The Not-So-Tragic Tale of Jeff Carter and Mike Richards

[riadsala]

So this is Jeff Carter. HE DEFINITELY DOESN'T DYE HIS HAIR!



And this is Mike "Awkward" Richards.



Together, they are a model of poise and composure in the league.

They were drafted 3rd and 4th overall respectively in the OHL draft in 2001and played against each other for 2 years until they were drafted 11th and 24th together by the Flyers in 2003, aka probably the deepest draft class in the last 30 years. (No, seriously. Look at that first round.)

They were part of the 2004 and 2005 WJC teams for Canada.



2004 was in Helsinki, and these two 18-year-old boys clearly went sightseeing. Oh, those haircuts.

They won gold together in 2005.



Along with a baby Corey Perry and a future Offensive Dynamo Danny Syvret.

They spent the lockout year with the Philadelphia Phantoms and won the AHL Calder Cup together.





Carter looks like such a baby. And bonus Patrick Sharp!

When they got to the NHL for the 2005-2006 year, they were quickly crowned as the future of the franchise and did all the sorts of things that good hockey players do. Richards scored a goal in his first ever NHL game and Carter led the team rookies in points on the season.



I assume this picture is from Flyers Rookie Camp one year, but possibly it's just them down the shore looking like babies.

2006-2007 was a terrible year that Flyers fans generally try to forget happened, but then in 07-08 the formation of the Old City Gang was cemented with the arrival of Joffrey Lupul. Carter, Richards, Lupul and Scottie Upshall were famous for shutting down Old City bars and crashing local university Greek parties, like the college-aged kids that they were. Scott Hartnell was there too, but he was married at the time and thus less involved in the drunken skirt-chasing.

(Side note: did you know Joffrey Lupul's name is Joffrey because his parents were taking a college class on Chaucer at the time he was formed, and they liked their professor's "authentic" pronunciation of Geoffrey. This has no bearing on anything, but I think it's a hilarious story.)

A DRUNKEN MONTAGE:


The first picture that comes up when you google image search Mike Richards.



No Jeff Carter in this one, but Uppie and Lupes are holding down their end.



Mike Richards does not look good with longer hair.



Young and dumb and full of alcohol.



You're just jealous 'cause they're young and in love.



Hanging down in Sea Isle with Lupes. Carter apparently used to hang a giant Canadian flag off the deck of his beach house.



New Year with Baldzlaf for some reason.

So anyway, they bro'd down constantly and eventually when the Flyers failed to with the Stanley Cup for a couple of years the team got mad and broke up the party by trading away Lupul and Upshall (and also because they wanted Chris Pronger, but w/e, details.) But Richards and Carter continued to be bff and Richie got named captain and Carter scored 46 goals and a good time was had by all.



They went on dates to Sixers games.



And they hung out at Eagles games with Joffrey and dated the cheerleaders.



Tim Panaccio took notes as Richards considered the advantages of a hockey butt.



They were maybe not the most studious dudes in practice.

But not everything was peaches and cream. Turns out Richards is kind of a quiet, reserved guy when he's not boning every lady and doesn't so much enjoy talking to the media. Now, when you are a Philadelphia sports figure, you don't have much choice about talking to the media daily, double especially if you're a captain. So Richie was kind of a passive-aggressive bitch to the media and in return the media wrote stories about what a terrible leader he is and it kind of overshadowed anything he did on the ice - which was a lot of really good stuff. I mean, he holds the NHL record for most 5-on-3 shorthanded goals.

Click to view

Before the Olympics in 2010, the Flyers were not a good hockey team. They got rid of their coach John Stevens, who had mentored Richards and Carter up through the Phantoms and was a great favorite, at the beginning of December. At one point they were last in the East. And as is the case any time a team is going through an extended bad stretch, the "issue" of a locker room rift arose. You see, Mike Richards and Chris Pronger were clearly in a bitter fight for control of the locker room, the young appointed captain versus the veteran hardass. The rest of the team was divided between them, and that's why they couldn't buy a win. Then Richards and Pronger both went to the Olympics and won the gold medal and magically healed their differences, resulting in the team pulling it together and making the playoffs. It makes for a good narrative, right?

Of course, you have to ignore the parts where they only made the playoffs by winning in a shootout to the NY Rangers in game 82 and ran through 7 different goalies over the course of the season and how both Mike Richards and Chris Pronger are more professional than to let any personal differences affect the team. But in any case, the Flyers made the playoffs and beat the Devils in the first round, which was about as good as anyone expected. Unfortunately, Carter, who had been playing on one broken foot, took a Pronger point shot to the other foot during the series and broke that one too. Bummer.



People got mad at him for going down the shore while the rest of the team was still in the playoffs, but if two broken feet at the same time isn't an excuse to drink, you've got higher standards than me.

So the team was Carterless (and Gagneless) against the Bruins in the second round, and promptly dropped the first three games. Most fans were disappointed but resigned that their season was about to end, but in game 3 Mike Richards, in a display of great on-ice leadership/gutless dirty play (depending on your perspective), broke David Krejci's wrist. What's funny is although the play led directly to a goal just then, it changed the makeup of the series and paved the way for the Flyers to win four in a row and complete a comeback that only three other teams in the history of major professional sports have done.

Riding high off their game 7 victory, the Flyers took on the Habs, who had conveniently dispatched both the Capitals and the Penguins. This shift by Richards in the first game while shorthanded doesn't add a whole lot to the story of Carter and Richards as bros, but it's super bananas awesome, so you should watch it.

