Posted by Hello hockey fans!! My name is Mike DiFranco and I am truly honored and excited to be joining this excellent, growing team of hockey writers and will be providing you with player biographies.
I am from the South Jersey/Philadelphia area and, as you might imagine based on my location, grew up a die hard Flyers fan. I can remember being a little one (about 7 at the time) sitting with my dad watching Ron Hextall carry the team to the Stanley Cup finals against the Edmonton Oilers. I became an even bigger fan while following the roller-coaster career of Eric Lindros and still bleed orange and black to this day following the likes of Jeff Carter and Mike Richards.
While I have a vast amount of writing experience, it is not in sports. I am currently an accounting manager at Tyco International, Inc (not the toy company). I am part of a great team that researches and writes many papers for the company, internal and external, including a quarterly newsletter that is distributed globally.
What does this have to do with hockey you ask? Absolutely nothing! I have always had the dream that I would one day be able to combine two things I really love, writing and hockey, and I finally have that opportunity here!
My goal is to provide you with some fun and obscure facts about players past and present. I will cover the obvious stars of the game as well as periodically covering a player that casual hockey fans might not be as familiar with. I am always open for requests as well if there are certain players you would like to learn more about.
My first biography will be published this week. I thought long and hard about who I wanted to cover first. I didn’t want to cover the obvious like Gretzky, Howe or Orr. I also did not want the response to my first article to be, “Who?” I have chosen a player who is one of the all time greats, played for my beloved Flyers and has popped up in the news again recently. Some have been calling him the NHL’s version of Brett Favre. Some may know him as Foppa, but most will know him as Peter Forsberg.
I look forward to hearing from all the fans and also reading the great work from this great group of writers! Please enjoy my articles. Feel free to email me at michaeldifranco1@comcast.net at any time.
Go Flyers!
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We hope you enjoyed this post. As always, leaving a comment below is both appreciated and encouraged. Thanks!
Welcome aboard!
Thanks!
Welcome to the team. Always great to see another Flyers guy from my area.
And THANK YOU for covering Foppa for us all. He is one of my all time favorites, and I climbed into a sixer of Blue Moon when the announcement came that he decided to resign with MODO this year instead of coming back to the NHL with the Avs or our own Flyers.
Hopefully he will return next year. I’m not giving up hope because these days the NHL needs guys like Forsberg. What would be interesting to see is if whether or not that cool little device the Flyers trainer developed for Kimmo Timonen’s foot and ankle earlier this season when the Flyers were torn apart by injuries makes its way to Foppa. There was an article on it a month or so ago and a news segment about how lightweight/flexible it was while still being completely safe. If something like this could bring Forsberg’s career back without constant surgeries it would make my day.
Thanks Chris! Oh and thanks for putting pressure on me to write a great article about Forsberg….Just kidding.
I agree with you. I hope he returns next year, enough of this drama near the trade deadline where we wonder what team he decides he wants to play with. I almost would love to see him “re-invent” himself if he cannot be as effective in the past. He was always such a great defensive player as well and I think he could make the perfect 3rd line center with time on the #1 powerplay unit. It would put less pressure on him to carry the team and could extend his career a couple of years. He could also move to the wing as well. This is all assuming that he would be willing to accept that role and less money. Obviously if he fixes his foot issues to the point where he can be a #1 guy again than he should go for it!! I remember reading about the device Timonen used, sounds very cool! I am shocked that some doctor in Sweden hasn’t been able to come up with something yet. Usually they are very advanced in the medical field.
It would definitely be great, if it could work under the cap, to see him on the Flyers again with Briere moving to the wing permanently. Could you imagine Richards, Carter, Foppa up the middle??? WOW!