I'm Older than Mike Richards

by Have a Seat on Feb 26, 2009 10:40 AM EST

I'm also older than Giroux, Parent, Coburn, and Powe for that matter. There is no other team that reminds me I'm getting older than my beloved Philadelphia Flyers.

It's getting to a point where there are all-star athletes in each of the 4 major sports that are significantly younger than me, and that's been strange for some reason. That's, of course, not to say that I'm old at 24 or to offend those fans who are older than me. It's just a strange age to reflect on professional athletes and their ages, and no sport makes that more glaringly obvious to me than hockey. Sure there are countless basketball players who come out of high school (I'm older than Lebron I think, too) and football sure has its players who leave early. But those are two sports where the players skilled enough to play professionally at such a young age are such behemoths that I start not to see them as 20 years old but as some sort of RoboAthlete built for the sole purpose of being a professional athlete.

Hockey is different. Size and strength matter in hockey, but I would argue that they are less indicitive of future success in hockey than in those other sports. The Flyers have several players who are not only younger than myself, they also have players who would be smaller than me too. But it doesn't matter. Heart, training, and determination matter more, and these guys have it 10 times more than me. I remember being young and hearing my dad call college players "kids," even though they seemed like the oldest of grizzled men to me. Now I watch and they are kids to me too (especially someone like Giroux who is barely 21), and yet I respect them even more than most people 20 years my senior just because I've seen what it takes to make it as a hockey player as compared to other sports. If I met Claude Giroux at a bar (he just started legally drinking) I would not be able to talk to him as though he were a kid.

I guess I just always regarded professional athletes as men of myth and legend such that they I could never surpass them in age. Ah, to be young.

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realizing your age

we all have indicators which we benchmark how old we really are.

for me, it started when i noted that some playboy centerfolds were younger than me. then the starters in the NHL. then NFL and MLB.

then you start noting the athletes you idolized as a youth start to retire. then you note early retirements of people you followed while they were in college. then you realize you followed the playing career of an athlete through college and their entire career.

im at the point where there are 3 active flyers older than me, starting with timmonen.

then you discover good whiskey. and life is good again.

World F#$king Champions

by psudrozz on Feb 26, 2009 12:52 PM EST reply actions

It is really f*&king strange. I have a few years on you (I’m 36), which makes me pretty much the same age as the Big E.

In October of ’92 when he debuted with the Flyers, I was 19 & remember being REALLY tripped out that this larger-than-life kid was actually about 3 months younger than me!

by 2009az on Mar 3, 2009 12:15 AM EST reply actions

Ha, ha. I am older than everyone on the active Flyers’ roster…even frigging Knuble (although not by much). I can remember when I was 15 and Hextall seemed so old. And Rick Tocchet had hair—that glorious mullet flapping in the breeze.

John Stevens is only 5 years older than I am. I mean, that is some sobering stuff.

by doubleh on Mar 3, 2009 2:16 PM EST reply actions