, it was because the other team was better.

It could be argued that if the Redskins didn’t “beat themselves” in the first half of the opener, the Eagles could have lost that one.

San Diego’s offense did what it wanted whenever it wanted. That’s why the Eagles lost, plain and simple. It wasn’t Henery’s missed field goal at the end of the first half, or even them having to settle for a game-tying field goal before the Chargers came back and easily marched for the winning field goal.

The truth was that if San Diego needed a game-winning touchdown, instead of a field goal, they would have gotten that as well.

The Swiss cheese of a defense, which any wearing glasses that were not rose-colored knew was not going to stop anyone this season, was making Philip Rivers look like Peyton Manning as much as Peyton Manning looked like himself this past week.

Against Kansas City, the hard truth is only one of the myriad of turnovers was unforced – meaning the Chiefs’ defense made plays to take the ball, and the momentum, away from their revved-up hosts.

The Eagles went into Denver 1-2 because they were a 1-2 team, not a team that was a few plays shy of being unblemished.

News Flash: Every team that falls in the NFL can point to this play or that missed opportunity or a bad call by an official as turning points. It’s just that when the home team wins, we don’t look at it from that perspective.

So how does this all make what happened in Denver a good thing?

Because there are no more delusions of grandeur. The Eagles took on an upper echelon team and saw just how far away they are from being in the conversation.

They are not there.

Not even close.

As in life lessons, we learn in sports that hitting rock bottom is sometimes the best cure to a chronic illness that we pretend isn’t there.

There is no more pretending.

After an initial first four games that almost cry conspiracy, the schedule begins to moderate. The next two are on the road – at the New York Giants and at Tampa Bay – but both of those teams are winless and struggling even more than the Eagles in terms of getting it together.

Moreover, we are talking about Sunday games at 1 p.m. that are under the radar. No Monday night, like the Redskins. No Thursday night, on a few days of rest after a tough loss, like the Chiefs. No “game of the week” at 4:25 to be foils for Manning’s mastery.

The Eagles, with their issues no longer obscured by excuses, will be punching in their own weight class for the next few weeks.

And they have a puncher’s chance of getting themselves turned around, even with that porous defense that cannot be addressed until the offseason, because they are no longer looking in the mirror and seeing somebody they are not.

Even if they don’t get to that 9-7 or 8-8 that might win the NFC East, at least in theory, they can begin the process of improving and changing the culture and showing slow and steady improvement as the season progresses.

And when they look for a turning point, it will be easy to say it was a win they snatched from the jaws of victory or a game where the defense started to find some modicum of mediocrity and made a game-saving stand.

But the real starting point – the ground zero – will really be the game they don’t want to talk about, which is last Sunday’s pounding in Denver.

This column originally appeared at http://www.phillyphanatics.com

“Word” On Problems

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I know it was an ugly loss in Denver, but Eagles’ coach Chip Kelly gave a brilliant quote:

“Ninety percent of the people don’t care about your problems and the other 10 percent are glad you have them.”

True is football, and in life.

I have actually been in situations where 10 percent of the people around me didn’t care about my problems and 90 percent were glad I had them.

Tough way to live, work and play.

Life is too short to be in those situations.

Are You Ready For Some Hockey? Puck, Yeah!

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By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail,com

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE — Are you ready for some … hockey?

Shoot, I am.

Haven’t been this fired up about the puck dropping on a new season in a while, and for two connected reasons.

The first is personal, as the sport as always been close to my heart.

A lifestyle change now allows to me to be home at night, watching games. I might even get to see some live action, and nothing hits my sports soul with more impact than walking through a tunnel of an arena and seeing a hockey rink.

The second reason is an extension of the first. Born in 1965, I grew up at a time when the Philadelphia teams were bad going on worse.

If you could scratch and sniff the sports scene upon which I was weaned, you would have gagged.

I learned to read the agate page of the newspaper by looking up the baseball standings every day to see if the National League East cellar-dwelling Phillies at least had a better record than the pathetic San Diego Padres in the NL West.

It was years before I actually saw the Eagles win a home game (my dad had season tickets, but only brought me to a few each season when I young). I remember going to a game during the ill-fated, nine-win 1972-73 76ers season and taking heart that at least they led after the first quarter of a blowout loss to the powerful Boston Celtics.

It was a pitiful introduction to sports.

But just when the inferiority complex was about to be cemented, the Broad Street Bullies came along and changed everything, winning the Stanley Cup in 1974 and again in 1975.

I joined the rest of the near-world in playing hockey. Ice rinks were few and far between, and most didn’t last long when they did open. But we always had the street – or a schoolyard — to pretend you were Bobby Clarke or Bernie Parent or Rick MacLeish or any of the others who were loved so much here and hated elsewhere in the civilized world.