Click to view

So they won that series and faced the Blackhawks in the Cup finals and Carter came back to play even though his feet were still mostly broken, but the Hawks won anyway and that was that. :(

The 2010-11 season was much better in terms of winning games and not having to fire any coaches and they ended the season as the two seed in the East, but then they got swept by the Bruins for real this time in the second round. Mr. Snider, the Flyers owner, got super mad and told GM Paul Holmgren to go get a legit goalie or he was going to murder everyone. So on June 23, Holmgren traded Carter to the Blue Jackets for Jake Voracek and first and third round picks. Everyone was stunned because while there were always rumors about trading Carter, he had just that season signed an 11 year contract extension, in part because Richards also had a long-term deal and they wanted to lock up their futures together. But Holmgren wasn't done and not even 45 minutes later it was announced that Richards had been traded to the Kings for Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds. So many shits were flipped in Philadelphia that day. The team Captain and the leading goal scorer gone in less than an hour, in order to sign Ilya Bryzgalov to be the goalie savior the Flyers had so desperately been needing.

The fans and the media weren't the only ones flabbergasted. Carter and Richards were apparently texting each other back and forth, confused about what was even happening. In Mike Richards' conference call with the media after he was traded, he talked about how Jeff was his best friend and they had planned to play the rest of their careers together, and I swear at one point you can hear his breath get shaky over it. He said the hardest part of getting traded was not being able to go through it with Jeff, together. ;___; (The whole call is about 20 minutes long, the stuff about him and Jeff starts around 10:00 if you want to skip to it.)

At this point I would link you to Carter's corresponding media call, but uh, he didn't give one. He was so upset at the trade, and feeling so betrayed by the Flyers for trading him after they had intimated to him that they wouldn't, that he went down to his shore house and refused to talk to anyone for four days. Like, not anyone from the Blue Jackets organization, not anyone from the media, Philly or otherwise, barely even his agent. Eventually the Blue Jackets had to send their GM, their coach and Rick Nash down to south Jersey to physically convince him that playing in Columbus was not actually worst than death. Jeff Carter, what even are you. The articles written around then are kind of hilarious in how the beat wirters were even perplexed at how Carter was acting.

A couple days after the trade, Richie took to his twitter to do what he does best, be passive-aggressive and sullen.





I maybe shouldn't love his obvious bitterness so much, but oh how I do.

But the summer passed and the new season started, and by the grace of the scheduling gods the fourth game of the season was Kings at Flyers on October 15. So Richie and the media didn't have long to wait for their tearful reunion. Watch how he makes it super clear that he totally doesn't have any extra feelings about playing his old team. In fact he's barely even thought about it. What team is his next game against again, he's forgotten? He's so moved on, you guys.

Jeff Carter's first game back came on November 5th, but sadly he had broken his foot (again) and so had to watch the game from a suite.



This is the face I imagine him making pretty much the whole time he was in Columbus.

So the Blue Jackets totally failed it up as a team and the Kings had great defense and goaltending, but couldn't score a goal to save their grandmothers and the inevitable trade rumors started swirling. Unfortunately for Carter, his bad attitude had not noticeably improved over the season and it was apparently scuttling trade opportunities. He was literally too sad to trade.

So all seemed lost, and Richie and Carts seemed doomed to cry and pine for the next 10 years, until about a week ago when Carter's name began to be connected to the Kings. It was talked of as a bit of a long shot, but people asked Richards about it and he told them about how he and Carter still talk 3 or 4 times a week and obviously he'd love to be reunited.



He even commented about it on twitter.

And then, on February 23rd, 8 months to the day since their worlds came crashing down, Carter and Richards once again became teammates (and poor Jack Johnson had to go live with the Blue Jackets, but whatever. This is no time for sadness.)



John Boruk, a Philadelphia sports anchor, tweeted this the day of the trade, before it was finalized. I cannot thank you enough for this, Boruk. Also, what Flyer is standing around giving quotes about the Richards/Carter relationship???



#needaroommate. #needaroommate.

Basically the entire hockey world was rejoicing that Jeff Carter and Mike Richards had once again found happiness. There were many many jokes ("jokes") about Richie picking Jeff up from the airport, and when Richie had a "maintenance day" and skipped practice the morning after Carter got into town it was generally assumed to be a hangover recovery day. And the number of articles written about how Richards has a spare room for Carter in his LA house is more than I can link here. I will link this article though, where Richards says they both watch each others games (and pine, I think is implied) and talks almost exclusively in the couple we. Also where he accuses the Philadelphia media of making up stories about him, because never let it be said Richards passes up an opportunity to be a grump.

Speaking of old media stories, Kings GM Dean Lombardi had to give basically an entire press conference about how young single guys, especially rich and minorly famous ones, like to go out drinking and sometimes get their pictures taken doing it, but it doesn't mean they are party-obsessed alcoholics who will ruin the team. Luckily for them, no one in LA will care about Carter and Richards like they did in Philly, so they should be free to pick up girls together and bang them in the same room while totally not listening to the noises the other one is making to their heart's content.

Carter was much happier to talk to the media this time, for some reason. He and Richie never thought they would get to be together again! And now they're on the same line and killing penalties together, and hopefully will be for the next 10 years. For real this time.

In conclusion:



So happy togetherrrrrrr!