Don’t expect Jimmy Buffett to be playing any gigs at this island.
Known in the Flyers locker room as “Dry Island,” head coach Peter Laviolette instituted a pledge asking players to resist drinking alcohol for a month straight. Unfortunately for Philly’s hockey fans, two locker room leaders and on-ice studs — then-captain Mike Richards and then-center Jeff Carter — were unable stay aboard the island, according to two unnamed Flyers who recently spoke to the Philadelphia Daily News.
Partly due to their inability to handle the pledge because of their partying lifestyles, Carter and Richards upset the front office and lost trust of teammates and were traded in June, reports Dan Gross, as seen in the excerpt below.
“The two unnamed players said that the Flyers front office was disappointed in Carter and Richards’ longstanding party lifestyle and that teammates were concerned about the pair’s drinking.
“Shortly after his arrival in December 2009, coach Peter Laviolette instituted what players came to call the ‘Dry Island.’ Laviolette asked team members to commit to not drinking for a month, and each player was asked to write his number on a locker room board as a pledge. No. 17 (Carter) and No. 18 (Richards) were absent from the board on the first Dry Island, as well as the estimated five more times the policy was instituted.”
General manager Paul Holmgren confirmed that the players’ numbers weren’t on the board but insists that the notion of them being traded because of their partying ways is “preposterous.”
“As far as Mike and Jeff are concerned, we made two good hockey trades that will better suit us now and for the future,” he told Gross. “Columbus is happy, L.A. is happy and the Flyers are happy with the deal.”
