This piece has been sitting in a Google Doc for six years. Six years of watching this team, following this blog and honing my writing, six years of becoming absolutely obsessed with this sport, and six years of having my heart broken time and time again. Hello, everyone: my name is Eamon, and I’m joining Broad Street Hockey’s writing team because this website (and by extension, community) is the reason I started doing all of this in the first place.
Some fun facts about me: I’m currently in college, I’m from the greater Nashville area, and my favorite player in NHL history is Mattias Ekholm (timely, huh). I had the seeds of my Flyers fandom planted during the 2010 Cup run, but I really became a hardcore follower of the team in 2015 when I discovered this website. Reading the work of Craig, Kurt, Maddie, and even old articles from writers long departed (Charlie and Eric Tulsky) fostered my burgeoning love for the game. I entered college as a Pre-Vet student after working in clinics in high school, but deep in my gut I always knew that I just wanted to cover this sport for a living.
How did I get into the Flyers? Well, my dad is a big fan and always has been, so he was pretty formative in that. He’s from Newtown Square, PA so whenever I was visiting family up there, the Flyers were usually on in the background at some point. Philadelphia sports have been omnipresent for much of my life despite living in the South, although not as prevalent as the Predators, my hometown team. Still, since I became old enough to stay up and watch every national broadcast game that our market got, I’ve been following the orange & black religiously. I still wear my dad’s first jersey that he handed down to me, a Rick Tocchet home sweater my mom bought him that he wore almost every day in college. Unfortunately, I can never rock it with the same style as him; I don’t own a pair of blue-and-white striped shorts.
To you, dad, if you’re reading this (I know you are), thank you for surrounding me with a home that instilled a love of the game. To my mom, thanks for pretending like you were listening when I’d come home ranting about Dave Hakstol’s deployment of Travis Sanheim; those moments planted the roots of my passion for talking about hockey with anyone and everyone.
In terms of who I am as a writer, I’m looking to bring the unadulterated joy of the sport to your fan experience in various forms. I’ll be working on pregames, recaps, and longer creative pieces like I’ve done for over a year at my other employer, SB Nation’s On The Forecheck. Some of my previous work includes: writing about Jalen Ramsey’s career as an NHL goalie, making the worst NHL roster of all time by accident, and creating a manifesto for the now-rebuilding Predators to follow. If you want to find me or get in contact with me, my Twitter handle is @GinandJuuse; you can almost always reach me there or at the bare minimum entertain yourself as I lament the failures of my two teams.
If you want to talk hockey or just get to know me better, shoot me a tweet or comment on this article. I may not reply immediately, but I always try to get to everyone. If you want a taste of what my writing is like, head on over to On The Forecheck and search my handle (eamon615) for all of that. I’m looking forward to covering this team and being part of the best Flyers community on the internet. Orange & black until I die, folks. Let’s do that hockey.
