The Albany Devils will host the Adirondack Phantoms here at Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall on Sunday, December 5. Photo by Travis Hughes, broadstreethockey.com

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ATLANTIC CITY -- The Phantoms moved from Philadelphia to the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York back in the spring of 2009. In a triumphant return home last winter, the Phantoms took on the Norfolk Admirals in front of a very large crowd at Wachovia Center. They lost, but they did a lot of that last year anyway.

Yet again in 2010-11, the Phantoms will be coming home. It'll be a little bit different, however.

The two minor league affiliates of the New Jersey Devils, the AHL's Albany Devils and the ECHL's Trenton Devils, will play a combined five home games next season at Boardwalk Hall here in Atlantic City. In the first of these games on Sunday, December 5 at 5 PM, the Devils will host the Phantoms in what could very well be a largely pro-Adirondack crowd.

For the record, the Phantoms had to agree to play the game at a site other than Albany.

Atlantic City, Atlantic County and the Southern Jersey Shore, as you may know, sits deeply in the Philadelphia media market and is certainly considered Flyers territory. There are Devils fans here, to be sure, but anybody telling you that this area is anything but orange and black is lying to your face.

A press conference on Tuesday morning at the 81-year old Jersey Shore landmark brought out all of the dignitaries, from Devils owner Jeff Vanderbeek to GM Lou Lamoriello -- any and all Kovalchuk questions were met with "we can't comment, sorry" -- to NJ's Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno.

They all spoke on the party line: we're "Jersey's Team" and we're here to claim what's ours.

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Did you know the Flyers had an ECHL affiliate last year?

Yes? Congrats -- you know some basically meaningless information.

No? Don't feel bad -- you didn't miss anything.

That affiliate in 2009-10, the Kalamazoo Wings, only housed two players from the Flyers organization on its roster last year -- David Sloane and Jeremy Duchesne, who played a combined 29 games with the K-Wings. Meanwhile, other Flyers prospects in the ECHL like Michael Teslak and Chris Zarb played for other teams.

Long story short: ECHL affiliates don't really matter all that much. So the news yesterday that the Flyers have a new affiliate in that league and the fact that it somehow found its way to the front page of philly.com, shows how slow news can be in hockey this time of the year.

But, nevertheless, the Flyers do have a new ECHL partner, and they're strange bedfellows to an extent. The Greenville (SC) Road Warriors will team up with the orange and black next season, but they're also the ECHL affiliate of the New York Rangers. That's right: Flyers and Rangers prospects, shooting for the Kelly Cup together in harmony.

The Road Warriors are a new team in the ECHL this season. The franchise is the longest running in the league, however, formerly known as the Johnstown Chiefs. Yes, that Johnstown, and yes, those Chiefs -- the team that inspired the movie Slap Shot. In 22 ECHL seasons, the Chiefs never won a division, conference or championship title.

Hockey has been played in Greenville in the recent past. The Grrrowl (yes, three R's) played in the ECHL from 1998 to 2006. They won the Kelly Cup in 2001-02.

Once again, the standard "Faceoff" picture for the top of the story. Sorry for unoriginality.

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In the last day of the Flyers 2010 Prospect Camp, the players jumped on the ice at 9:30 am for a scrimmage.

Surprisingly, there weren't that many people in attendance, which is sad since it was a pretty good game.  As has been true all week, it was pretty sloppy, with missed passes, shaky goaltending, and missed penalty shots.  Oh, and Zac Rinaldo dropped the gloves.  Again.

Again, check out the BroadStreetHockey YouTube page for videos from the game.  Rather than take videos from the opposite end of the ice, I got 10 of the 11 shootout attempts taken on Bobrovsky (I wasn't quick enough to get Bobrovsky stopping Chaput) and Morrison's final save to seal the game.

Yes, the Black Team won 4-4 (2-1 in shootout), taking the series 3 games to 2.  Apparently the Curse of the Black Jerseys doesn't affect prospects.

Jump for the bullet points from the final day of camp.

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Do not make eye contact.

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Another uneventful practice, which makes me think it's me.  The only thing from practice is that Craig Berube is still intimidating, and I wasn't even the one being yelled at.

Plus, the one time we made eye contact, I froze.  Seriously, that guy is scary and I'm not afraid to admit it. 

Only three videos taken today, one of Riopel at practice, one of Bobrovsky at practice, and a shootout attempt by Dowling on Bobrovsky.  Check them out at the BroadStreetHockey YouTube page.

It's Sunday and it's nice out, so let's get straight to the bullet points.

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The third day of Prospect Camp was fairly uneventful.  After spending Friday watching Riopel, Stewart, and Bobrovsky, I spent today trying to watch Rawlings, Morrison, and Phillips.  But those three worked mostly on wraparounds, which was too dull to watch.

