First and foremost, the Sockeyes would like to pay respects to our legend forward, Petr Klima. His road to North America was unbelievable and helped open doors for the Eastern Europeans that followed. RIP big guy.
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For our final spite selection of the round, we will turn our attention to an individual who has had a decades long impact on the Flyers, despite never being officially associated with them, nor with the NHL itself.
His mundane request, common amongst all American youth, had repercussions that could not have been predicted at the time and can be barely understood today. A true "butterfly flapping its wings" scenario.
All this kid did was to ask his dad to play catch. In a horrible twist of fate, this request led to his dad breaking his arm. This directly impacted the 2004 Stanley Cup playoffs and meant that the Tampa Bay Lightning defeated in the Philadelphia Flyers in the Eastern Conference Final before ultimately winning the Cup against
Calgary.
Fast forward 18 years to 2022 and the Flyers hire the asshole who coached that 2004 Lightning team to glory, which has sunk the Flyers even farther into the darkest timeline. Had this kid just played Mario Kart in his bedroom that fateful day in 2004, we would never have remembered the name John Tortorella.
And for that reason, the Seattle Sockeyes choose to spite
Jakob Desjardins, who definitely played hockey, but we couldn't confirm which position he played (we are placing him into the spite defenseman slot).
@Chuck Downie