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Ian Laperriere’s Reassignment within the Flyers Organ-Eye-Zation Spawns My New Favorite Meme
Published:
Flyers released this news on Tuesday:
The Philadelphia Flyers announced today that Ian Laperriere will rejoin the organization as an advisor to Hockey Operations, according to General Manager, Daniel Briere.
Laperriere will transition from his previous role as head coach of the club’s American Hockey League affiliate, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, and serve as an advisor to Briere and President of Hockey Operations, Keith Jones.
“I want to thank Ian for his tireless work in Lehigh Valley for the last four seasons,” said Briere. “He not only led the Phantoms in a return to the playoffs, but provided crucial development to several of our prospects. I am excited to welcome him back to the Flyers so he can continue to provide his insight in helping our team as we enter the next phase of the rebuild.”
The Flyers will begin a search for the new head coach of the Phantoms immediately.
There was some grumbling I guess because people thought Lappy was failing upward, and/or that the Flyers were continuing to recycle their guys within the organ-eye-zation. Maybe that’s true, maybe not, depending on how much influence an “advisor” has. Lappy coached the Phantoms the last few seasons and was a Flyers assistant for years before that, so he’s been in the system for a long time now, going back several administrations.
Plus, if you’re anti-Flyers retread, wouldn’t you want someone different coaching the prospects in the Lehigh Valley? Maybe an outsider to work with guys like Nikita Grebenkin and Jett Luchanko and Emil Andrae? Something to think about there. And Lappy did a pretty good job up there this past season, for what it’s worth.
More importantly, I’ve seen this image now floating around and it had me laughing:
Very good! I had to zoom in to the bottom right to see the credit, but it’s the creation of Dylan Robillard, @dyl2creative on Instagram. And I can’t be totally sure, maybe this was created prior to the Lappy news, but I didn’t start seeing it until yesterday, so the headline remains.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com