At the other rink, Riopel, Stewart, and Bobrovsky had some difficulty getting a lot of action since the skaters were having difficulty following Coach Berube's instructions.  Needless to say, it wasn't a very eventful day of practice.  And yet I was still able to get some video of Stewart, Bobrovsky, Morrison, and Rawlings.  Check them out at the BSH YouTube page.

The good news is that there were different players stepping up today, so today's recap will be different than the previous days.

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Notice Derian Hatcher's son playing left wing.

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After spending Thursday at the annual Trial on the Isle, the Flyers prospects returned to the ice on Friday.  As with Wednesday, it's hard to draw conclusions from just one day of practice, especially considering how little you see of everybody.

For the second straight practice, only half of the rookies had name plates on their back.  No idea why that is, but it's a little frustrating.  They change into named jerseys for the scrimmage, but it leads to some difficult scouting at practice.

Partly because of that, but mostly because of my previously mentioned affinity for goalies, I spent most of the practice time watching the trio of Nicola Riopel, Brad Phillips, and Sergei Bobrovsky take turns in net. 

I didn't mention it on Wednesday (mainly due to the poor quality), but be sure to stop by the Broad Street Hockey YouTube page for videos from camp.  Try to forgive the quality as it was taken on my phone.

After the jump to see who stood out on day 2, for both good and bad.

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Today, the Flyers kicked off their Prospect Camp at the Skate Zone in Voorhees, New Jersey.  They are scheduled to have 4 days of morning practice followed by a late-morning scrimmage in the next 5 days (tomorrow they are having their yearly Trial on the Isle), and we hope to get to as many as possible.  All details can be found on the Flyers website.

These events are really fun to go to as only about 75 people were there for practices - split among the two rinks - and about 125 showed up for the scrimmage.  If you get a chance, it's definitely worth attending.

While there, I was a nerd and took notes.  Now, before giving you the notes, it's important to realize that this was the first practice in July for players who will either return to the minors or play small roles on the Phantoms.  The only big names in attendance are Marc-Andre Bourdon, Kevin Marshall, Sergei Bobrovsky and Nicola Riopel, while the only other players who spent time in Adirondack last year are Shane Harper, Ben Holmstrom, Erik Gustafsson, and Brian Stewart, all of whom have signed since March of this year.

Again, both praise and criticism needs to be muted as this was just one practice, and the first one at that.  Any conclusions based on the observations are premature until at least the end of the week.

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We wrote a lengthy piece yesterday about the impact the move of the Albany River Rats from upstate New York to North Carolina will have on the Flyers AHL affiliate, the Adirondack Phantoms.

There was a lot of discussion about the impact this all has on the Flyers in the comments of that article. Tim McManus, Phantoms beat writer at the Glens Falls Post-Star, intended on posting a response to some of the comments with a comment of his own, but our site has a 24 hour validation period where newly registered members can't jump in.

He passed along his comments to me via email, however. I've included them here:

As a reporter who has covered this issue for more than a year, I can assure you hockey in Albany is not fine and has not been fine for quite some time. The River Rats lasted for 15 years only because of the generosity of a local owner, Walter Robb, who was willing to lose a considerable amount of money because he considered it a civic point of pride to have a team there. The River Rats aren’t leaving just because Carolina wanted a closer affiliation. The franchise was sold because it’s a financial black hole. Any new owner will need to come in with a completely new business plan.

If you’re a Flyers fan concerned about the viability of the Phantoms until Allentown is viable, Glens Falls is a far safer bet. The owners are on track to break even this season, something that hasn’t happened in Albany in at least 12 years. According to a story in today’s Times Union, the Rats have been in the bottom 25 percent of the league in attendance for the last 10 seasons. Twelve pro sports franchises have left Albany in the last 20 years. The headline of that TU story, by the way is, "Rats show the risk of hockey in Albany."

I make the commute between this area and Philadelphia several times a year. The 40 or so miles of highway between Glens Falls and Albany is the easiest part of the drive. It’s empty highway. You’d have to be insane to take on the considerable financial risks in Albany just to move 35 minutes closer to Philadelphia. Also, many players live where I do, in the Saratoga area. That’s about 15-20 miles south of Glens Falls, so the time element is even less. Why would you uproot a financially stable situation for a far riskier one with only a negligible time benefit?

Glens Falls needs facility upgrades before it can be an ideal long-term market, but for the next 2-3 years it suits the needs of the Brooks Brothers and the Flyers much better than Albany.

For reference, check out the article from yesterday and the lengthy debate in the comments section that follow. For more on Tim, check out his work at the Post-Star, as well as an interview we did with him back in October. I'm sure he'll be happy to answer any more concerns in the comments section here as well.