Keith Yandle responds to the Flyers ending his Ironman streak.

Earlier today it was announced that the longest Ironman streak in the history of the National Hockey League would officially come to an end on Saturday night. Veteran NHL defenseman Keith Yandle is the record holder but the Philadelphia Flyers have made the difficult decision of leaving him on the sidelines for this game. 

This means that Yandle's streak will end not due to injury or illness, but rather due simply to the fact that the team wishes to put someone else in the spot that he would otherwise be occupying. You could easily see why that could make this an upsetting scenario for Yandle, but to his credit when he was asked about the decision made today by the Flyers he showed tremendous class. Yandle instead pointed to the fact that the realities of the business made this something of an expected occurrence from a team that is out of playoff contention.

"It's just one of those things you know is going to happen toward the end of the year when you're signing young guys and getting free agents out of college, they're going to give them a chance to play," said Yandle on Saturday.

"You've got to respect that out of the business side of it and what they're trying to do here," he added.

You have to believe that this was a major motivating factor for Yandle to keep playing in the National Hockey League at this stage of his career and now that his Ironman streak will be broken you have to wonder how much longer he will keep playing. Yandle was asked about what his mindset moving forward would be, and he gave exactly the kind of answer you would expect of a prototypical hockey player.

"My mindset is to get better in practice, work on things and try to get back in the lineup and help the team win games," said the 35 year old veteran.

Yandle has thus far handled the decision with grace, although plenty have already objected to this decision from the Flyers on his behalf.