With Clarke as my primary role model, I found a formula that made me successful. I just hustled and always tried to be around the puck/ball and good things tended to happen.

While the success of the Flyers gave me pride as a young fan with not much else to cheer for in this region, my personal success gave me self-confidence.

Fast-forward to the present.

It’s not exactly the same scenario, but it is close enough to hang on to the hope that history can repeat itself (even though you won’t see me outside with a Bobby Clarke, orange-blade street hockey stick).

All you have to do is survey the Philadelphia sports landscape with an objective eye.

The Eagles, in spite of their fast-break offense, are a work in progress. Success will be measured more by changing the culture from the humdrum that marked the end of the Andy Reid era than by a won-loss record or doing a blind squirrel routine and finding some back door to sneak into the playoffs.

The Sixers, well, they are purposefully tanking the season – trying to replicate 1972-73 — to get as high of a draft pick as possible for next season’s front-loaded draft. That should tell you all you need to know about the upcoming campaign in which one of the prized rookies, Nerlens Noel, may not even play.

The Phillies, in effect, saw their season unceremoniously end by stumbling out of gate when the bell rang after the all-star break. Next year, with an odd mix of post- and pre-prime players, they will be working under the guidance of a manager, Ryne (not Ryan!) Sandberg. At best it will be a transitional year to get where they want to be, so keep your fingers away from that window as it slams shut.

It has been a while since a Philadelphia team has even made the postseason, which is the vital first step toward even catching a whiff of a coveted championship.

The Flyers are about to start playing for keeps, and they enter the season with some questions that need to be answered.  Nonetheless, the immediate future does not look as bleak as their brethren in the City of Brotherly Love.

Truth be uttered, all that kept them out of the playoffs a year back was the lockout. For whatever reason, they hit the ice skidding and were chasing that sluggish start the rest of the way. Whenever they seemed to gain traction, the injury bug would rear its ugly head.

It was just one of those vicious cycles that might have been broken with those extra 30 games to get it together, but the shortened slate did not have mercy on slow starters.

And then there was the other problem, the goalie with the inconsistent play and bizarre quotes that filled up the notebooks of smirking beat writers but divided the locker room of the players laying it on the line each night in front of him.

Illya Bryzgalov is gone. The team swallowed a bitter pill by eating his onerous contract. Instead of “Bryz” backed up by a non-option, the Flyers will now have a healthier situation with the tag team of Steve Mason and Ray Emery.

However it shakes out in terms of opening night, the max – barring injury – will be a 60-40 split in starts. Two quality/sane goalies staying fresh by not being overworked means addition by subtraction on any sports calculator (except in the Flyers’ business office, where they still have to cut checks to the currently unemployable Bryzgalov).

The other killer last season, beyond the goaltending and endless stream of injuries, was the infectious nature of the dreaded sophomore slump.

Sean Couturier, Brayden Schenn and Matt Read failed – at varying degrees – to pick up where they had left off the prior season.

Logic would dictate that the primary cause was the lockout, as the younger players had a harder time keeping themselves focused and ready to go when it was suddenly announced that a season – more of a sprint than a marathon – was going to start.

This talented trio will be counted on to support to top guns – Claude Giroux, Jake Voracek, newcomer and one-time standout Vinny Lecavalier, Scott Hartnell and Wayne Simmonds – to pick up the pace on an offense that sagged last year.

Meanwhile, on the blue line, Braydon Coburn appears healthy and ready to resume bump-and-grind action at 18-20 minutes a night (instead of 22-24). Newcomer Mark Streit takes some pressure off veteran Kimmo Timonen as a mobile defenseman. Luke Schenn, Brayden’s older brother, seemed to be coming into his own – as younger larger-sized defenseman often do after a few seasons and a change of scenery – by season’s end. While upstart Erik Gustafsson is a viable wild card, the real success of this group hinges on the health of Andrei Meszaros and Nick Grossmann.

While the defense still lack that No. 1 stud worthy of 22-24 minutes game, like a Chris Pronger, the potential depth almost makes up for it.

On paper, the Flyers look like a solid team. Good enough to make the postseason, which, in our city’s current sports funk, will almost be parade-worthy, even if they get swept in the first round.

On the ice, we will have to take a wait-and-see approach.

Given the options in this town, that’s an upgrade.

It’s a reason to believe that as it happened before, it could happen again.

It all starts Wednesday against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Game on.

This column originally appeared at http://www.phillyphanatics.com.

Conjoined Twins

No Photoshop is being used here. Sofia and her little friend are joined at the hip. They weren’t born that way, but now they are. Perhaps there is a way to rectify it without surgery. We have a call in to an expert at CHOP. Or … we can appreciate that she has such a “close” friend already.