Patrick Sharp’s role with the Flyers includes player development ... and a lot of rollerblading

There’s something about hockey.

The sights. The sounds. The smell. The exhilaration of putting a piece of rubber into a net. The friendships you build and the life lessons it teaches you about teamwork, responsibility, losing, and winning. The love for the sport pulls you via an invisible string that cannot be severed even if you try.

When Patrick Sharp retired in 2018 after 15 NHL seasons and three Stanley Cups, the one-time Flyers forward tried his best to stay off his skates and loosen the string. He became a household name as a television analyst, beaming his good looks, charm, and hockey insights into homes in Chicago and across the United States.

But there was still that string attached to his heart, that love of hockey. So as the years built up from when he last laced up his skates, the string started to get taut and pull him back. Except this time, the pull was coming from an outdoor roller-hockey rink minutes from his home in Connecticut.

“Slowly I got back on my rollerblades and I found that it just reminded me of how I felt when I was a kid, skating in my backyard,” Sharp told The Inquirer. “My dad had a pretty cool setup for me to practice when I was a little boy, and it brought me back right to that moment, thinking a lot about my career.

“It’s just, like almost therapy being out there. I just kind of go by myself, put some headphones on, skate around, work on moves that I’ve seen in the NHL lately, and come up with ideas really that I can hopefully pass on to the players.”

Growing up in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Sharp, now 42, developed a love for hockey while skating on a basketball court, but what he missed the most since retirement was being part of a team. In June of last year, he stepped away from the camera and took a job with the Flyers as a special adviser to hockey operations. His new gig has him involved in all aspects of the department, namely player development with prospects at the junior and NCAA levels.

So, although he goes to the rink to “clear the mind a bit,” he also goes for those players he speaks of, passing on his knowledge and skill to the rising stars in the Flyers organization.

Sharp often heads over to the concrete rink with a blue film and some “glide to it” by his home and laces up his skates; they’re the same boots he wore during his playing days but instead of steel have attachable Marsblades with wheels. And yes, the former NHLer even wears equipment — shin pads, elbow pads, and a helmet, especially after taking a few spills and smacking his face on the ground when trying to stop on wheels.

The only new element is a lighter plastic puck that allows him to “maybe do some things that I probably wouldn’t be able to do on the ice.”

Sharp tries to go year-round when the weather permits, especially in the spring and fall. A few of his sticks are from his pro days — the blades have whittled down a smidge from the harder surface. He tries to mimic what he sees the players of today’s game do, whether with their hands or their legs.

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“It’s kind of what got me out there in the first place was watching the stickhandling and the creativity, the ability that some of these kids have to scoop pucks, throw it in the air, and catch it. Their speed with the wrists and hands, shooting ability ... I was kind of jealous of how they all do that kind of stuff,” he said at the Flyers development camp in early July. “I keep practicing and try to get like them.”

Sharp has added some warmup drills to the Flyers’ repertoire that he does on the roller rink “to get the hands going, opening the hips, coming out of turns, staying low.” And for the record, he has tried “The Michigan,” where one scoops up the puck in a lacrosse-style shot, a few times. But regardless of whether he can still keep up with today’s skills, his Stanley Cups and years of experience playing with two of the games’ best in Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, has been insightful — not just for the players, but for the Flyers development staff.

Sharp’s ties run deep with the Orange and Black. He won those three Cups with the Chicago Blackhawks, but he was drafted by the Flyers in 2001, won a Calder Cup with the Phantoms of the American Hockey League (playing in the Spectrum in Philly back then), and donned a Flyers jersey for 66 of his 939 NHL games.

He brings a resumé chock full of experience, and Flyers director of player development Riley Armstrong loves to pick his brain.

“We have a lot of different skill sets in our room, and in our office when we are talking, but obviously with the guys that Patrick played with and winning three Cups, and kind of going through a lot of it, he definitely brings a lot to the table,” Armstrong told The Inquirer.

“But I think from the whole side of it, looking at Patrick Sharp as a person, he just loves being at the rink. He loves coming to work, he loves being there. So the more and more he’s around, I think it’s just better off for our development staff, but also the players.”

Armstrong jokes that he sometimes has to tell Sharp to “turn the TV voice off” and that not having hair and makeup done in the locker room beforehand was an adjustment for the former Blackhawk. He also said Sharp has told him how much he enjoys being part of a team again.

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So, since he’s part of that team, Sharp sends videos of what he has been working on at the roller rink to Armstrong.

“Sometimes I’m like, ‘Yeah, buddy, you’re doing that completely wrong,’” Armstrong said with a hearty chuckle. “But it always leads into conversation the next day when we’re at the rink. He’d be like, ‘Hey, I was working on this,’ but then we’ll bring up clips of a player doing something else and then we’re like, ‘Oh well, maybe if we add this and this together.’ It kind of just always brings a different level of thinking.

“Trying to think outside the box and not copying what other people do, trying to challenge the players in a way that whenever they come on the ice they’re entertained and not just being like, ‘Oh, we’re doing the same thing again.’ I think that’s kind of like what our talks in the room are about.”

Sharp is part of a player development staff that includes a bunch of former Flyers, including assistant director Nick Schultz, whose 1,069 career games included 189 with the Flyers; Sami Kapanen, who played 311 of his 831 with Philly; and Sam Morin and Chris Stewart. Flyers Hall of Famer John LeClair and Phantoms assistant coach Jason Smith were also on the ice alongside Sharp at development camp.

Although he doesn’t put on the ice hockey skates too often — usually he spends his time on wheels, with Pearl Jam playing in the background — Sharp did not look out of place at development camp. The muscle memory, and that string that tugged him back in, is buried way too deep for Sharp.

“I love it. I love being around the guys,” Sharp said. “I love being around the young players and seeing their enthusiasm at the rink every day — the same facility [in Voorhees] that we’re at right now, I was here 25 years ago, walking the same hallways, having the same feelings that those players have today. So feel like I have a lot of experience that I can pass on to them.

“I love being with the coaching staffs, both teams, Phantoms, the Flyers, they’ve both been very helpful. Letting me inside the room, and behind the scenes of how they operate as coaches and teams. Our player development staff with Riley and Nick, and all the others, it’s like being a part of a team again, and that’s really what I missed the most about it.

“I love scoring goals and I love winning games, but there’s nothing like being on a hockey team with your pals, and that’s what it feels like being a Flyer again.”