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Phantoms Road Trip Blog
This week, the Phantoms are on their longest road trip of the season - a nine-day, five-game tour of Canada and the Great Lakes region. Throughout the week we'll check in here with updates on what's going on with the team throughout the journey.
Thursday, January 9
An early wake-up call for everyone this morning. The players were due to the rink by 7:15 and were on the ice at 8:00. A normal practice day at home, for instance, has the guys at the rink around 8:30 or 9, and on the road it's usually 10 because we typically skate after the home team. Today, though, the skate was beforehand so we could get on the road to Grand Rapids.
 Since today's mostly a travel day, we thought we'd tell you a little bit about our bus driver, Igor -- aka "Iggy," "I-Gor" (as in EYE-gor) and occasionally some other things. Igor is from Russia and drove the team on a part-time basis in the past; this year he has been charged with carting us around full time. Apart from the long overnight drive from Philadelphia to Toronto, Igor hasn't had a bad week as of yet. Toronto was just 45 minutes from Hamilton, and in Hamilton, the rink is attached to our hotel, so the bus literally didn't move from Monday afternoon until this morning, and we didn't see him for most of that time either. He has a couple big drives coming up though - GR to Cleveland on Saturday night, and then a haul from Cleveland back to Philadelphia on Sunday night. We're not sure what Igor does with his spare time, but we're sure it's probably interesting.
You can click here to see what's in Igor's planner for the week. This is the Mapquest representation of the entire trip.
We have driven through the extremes of lake-effect snow today. As we moved west from Hamilton, the snow started coming down at a pretty good clip. It let up as we approached and crossed the border at Sarnia/Port Huron, and it was nothing but sunshine from there to Lansing. Then as you go west from Lansing, it starts clouding up again, and now the snow's back to a good clip as we come within a half-hour of Grand Rapids.
Usually we drive straight through from town to town, but because of the length of today's drive (300 miles or so) and the timing, we stopped in London, Ontario for lunch. We found a place that had a bunch of restaurants and the guys mostly scattered for half an hour. The border crossing was uneventful and we didn't have to leave anyone behind, which is always a plus. The rookies are generally in charge of the movies, and today Patrick Maroon has been taking care of things. The selections have included The 40-Year-Old Virgin and National Lampoon Van Wilder. I'll let you make your own judgements.
And finally, yesterday we finally overcame our technical glitch with Jared Ross's photos from Sunday. Click here to view the photo gallery.
posted by Brian Smith
Wednesday, January 8
There was quite a bit of snow here in Hamilton last night and this morning - 10 centimeters, however much that is - but the weather cleared as the day went on. The team had an afternoon skate today that was heavy on the skate part.
Beforehand, we caught up with Danny Syvret to get his reaction on being named to the Canadian AHL All-Star team.
 I’m pretty excited. I was in an All-Star game in the OHL when I was in juniors, but this is my first pro game. I'm looking forward to it. I think I'm going to see a bunch of guys I know from around the league, and it's usually a pretty relaxed and fun situation.
I can't really put a finger on why this year is going so well for me. It's just having coaches that are trusting in me and giving me more of a responsibility as far as the team goes. I’ve been getting out on the ice more, and in different situations. Before, I would play the power play sparsely. Also, this is my fifth team in four years, so for having a pretty short career I’ve played on a lot of teams. I guess in a sense that's good for me, because I've had to learn different systems and different roles.
Tomorrow the team is on the ice at 8 AM, so it's an early wake-up call. After the skate, the team will head back stateside to Grand Rapids. We'll have more upon arrival.
Monday, January 6
Toronto/Hamilton, Ontario
 A bright and sunny but cold winter day in Ontario today as the Phantoms returned to the ice for a practice. The team skated at noon at the Toronto Maple Leafs practice rink just outside of Toronto. It's more glamorous than it sounds - the Leafs have a nice dressing room there, but aside from that it is just a traditional, common Canadian community ice rink that had a lot of charm to it.
 Dressing for the players, as seen to the left, was a lot like it was when many of them were growing up playing in Canada.
 Oh, and no horseplay.
Today featured a rare occurrance of the "no-goalie practice." Scott Munroe and Andreas Nodl were needed by the Flyers for their game at Washington on Tuesday, so both returned to Philadelphia via an early-morning flight, and J.S. Aubin was nursing an injury. Meanwhile, Michael Teslak was en-route to Toronto from a Mississippi airport, but wouldn't arrive until later. So the coaching staff went with some creative drills that didn't require goalies for the practice that lasted about 75 minutes.
After the skate, the team headed to Hamilton and got checked in at the hotel, which will be home through Thursday morning. Many of the guys and the staff spent Tuesday evening watch Canada win the gold at the World Junior Championships just four hours north of here.
We caught up with Jared Ross to get his thoughts on the trip so far.
 On Saturday, we got in around 3:30 after being on the plane for an hour and having to bus for a couple hours, but overall it was pretty comfortable travel getting up here. Especially since we had a 4:00 game, it made it hard to get in the swing of things, but sometimes you just have to deal with that.
Sunday pretty much was just shopping in Toronto. That was really good. It was pretty intresting going to check out the CN tower even though we didn’t go up in it. I couldn’t really walk around too much because it was pretty cold.
As for our team, we just have to get back to working harder. We’re going to have to start doing better on special teams to be able to be successful. It’s just keeping things simple and not trying to do too much. We just need to stick with each other and stay out of the box.
Jared Ross's Sunday photos are hopefully coming Tuesday once we overcome a little technical glitch. Tuesday brings the game against Hamilton and the prerequsite morning skate.
Sunday, January 5
Toronto, Ontario
A much-needed day of rest for the Phantoms today, after a Friday and Saturday that were pretty demanding in the travel department but actually went as smoothly as it possibly could in that regard.
The Phantoms were home Friday night before starting this trip on Saturday in Toronto. Because the Marlies play their Saturday home games at 4:00 to avoid conflicts with the Maple Leafs, the Phantoms were faced with some unique travel challenges to get the team to Toronto with enough time to get adequate rest for the game, while still planning logistically for the rest of the trip.
The solution ended up being to fly the team to Toronto after Friday's game against Bridgeport, while the team's bus drove up with all the equipment - thus allowing the team to continue on the rest of the trip with our own bus and drive home next weekend. The best that could be done, though, was a 10:00-ish flight from Philadelphia to Buffalo, with a bus taking the players the rest of the way to Toronto. That's what necessitated the move of Friday's game to 6:05, which the Phantoms greatly appreciate our fans accomodating into their schedules.
The team arrived in Toronto about 2:30 AM, while the bus with the equipment rolled into town around 6:45 AM. The game obviously had its challenges, which the Phantoms are looking to overcome on Tuesday.
Following the game, the team scattered throughout Toronto and the surrounding area. Sunday was a full day off for the team, so many players took advantage of the opportunity to slip home for the day or to spend it with family that had come in from elsewhere in Canada. Others went out to dinner and caught Canada's thrilling victory over Russia at the World Junior Championships.
With some free time on Sunday, several players and myself hopped over to the Hockey Hall of Fame, which is a short walk from the hotel. It's truly a must-see if you're a hockey fan. Click here for a photo gallery of some of the Phantoms and Flyers-related items in the Hall of Fame.
Later in the day, much of the staff watched the Eagles game in a local sports bar, some doing so more loudly than others.
The team is back on the ice Monday at the Maple Leafs practice facility here in Toronto, after which we'll hop on the bus for the short 45-minute ride to Hamilton. Later Monday, we'll hear from Jared Ross about the trip so far and also get some photos from his Sunday in Toronto.
posted by Brian Smith Monday, January 05, 2009
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