Todd Fedoruk prepares for new job as Philadelphia Flyers radio color commentator

Todd Fedoruk may have last played for the Philadelphia Flyers in 2007. But in truth, he never really left.

“It was a running joke on any team that I went to — Fedoruk will never cut the cord to the Philadelphia Flyers,” he recalled. “You can check this with anybody I played with, because I got teased about it.”

He stayed in the area. He stayed active with the alumni. But most important, he never stopped feeling like a Philadelphia Flyer.

“You just have a sense of undying loyalty (to) the team that picks you,” he explained. “There will always be a special place in my heart for Philadelphia, but also the fans and the organization. I’m a Flyer through and through.”

And now, Fedoruk is officially rejoining the Flyers family. The team announced on Friday that Fedoruk will be taking over as the team’s color commentator on radio broadcasts, succeeding the local legend Steve Coates, who retired at the end of last season.

Fedoruk, of course, had a long career with the Flyers, beginning with his selection by the club in the seventh round of the 1997 draft and his NHL debut on November 11, 2000. Fedoruk ultimately played in 545 NHL games, with nearly half of those coming with the Flyers, serving as one of the team’s heavyweight enforcers.

When Fedoruk retired in 2010, he explored a number of different industries — oil & gas, software, healthcare — as he looked for his post-playing career niche, enjoying many of them. But it was an idea from current Flyers AGM Barry Hanrahan that set him down the broadcasting road back in 2016.

“I got some advice from Barry Hanrahan to go try and do the TV up in Allentown,” he remembered. “There was an opening there, and the Brooks Brothers (Phantoms co-owners Jim and Rob Brooks) were like, ‘Yeah, he played here, you’re one of the Flyers, and we’ll give it a try.’”

Fedoruk got his start broadcasting alongside Steve Degler, watching players like Scott Laughton try to revitalize his career in the minors and Sam Morin work to climb the organizational ladder. Degler showed his new partner the ropes, and in the process, instructed Fedoruk on the finer points of a deceptively difficult job.

“He used to talk about Doc Emrick, and he tried to emulate that,” Fedoruk said. “So he had the binders, he showed me how much went into (game preparation). I don’t think players really appreciate that, or give a lot of stock to that, because we’re just there to provide the color, but I really learned how much he puts into it. So that makes you respect the man’s craft.”

Fedoruk stopped doing Phantoms TV broadcasts in the wake of the pandemic, and returned to his other pursuits. But when he heard last season that Coatesy was planning to retire, it hit Fedoruk that he might have the credentials to take a shot at the soon-to-be available gig.

“When this opened up, it was just like, ‘Hey, I’ve got a resume that actually qualifies here,'” he laughed.

But it went beyond simply pursuing a full-time job in hockey again. Fedoruk wanted to be a part of the new Flyers organization that new president of hockey operations Keith Jones — whose knee injury was the reason Fedoruk stayed up with the big club back in 2000-01 — was building. He listened to his former “teammate” and was quickly sold that the best version of the Philadelphia Flyers was on the way back, and he decided he needed to be involved.

“Once he got at the helm, and just the messaging, you got excited and you got that element of winning again, or being part of winning again, even though you’re not a player,” he noted. “It’s just funny, when you’re players, (and) the guys you played with start to be in that position (of authority), you want to win again, (and) you want to win with them. So I don’t know, that kind of sparked something in my belly.”

Then, watching the Flyers hire back Daniel Briere and John LeClair and Patrick Sharp cemented it for Fedoruk.

“It was like, ‘Man, I really want to be a part of this.’ Throw my name in the hat,” he explained.

Fedoruk has always been a boisterous personality, so expect that to show on a regular basis on-air. But he also plans to draw on his experiences playing for the Flyers, and in front of the inimitable Philadelphia fanbase.

“You don’t want the messages of what we’re doing here coming from anybody but a Flyer,” Fedoruk contended. “You hear about that time and time again, like another Flyer? Well, I don’t want a Devil telling this story. I don’t want a New York Ranger telling this story. And I don’t want somebody that doesn’t know what it takes, and what it’s like to experience playing in Philadelphia.”

