Hello Broad Street Hockey faithful, my name is Jacob Russell and I am the newest features writer covering everyone’s favorite hockey headache.
Despite growing up just under an hour away from Toronto, I’ve been a Flyers fan for as long as I could remember. My first hockey memory was throwing my Flyers hat across the room when I found out that the novice hockey team I would be playing for, wore blue and white.
That was the first step in a long journey that took me from arena-to-arena for my entire childhood, and then late into my teens, until I realized that being a responsible 2-way center was probably not going to lead me to professional career. But I liked writing, and I felt I was at least OK at it, so I combined the two interests together, and it led me down a path of frustration
It was a very lonely experience growing up a Flyers fan in the Great White North, everyone liked the Maple Leafs, or were jumping on the Penguins or Blackhawks bandwagons as they started to see playoff success. So the only places I could really talk about the team I loved in-depth were with very specific (and angry) older people who identified more with Reggie Leach than Mike Richards, or online.
So needless to say, I have gotten pretty familiar with just about every Flyers publication and online personality you could think of. And after I completed my BA Honors from Western University in London, Ontario earlier this year, I wanted to find an outlet to write about hockey, just so I could keep an eye on my first love, no matter what career path I went down. This opportunity presented itself, and I was eager to get started.
I’ve been to Philly on a few different occasions, but since COVID flipped everything upside down, I haven’t gotten the opportunity to go back down just yet, hopefully the Flyers can become more interesting sometime soon and I can have an excuse to head down for another playoff run.
I’m excited to get started and you can follow me on Twitter @Russell_28_ (28 is for Claude Giroux yes, I was 15), for all the ramblings about music, other sports, and of course, the Flyers.
Here’s a bit more about me, and I’ll see you on the ice.
Why am I a Flyers Fan?: Liked the color orange. I was like four so the thought process wasn’t very deep.
Favorite Flyers Memory: Sitting in the second last row of the Wells Fargo Center with my dad in 2010 for “The Shift” and the Flyers beating the Canadiens to advance to the Stanley Cup Final.
Favorite Player(s): Simon Gagne, Danny Briere, Claude Giroux.
Flyers Fun Fact: My hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, is the birthplace of Flyers legends Zac Rinaldo and Ray Emery, and if you ever visited, you would understand why those two played the way they did.
Favorite Teams in other sports: Arsenal, Toronto Blue Jays, (Phillies are second), Toronto Raptors (Sorry about the Kawhi thing).
And since one of the New Joe’s did it already, my prediction for the 2024-25 Flyers is that Carter Hart will be the best goalie in the league, carry them to the playoffs, and the team’s leading scorer will be someone is not currently on the roster at all. (Mr. Bedard, perhaps?)
