It never hurts to ask.
When Northeast Philadelphia native Chris Maher was looking to add a boost to his hockey-related podcast, he started asking around. Would it actually be possible to get a former Flyer to co-host a chat? Maher went to his keyboard and took his shot.
“I was doing a show with call-ins,” Maher recalled. “I was doing it straight from my bedroom. I was hosting and producing it. It was all hockey talk. But I was like, ‘Let me think if I can get a former Flyer to come on for a segment and talk about the team for 15-20 minutes.’ ”
Maher went to Flyers.NHL.com writer Bill Meltzer for some help. Meltzer is heavily involved with the Flyers Alumni Association and had a few leads for Maher.
“I sent an email to Mike Knuble and he was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ He came on as a guest the first few times,” Maher said. “I shot him a text in May and we figured it out and I spent all summer working on the branding and building the whole thing up.”
“Kickin’ it with Knuble” was officially born. It’s the latest offering from Maher Media, which was dreamt up by the Father Judge graduate, who lives in the Torresdale section of the city, along with his good friend Paul Jackson from Maple Shade. The podcast featuring Knuble officially kicked off in September and the duo has welcomed guests like former Flyers Derian Hatcher, Simon Gagne, Paul Holmgren, James van Riemsdyk, Mike Richards, Martin Biron and Dan Carcillo. Guests and Knuble’s on-ice experience give the podcast something hot to talk about, even if the current team stumbles.
“The Flyers aren’t doing too hot, so it’s a little hard for people to get excited, but the podcast is still doing pretty well,” Maher said.
Competing with the Phillies in October and the Eagles through January can be a daunting task. But Knuble brings a wealth of hockey experience, having played more than 1,000 games. He’s also the only player to be teammates with both Wayne Gretzky and Alex Ovechkin, who are No. 1 and 2 all time in career goal-scoring.
“Mike is such a nice guy and gives a lot of insight,” Maher said. “He’s played more than 1,000 games and he’s won a Cup. I started thinking about the guys he’s played with: Joe Thornton, (Steve) Yzerman, (Sergei) Fedorov and all those guys. It’s crazy to hear the stuff he says. He also coached in the AHL for a little bit.”
Knuble, a Toronto native, was drafted by the Detroit Red Wings in 1991 and was a part of the second of back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1998. His NHL debut actually came during the infamous “Fight Night at the Joe” against the Colorado Avalanche in March 1997. He’s played alongside a list of NHL Hall of Famers that includes Nick Lidstrom, Brian Leetch, Brendan Shanahan and Peter Forsberg. In Philly, he was famously a part of the Deuces Wild Line alongside Forsberg and Simon Gagne. A second stint with the Flyers included 28 games in the Claude Giroux era in the 2012-13 lockout-shortened season. He then served several years as assistant coach with the AHL Grand Rapids Griffins, where he currently resides. Knuble’s son Cole was a 2023 Flyers draft pick.
But the podcast doesn’t rely solely on Knuble’s experiences.
“Our big thing is to try to get people more involved with creative content,” Maher said. “You can write and you can blog and you can sit behind a camera. We try to have a different creative spin on it. And the one thing we try to hone in is the production of our stuff.”
Maher and Jackson also started their own ball hockey league in Philly called Rink Rat Games and it held an outdoor Winter Classic event in Ridley on Jan. 4.
“It was an idea we came up with in June 2023, when the whole Maher Media thing was created,” Maher said. “We both grew up playing ball hockey. One of the first times we ended up hanging out was hockey. We ended up playing ball hockey for like four hours talking about all the things we wanted to do. The whole idea was to have our own teams, record the games and make our own content.”
Maher, a recent Temple University graduate, actually started making hockey content earlier. While at Father Judge, he asked the school if he could create a Twitter account and cover the ice hockey team.
“I told them that I would love to be able to cover their ice hockey team,” Maher said. “I covered the team for two years. In 2020, I was at every game. I wasn’t doing much, but it was nice they were allowing me to do that. But it was something I could get some experience with.”
Now he’s covering the NHL with an eight time 20-goal scorer.
“(Knuble)’s a great guy and one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.” Maher said. “He rarely says no to anything. He says what he wants and it’s really awesome.”