It’s going to take Fedoruk some time to master the ins-and-outs of the radio game, and he knows that. But he’ll have longtime Flyers radio play-by-play commentator Tim Saunders to help him on a daily basis, and his past experience covering the Phantoms should come back to him quickly. He also is fully aware that it won’t be easy to replace a local institution like Coatesy, who may never have played a game for the Flyers, but is essentially an honorary team alum at this point. Fedoruk himself remembers being a 20-year old kid, seeing Coates saunter through the Flyers’ locker room, joking and laughing with veterans and team personnel alike.

It’s that lighter side that Fedoruk plans try to replicate both on and off the air, even with the knowledge that Coatesy will always be one-of-a-kind.

“You can’t just replace a guy like that,” he affirmed. “But I have a lot of respect for the seat that I’m coming into. It might seem small, but to me, it’s not. It’s a big thing.”

Fedoruk would know. After all, while he may be officially rejoining the Flyers world in his new role, in his mind, he never left in the first place, both physically (he and his family stayed in the area) and emotionally.

Now, he’ll be one of the primary voices the fans hear every night.

“I could get traded, but sorry, you’ll never get rid of me,” Fedoruk cracked.

Assorted notes from Day 2

1. The pucks came out for the first time at Flyers training camp on Friday, and with it was the first look at line combinations. Expect the coaches to juggle these combinations quite a bit from now through October 12, when the puck drops for the team’s season opener. But at the very least, today’s lines provide a window into where the NHL hopefuls stand entering camp.

• Owen Tippett – Sean Couturier – Travis Konecny
• Joel Farabee – Morgan Frost – Cam Atkinson
• Scott Laughton – Noah Cates – Tyson Foerster
• Nicolas Deslauriers – Ryan Poehling – Garnet Hathaway
• Olle Lycksell – Elliot Desnoyers – Bobby Brink
• Jonathan Fauchon – Tanner Laczynski – Wade Allison

Those first four lines sure look like plausible combinations for Game 1, and at least hint at the current favorites to be the 12 forwards starting on opening night.

2. One NHL regular from 2022-23 who enters camp with his lineup spot in jeopardy — especially if the Day 2 lines were any indication — is Wade Allison, who mainly skated with roster bubble player Laczynski and camp invite Fauchon, while his primary competition for the third-line RW job (Foerster) was given Cates and Laughton, two lineup locks.

Tortorella praised Allison on Friday, noting that Allison had progressed well in his first year under Torts and has a far more professional approach to hockey than he did this time last September. But Tortorella acknowledged that Allison has a tough road ahead of him this camp if he wants to keep his spot.

“Alli – he’s in a dogfight. Just do the math,” Tortorella admitted. “And I think he knows that. I hope he accepts the challenge. We’ll see where it goes.”

3. That spot on Line 3 nearly opened right back up for Allison, when Foerster — after pulling off a slick stickhandling move on his way to the net — lost an edge and crashed hard into the boards during the scrimmages. He came up favoring his right shoulder, and was checked out for quite a while on the bench before ultimately re-joining his teammates.

It looks like Foerster avoided serious injury, as he did play out the rest of the scrimmage, but he did look more tentative and grimaced a few times on his way back to the bench after shifts. Foerster excelled in the scrimmages prior to getting banged up — including a goal just seconds into the first scrimmage and a clean open-ice hit on Travis Konecny later — so even a minor injury would be crushing to a player who regained serious camp momentum on Friday. Fans should keep their fingers crossed he emerges for Saturday’s sessions looking no worse for the wear.

4. Tortorella revealed today that he plans to move Travis Sanheim over to the right side to start the season, and that he’s giving Owen Tippett first crack at LW as well. We’ll see if those experiments hold through the entirety of camp.

5. Cam York was one of the players who had the toughest time surviving Tortorella’s Day 1 bag skate on Thursday, but by Friday, he was ready to joke about getting his vengeance on Tortorella and the dreaded rope that Torts uses to measure out the distance the players need to skate, a rope he’s had for decades.

“Goodness gracious. Yeah, that was hard,” York said. “I don’t know. I’m gonna find his rope, I think, and burn it. That’s my No. 1 priority.

“Yeah, he better hide that thing good, because I’m coming for it.”