Against the Big Bad Flyers, All Ducks Can Do Is Duck

PHILADELPHIA —  The Mighty Ducks seemed Sunday night to be the well-dressed nerd on the first day of school. You know, the kid with his tie pulled tight around his collar, the starched, white shirt, the pants with the razor-sharp crease, who wants to show up and hang with the cool guys.

He comes up behind the jock star, slaps the jock star on the back and the jock star punches him without a second glance, without even turning around.

That’s how it was for the Ducks against the Philadelphia Flyers.

The Ducks tried to act like big boys. They tried to push and shove. They tried stand chin to chin with Eric Lindros, tried to throw some of those body checks that leave the ice quivering, that leave paint chips and teeth on the ground. But all the Ducks would end up with was a penalty--for high sticking, for holding, for just being annoying really--and then the Flyers would turn around and leave some poor Ducks flopping face-first on the ice.

The start is 0-2 for the Ducks, not exactly unexpected when you must go on the road to open the season, all the way across the country, to play on consecutive nights the team that was the Stanley Cup finalist and then the team that figures it darn well better be.

But to play with the grown-ups, the Ducks have to be more than well-dressed pests. They must be more than polite and elegant skaters. They must have have big, grumpy people who can clear out some space and allow their stars, Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne, to be creative and dangerous.

This score could have been much worse. Every time goalie Guy Hebert looked up he wished he hadn’t, for some brawny Flyer was coming full speed, and aiming for his head with the puck. It could easily have been a final score of 6-1, 7-1 or 8-1.

There never was a moment in this game when it seemed the Flyers were taking the Ducks seriously. Push and shove and tug on our jerseys all you want, they seemed to be thinking, but then you’ll go to the penalty box and we’ll score and, hey, while you’re not looking, we’ll shove your face into the ice too.

Nothing was so sad as seeing Stu Grimson, the Ducks’ enforcer, late in the game, trying to fight Lindros and Luke Richardson at the same time. And alone. You could almost hear Grimson whispering to Lindros, “Can’t I come over to your side? Can’t I be on a real hockey team?”

For his efforts, Grimson got himself and Richardson sent off with five-minute fighting penalties and Lindros went off for two minutes for kneeing. Not bad for Grimson, two for one, but by this time some of the Flyers were laughing on their bench.

“They have a ways to go,” Lindros said kindly of the Mighty Ducks. Lindros scored his first two goals of the season. If he’d really wanted to embarrass the opponents, he could have scored a hat trick or two. Really. He could have.

You couldn’t get any of the Flyers to say anything bad about the Ducks or anything good or anything much at all. When the Flyers come to the Pond Feb. 10 it is hard to imagine that any Philadelphia player will have any recollection of this game.

“We just worried about doing the things we need to do,” Lindros said.

Lindros, the player the Flyers ransomed their future for seven years ago, had a tough summer. This city expected Lindros to have won a Stanley Cup or two or three by now. But Lindros has won none and the topic of the off-season became whether Lindros would ever be tough enough to lead a team to the ultimate triumph. The consensus was no.

So Lindros understands tough. And he understands it when he doesn’t see it for sure.

Lindros didn’t see tough Sunday night. What Disney has created so far is the paper doll version of a hockey team. Something drawn by an artist somewhere.

The coach stands up straight and his hair is never mussed. Selanne and Kariya will eventually make highlight shows this season so that those Ducks jerseys can be merchandised. But it is Year 6 now of this Disney creation and how often can a team start over? How long does a team need to come up with a hockey identity and not a marketing identity?

“The Ducks have talent,” Flyer left wing John LeClair said.

That’s how it went.

Ask a Flyer about a Duck and there came a shrug of the shoulder, an innocuous compliment carelessly tossed out and a return to a more interesting subject. Themselves.