‘It’s all about the kids, it’s all about the fans’: Fresh off a win, Flyers host 46th annual Flyers Charities Carnival

Less than 24 hours after the Flyers’ 6-3 win over the Edmonton Oilers in their first game back from the 4 Nations Face-Off break, Flyers fans once again packed the concourse at the Wells Fargo Center — only this time, instead of a hockey rink, there was a Ferris wheel on the arena floor.

“It’s kind of like a back-to-back,” winger Garnet Hathaway joked.

The Flyers hosted the 46th annual Flyers Charities Carnival on Sunday, bringing fans closer to players, coaches, management, and Flyers alumni to raise money for various charitable ventures in the area.

Fans traveled from across the area and the country — one family traveled from Buffalo, N.Y., to attend Saturday’s game and Sunday’s carnival — to meet and interact with members of the Flyers through carnival games and meet-and-greets. Players rotated between games like pingpong, cornhole, ladder toss, and a plastic ax-throwing contest, in which Hathaway competed with his 4-year-old son, Luke.

“Ax throwing was a brand-new one for me,” Hathaway said. “Before I got there I was like, ‘No way we’re throwing a real ax.’ I think there was a breeze in there, it was a little windy. But that was a lot of fun. You start getting a little competitive because you know the guys will start talking about it. I already asked [Bobby Brink] how he did at ax throwing. We’ll probably have to get one of those for the locker room.”

The Flyers players split their time between more traditional autograph signing stations, where fans could reserve spaces in advance with a donation to get photos and merchandise signed by the players, and the carnival games, which fans could line up to donate and get a chance to play a game with — or against — a Flyer.

“I was pretty good today,” Hathaway said of his pingpong prowess. “It’s tough. They play for a couple minutes, I play for a half-hour. By the end of it, you just hope it’s not too one-sided.”

The carnival is a family affair for everyone, especially the Flyers, whose wives and partners play a big role in putting the event together and in Flyers Charities initiatives throughout the year.

Blair Listino, president of Flyers Charities, said the wives in attendance also helped welcome fans at the entrance to the event in addition to their work planning and with beneficiaries. Flyers Charities also supports the players’ individual charitable causes and initiatives, including coach John Tortorella, who partnered with PAWS and PSPCA for his Hockey & Hounds initiative, and took photos with fans and rescue dogs up for adoption at the shelters.

One such initiative is the Building Hope for Kids initiative, which sponsors a home renovation for a pediatric cancer patient. Wives of Flyers players and front-office staff are working with 8-year-old Ronda Burns, a leukemia patient, to redesign her home, and Burns got to meet Gritty at Sunday’s Carnival.

“It’s an organization that welcomes families at all times, from [Tortorella] all the way up to Danny [Brière],” Hathaway said. “It’s a family-friendly place. It’s so welcoming. An event like this, that has been going on for so long, and is for such a good cause, it’s all about the kids, it’s all about the fans. For my wife to be here and to help out, and to be on the ground floor with the Carnival, and then being able to have my kids enjoy it too and see that it’s not all about the hockey, hopefully they grow up realizing there’s so much more on the other side.”