Flyers making all the wrong coaching moves

There is a story here, and not a very pretty one. The Philadelphia Flyers fired head coach Craig Ramsay on Sunday and replaced him with former player and assistant coach Bill Barber. The mess in Flyer land continues.

Last year Roger Neilson was their head coach until he had to leave the team to undergo treatment for cancer of the bone marrow. Neilson’s life is hockey. While he was gone, Ramsay, who had been the assistant coach, took over as head coach.

When Neilson returned, there was a dispute as to who would coach the team for the rest of the regular season and in the playoffs. Neilson said he was ready. Bob (who used to be Bobby when he played, but doesn’t like that name anymore) Clarke, the Flyer general manager, kept Ramsay in the head position and Neilson was there in a capacity not well defined.

Was Neilson coming back as head coach at some point? Did the Flyers have two head coaches? There were no answers last season.

The Flyers missed the Stanley Cup finals by one win. Everyone, including Neilson, praised the work done by Ramsay. Then it got real sticky.

Neilson told me he had a deal worked out with the Flyers to extend his contract as head coach. It was a deal done before the cancer treatment. When he tried to come back after the treatment, the Flyers said their medical information indicated a risk to Neilson’s health coming back so fast.

Neilson didn’t buy it. Neilson felt he was ready. He said there was no threat to his health. In fact, it was a case of getting him back on the job for the good of his health. It was his life.

Had the Flyers used doctors who owed the Flyers something, doctors who were sympathetic to the Flyers position? Were the doctors aware that Clarke didn’t want Neilson back at the time and were using the cancer as a reason to keep him from resuming coaching because Clarke felt Ramsay was the one for the moment? Neilson wondered, and still does.

When the playoffs ended, Neilson was out of a job. The Flyers picked Ramsay to stay as head coach, fired Neilson, and the agreement Neilson was positive he had with Clarke for a contract extension was no longer.

I will never forget a conversation with Neilson at the end of last year when he saw all the writing on the wall. He said to me, “I guess they didn’t want someone who had cancer coaching the team.” He said it sadly, quietly and without anger or bitterness.

He said it in a way that spelled a wrong. Clark and the Flyers could do whatever they wanted regarding their head coach, but how they treated another human being at a most difficult time left a lot to be desired. That seems to be an ongoing problem for the Flyers and Eric Lindros, the Flyers and Craig Ramsay, the Flyers and current star John LeClair.

Ramsay took the job because he was convinced the Flyers were not going to bring Neilson back no matter what he did. Ramsay and Neilson are two of life’s good people. Ramsay was never comfortable with how he came to be head coach. He never wanted to replace Neilson. He just wanted to be a head coach somewhere.

Ramsay’s firing may have been an early Christmas gift for him.

Now Clarke has his former Flyer linemate Bill Barber as head coach. Barber said, “It’s a tough circumstance, but from my heart, I feel very comfortable going in.” He might want to recheck his comfort level.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and CBS sportscaster.