Flyers rookie Porter Martone blasted holes in his parent’s basement before becoming an NHL phenom
The teenager has taken the NHL by storm in the playoffs. He honed his scoring touch growing up in Ontario, firing slap shots in the basement and beating "Jeff" the goalie in his backyard.
Enough pucks blasted through the basement’s drywall that Mike Martone replaced it with plywood, covering the holes his son created and hoping to prevent more.
The unfinished basement — with a Flyers magnet on the ductwork providing a forecast of what was to come — was where Porter Martone often hung out as his parents sent him and his sister downstairs whenever they needed to exert some energy.
The 19-year-old has been a sensation ever since joining the Flyers in March and he is the youngest Flyers player to score in his postseason debut. His skills have allowed him to fit in as he’s rarely looked like a teenager while playing against the Pittsburgh Penguins, who have players twice his age.
He has emerged this month as South Philly’s biggest teen idol since Fabian. And it all started with a kid in a basement in Peterborough, Ontario, who fell in love with hockey.
“As soon as he could walk, we had a hockey net down there with mini sticks,” said Mike Martone, who played as a boy with his brother in an unfinished basement. “It just evolved over time from mini nets and mini sticks to bigger nets and bigger sticks. It’s kind of nice when you have active kids and you can just say, ‘Go down there and play.’
“We’d be hearing the pucks going off the ceiling downstairs and it sounds like it’s coming through the floor upstairs. They’re hitting the ductwork. It was just one of those rooms where you can be free and do whatever you want. It was great for them to have that unstructured play and let kids be kids. And it was great for us because we were upstairs and they were downstairs.”
No one outworks a Martone
Joe Martone left Italy when he was 9 years old, moving with his sister and parents to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.
“They came with nothing, basically, and worked for everything they had,” Mike Martone said.
The city — known as “the Soo” — is across the St. Mary’s River from Michigan. Italians like the Martones flocked there to work at the factories and mills. Joe Martone drove a city bus as an adult, worked part time at an A&P grocery store, and umpired baseball games in the summer. He never had to tell his children about his work ethic. They saw it.
“We watched him and saw him go to work every day and not complain once,” Mike Martone said. “He didn’t have to speak it.”
Mike Martone instilled that into his son and daughter, Audrey, who is committed to play Division I hockey at Colgate University. When Porter Martone was drafted sixth overall in 2025, he wore a suit that had a message inside from his father reading “Always remember, no one out works a Martone.”
Porter Martone did whatever it took to turn that passion in the basement into an NHL dream. Mike Martone was drafted by the Sabres in 1996 and played minor-league hockey for six seasons before becoming a teacher just before his son was born.
Porter Martone skated after school with his sister on the frozen pond behind their house, cheered on Thursday nights for the Peterborough Petes junior team, watched the NHL on TV, lifted weights in the summer, and raced his father up the 200 stairs at the hydraulic lift lock on the canal downtown.
“Those stairs really test if you can battle through and grind it out,” Mike Martone said. “He fell in love with the game. From the passion came the work. But once he fell in love with the game, it really wasn’t work for him because he was having fun putting the work in. It was a passion of his. He found that passion and put the work in. He was willing to do whatever it took to chase his dream.”
He turned the basement into a shooting gallery, often running downstairs with his buddies and grabbing a stick from the pile in the corner. In the yard was “Jeff,” the goalie who helped prepare Martone for the game-winning goal he scored in Game 1 against Pittsburgh.
“It’s an old lawn chair with plywood, some old pads, and an old mask,” Mike Martone said. “It kept evolving over the years because the kids kept blowing it up so we had to make alterations to it.”
He’s unflappable
The Martones were in Pittsburgh for Game 1 when their son stopped on a dime in the third period and rifled a shot past Penguins goalie Stuart Skinner. It was easy to forget that the teenager was in college just three weeks earlier. He looked like he belonged.
“My wife jumped up and celebrated. She’s passionate and emotional,” Mike Martone said. “We’re in a section with all Penguins fans. It’s just the Barkey family, us and our daughter. We were the only people to stand up in the whole section. Then we look around and we’re like ‘Oh. We better sit down.’ It was pretty funny.”
The kid who ruined their basement was now powering an NHL team in the postseason.
“He wants to be out there when the game’s on the line,” Flyers coach Rick Tocchet told reporters earlier this month. “He’s unflappable.”
Porter Martone visited Philadelphia as a kid and watched practice in Voorhees where he took a picture with Wayne Simmonds. He hung a Claude Giroux poster in his basement and stuck that Flyers magnet above the net. Now he’s on the team.
“The celebration afterwards when the whole team gets into the huddle is just unbelievable,” Mike Martone said. “You see what kind of team they actually have. They’re playing for the logo on the front of the chest and how much pride they have for the organization and the players. Watching them in the playoffs right now, you can see that they’re playing for each other. That’s the best part.”
Angela Martone recently talked about finishing the basement. Perhaps it was time to take down that plywood, hang new drywall, and lay some carpets on the floors that are scuffed from all the slap shots. Not yet, Mike Martone said. Their son is in the NHL, but they know where he’ll be with his friends when he gets home. The basement of their dreams will have to keep looking like the basement that fostered a dream.
“Whenever they come over, they’re still ripping pucks,” Mike Martone said. “So I’m like, I don’t know if we’re going to finish that until they’re done ripping the pucks because they’ll just put more holes in the drywall. At least it’s plywood now.”
Flyers lead series 3-1
Game 1: Flyers 3, Penguins 2 | Sielski: Kids stand tall
Game 2: Flyers 3, Penguins 0 | Sielski: Stealing Pens' will
Game 3: Flyers 5, Penguins 2 | Sielski: Shades of glory days
Game 4: Penguins 4, Flyers 2 | Sielski: New test awaits
Game 5: Flyers at Penguins, Monday (7 p.m., ESPN, NBCSP)
*Game 6: Penguins at Flyers, Wednesday (Time TBD)
*Game 7: Flyers at Penguins, May 2 (Time TBD)
*if necessary
