2020 has finally come to an end! Even though the world completely fell apart, it was a big year for Brotherly Puck’s second season of existence. Personally, I wrote 125 articles, mainly to keep myself busy during the pandemic and hopefully as a momentary distraction for all of the readers. With so many pieces to choose from, I decided to take a trip down memory lane and pick some of my favorite articles I wrote this year and talk a little about them. Be sure to click on the links and check them out if you missed them at the time.
Number 5: A King and His Prince: Why Lundqvist Should Backup Carter Hart Next Season
No, I’m not still salty about this. The concept of Henrik Lundqvist backing up Carter Hart was an idea I talked myself into because it seemed so logical on multiple levels and they just didn’t do it. It was a perfectly laid plan, my gift to Chuck Fletcher, and they chose to just ignore it and re-sign the reanimated corpse of Brian Elliott instead. Ok, maybe I’m still a little salty. Obviously, Hank has since been diagnosed with a heart condition, so he will miss the season, so the point is kinda null and void, but it still would’ve been a glorious sight to see.
Number 4: Worst to First: Philadelphia Flyers Jerseys
It was the first time my hockey jersey expertise was on display in written form. It led to a successful “worst to first” series that highlighted the time off during the play stoppage. If you want to check out the rest of the series, you can do so here. And yes, the chrome jerseys were great.
Number 3: Jack Eichel to the Flyers? The Cost of Acquiring a Superstar
Sometimes when I’m writing a piece I can immediately tell if it is going to draw the ire of the fans or not, though I never expected this to be as big as it was. I was at the center of both the Flyers and Sabres fanbase’s for multiple days as tens of thousands of people read and commented on the article about my theoretical trade scenario. “Dan the Eichel Stan” may be my favorite thing to come from this piece. And I’ll still stand by a Couturier for Eichel trade to this day. Just recently, I once again shook the Flyers fan base with another piece about Couturier, this time focusing on not re-signing him when his contract is up. I promise I don’t have a vendetta against him.
Number 2: The Shea Weber Sheet Eight Years Later
This was a piece four years in the making. It was one of the original ideas I had when I first started covering the Flyers on a full-time basis in early 2016, but I had no idea how to properly convey my thoughts back then. So, I sat down this year to tackle the topic yet again and this time if flowed naturally. It may be the most proud I’ve ever been in writing and it was certainly worth the wait.
Number 1: The Philadelphia Flyers’ Roster as the Burger King Menu
This may not be the most proud I’ve ever been about an article, but it was one of the most fun thing’s I’ve ever written. As written in the intro, I genuinely came up with the idea while waiting in a Burger King drive though on a day I was running late for work. I’ve since had many people request different fast food chains, so who knows, maybe the Flyers roster as *insert favorite restaurant’s name here” menu will be a new series in 2021.
Honorable mention
Worst to First: Buffalo Sabres Jerseys
The may not be one of my favorite pieces I’ve written, but for some reason it seems to be everybody else’s. It is the second most viewed article on Brotherly Puck for 2020 and still does big numbers every week despite being written in the middle of April. Considering the Sabres don’t have many good jerseys to work with, I just assume people are interested in which Sabres jersey I ranked the worst, considering that’s pretty much all of them.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: Dan Esche’s instagram
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