With admitted bias, my favorite story of 2024 is the Flyers stepping in to help a couple of 11-year-old girls save the hockey rink in my hometown of New Hanover. There was a brief thought of converting the dilapidated rink into pickleball courts, but when Flyers Charities found out about the story they donated $200,000 to build a state-of-the-art dek that was unveiled officially on Monday night:

The good photos are courtesy of the Flyers and the shitty photos are courtesy of me. But let me tell you – this was sick. What a turnout from the community. There were hundreds of people on hand for the ceremony, which featured all sorts of local dignitaries and Montco political types. This was easily the biggest thing to happen in New Hanover since we got our Wawa on the corner of 663 and Swamp Pike. Natalie Van Druff and Lilly Walter received signed jerseys from Garnet Hathaway, met alumni like Bundy and Bob “The Hound” Kelly, and got to do the first puck drop on the new dek, which was followed by an open session and the first games.

I caught up with Blair Listino at the unveiling, who is “Chief Financial and Administrative Officer for Comcast Spectacor, President of Flyers Charities, and Alternate Governor of the Philadelphia Flyers.”

Crossing Broad: I guess this is the best part of the job.

Listino: This is the best part of job. By far.

CB: What did you make of the whole thing?

Listino: Did you see the big American flag when you drove in? I was like, ‘this is going to be totally spectacular.’ I love that Flyers brings the party, too, you show up and it looks like you’re doing something with the Flyers organization right away, which I was happy about. It was very branded and very centric. And the amount of people – there are people here to listen, but most of the people were out playing on the playground, waiting to play hockey, which is really what this is meant for.

CB: Great story though. You couldn’t write a better story. A couple of 11-year-old girls.

Listino: When we read your story, we (thought), we had just written our mission about growing the game of hockey, youth sports, women in sports, I was thinking that this literally aligns with every one of our mission goals and pillars and I couldn’t be more excited about something to do in my career over the past few years. We’ve helped revitalize a few rinks. This has, by far, been my favorite because it was led by two 11-year-old girls.

CB: I grew up out here. We’re at the very far end of Montco. There aren’t a lot of places to play out here. So not just doing something nice for the community and following the girls’ lead, but I think it’s something larger and meaningful for hockey fans out here.

Listino: It’s giving people a place to play. I feel like when I grew up, there wasn’t as much technology out there, so that’s what we did (played sports). We left our house at 8 a.m., we were riding bikes, playing soccer, out playing field hockey or lacrosse all day long. So to give children that opportunity to connect with their community, connect with their friends, teamwork, camaraderie, I just feel like it’s so important for our youth to get everyone involved in sports. It’s important to me and the community.

Hear hear. Gotta get the youths out and get them involved and active in the community, which was basically the catalyst for this entire thing. The girls were great, the Flyers were great, and New Hanover Township was great. A rare win/win/win for everyone involved. Mission accomplished. This is what it looks like when we come together to defeat pickleball.