It was 9 years ago this month that the Pensacola Ice Flyers, under new head coach Rod Aldoff, began scorching their way to SPHL history. The regular season road to their second straight President’s Cup resulted in 81 points, 38 wins, and an average attendance of over 4000, all SPHL records. The magic was absolutely palpable.
Years later there’s a new brilliant-looking scoreboard that flashes great shots of the players when they score. There are brand new banners around the arena. There is still chuck-a-puck and wiener dog racing, and the Titanic and Simba cams are just precious as they spotlight fans in the stands.
But does this season have the makings of a legacy?
1 and 1 after the shortest training camp in their history, the Ice Flyers have scored 9 goals and have given up 9. The pace overall is remarkable; Pensacola is definitely fired up. In his first SPHL season, center and wingman Kolten Olynek has scored 3 Pensacola goals. Defenseman Seth Ensor, a fan favorite whose jersey sold for $1500 at Saturday’s Pink-in-the-Rink auction for breast cancer, has netted a goal already in demonstration of just how much hustle this team is showing.
Another fan favorite that was absent from Saturday’s game is Jan Salak. Salak netted 4 goals and 5 assists in 15 outings with Pensacola last year. Stranded in Canada due to Covid restrictions after returning to change his visa status, Salak returned just in time to finish the season. 
“Jan has all the pro attributes,” said Rod Aldoff. “He skates well, has a big body, protects the puck, and has a good shot. His bread-and-butter is using his size in the corners and in front of the net. I think he did a great job of that last season and is only going to get better the more he plays.”
The Ice Flyers are coming out of the gate strong in 2022 as far as being aggressive and defending the goal. Traditionally known for having one of the more well-developed passing games in the league, the team still has some kinks and jitters to iron out as far as collecting and controlling the handoffs. But with 44 shots-on-goal compared to Macon’s 24 in the 5 – 3 win on Saturday, Pensacola is demonstrating a familiar trait of controlling the puck and attacking the net despite the typical early-season lack of finesse. With 54 regular season games to go, we’ll just have to see if this is another dream team with talent the likes of Joe Caveney and Podge Turnbull.
Special thanks to iceflyers.com
You must be logged in to post a comment.