Philly Front Office

I know the Flyers are always on ice, but the Sixers are on ice this week too. Beginning December 23 are the annual long winter road-trips courtesy of Disney on Ice. Each year Mickey and friends take over XMA¹ and tell our boys to hit the bricks for 2 weeks. As an out of market guy who regularly goes home for Christmas, this sucks. I want to take my kids to see a Flyers and/or Sixers game at home and can’t. Anyway, let’s take a look at where Disney on Ice will be taking the orange and black this year…

Flyers Weekly: Straight Up I-95

Before we get started, if you have not been paying attention to the Flyers this year, you are missing out. I understand that the handling of Matvei Michkov has not been ideal, the long term future is still a little shaky, and some people are calling for Rick Tocchet’s head, but the team is currently 18-10-7 with 43 points, good for the 2nd best record in the East. That was unthinkable last year. Let’s try to enjoy it and hope this road trip doesn’t put a dent in any of that.

I’ll update this as the fortnight goes along with stories for every game while tracking the length of this gargantuan road trip.

FLYERS

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Chicago Blackhawks

December 23, 2025 – 9pm – United Center – Chicago, IL

Never forget that the NHL stole Patrick Kane from the Flyers and altered the course of history for two teams and hockey in general. The Chicago Blackhawks finished 5th worst in the 2007 season and had an 8.1% chance of winning the lottery. The Flyers had by far the worst team that year finishing with 56 points, good for 36 points behind 4th place in their division and 11 points clear of the Coyotes for worst record. We had a 25% chance of winning the lottery and could do no worse than 2nd. Well, shit. Patrick Kane would be a Blackhawk and James van Riemsdyk would be a Flyer.

Just 3 years later, the two would meet in the Stanley Cup Finals. Chicago ended up winning 4 games to 2. That season was JVR’s first in the league. He managed 15 goals and 20 assists plus another 6 points in the playoffs. After immediately winning the Calder Trophy for Rookie of the Year, Kane was by now in his 3rd season where he put up 88 points on his way to finishing 7th for MVP. In the playoffs he would finish with 10 goals and 18 assists. 3 years later he would win another Stanley Cup and be named MVP. 2 years after that he would raise the trophy again. In two stints with the Flyers, JVR would manage just 4 playoffs and 17 total points in 51 games. I’m still mad about this.

The current Blackhawks have the worst record in hockey and are without 2023 first overall pick Connor Bedard. Here’s hoping they get screwed out of the #1 selection this year.

Chicago Blackhawks: 13-16-6, 32 points

XMA to the United Center: 765 miles

FLYERS

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Seattle Kraken

December 28, 2025 – 8pm – Climate Pledge Arena – Seattle, WA

Flyers Weekly: OHHHHHH Canada! Ranking Canadian Hockey Team Names

FLYERS

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Vancouver Canucks

December 30, 2025 – 10pm – Rogers Arena – Vancouver, CA

FLYERS

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Calgary Flames

December 31, 2025 – 9:30pm – Scotiabank Saddledome – Calgary, CA

FLYERS

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Edmonton Oilers

January 3, 2026 – 3:30pm – Rogers Place – Edmonton, CA

Roundtrip

Assuming the team is not flying, but rather taking several mid-size sedans to all these places, here is the miles tally. It will be hell calculating the kilometers once we get to Canada!

• XMA to the United Center: 765 miles
• United Center to Climate Pledge Arena:
• Climate Pledge Arena to Rogers Arena:
• Rogers Arena to Scotiabank Saddledome:
• Scotiabank Saddledome to Rogers Place:
• Rogers Place to XMA:

TOTAL:

1. I’m struggling with XFinity Mobile Arena. I’m not writing that out every time and will probably just default to XMA from here on out. That creates a new problem though as I will want to say it phonetically either like “eczema” or “Zima” which gets me thinking of either dry skin or the Simpsons line where the angry patron upon smelling Marge’s sister’s cigarette in a restaurant says, “I ordered a Zima, not emphysema.” You can see how this is a problem. ↩︎