Brian Startare, the guy that does pre and post-game on 610 WIP, has written a new book about the Flyers.

On the pages of Flyer’d Up, there will be extensive trivia along with stories and quotes from the Broad Street Bullies, along with players from the 80’s, 90’s and today. There will also be contributions from such noted hockey writers and broadcasters as Al Morganti, Anthony SanFilippo, Bill Meltzer and Glen Macnow, along with touching dedications to Flyers great Pelle Lindbergh and legendary broadcaster Gene Hart, right from the pen of his daughter Lauren, who is currently the teams’ anthem singer. You will also enjoy great photos and hand drawn illustrations, along with some fun tidbits of information along the way.

There can never be enough Flyers books out there, and I like the way this one sounds with so many different contributors and perspectives. It can be pre-ordered now and it’s supposed to in print in time for the Carnival.

Check the website here. I’ll probably give a review sometime in the summer months, so you know you’re gonna mark that on you’re calendar… right… now.

There was a post on Puck Daddy this morning about a pigeon that landed on the ice at United Center during Sunday night’s Nashville/Chicago game. PD quoted another blogger, who had this to say about the incident.

I saw something tonight that I have never seen in my 20 plus years of shooting sports- a pigeon standing at center ice during the middle of a Chicago Blackhawks’ game. I was hoping that the bird would get caught up in a play but no such luck. The pigeon was eventually chased off by a referee and never returned to the field of play. However, I assume at this point my flying friend is feasting on spilled popcorn.

PD also picked up this quote from Yahoo!’s baseball blogger, Kevin Kaduk, who was at the game.

A bird flew down to the ice a few times before the game and during the first period James Wisniewski tried to hit it with his stick. You might want to keep an eye out for any good pics or video of it.  It was pretty funny.

Immediately, the first thing I thought of was the 1975 Cup Finals in Buffalo between the Flyers and Sabres. It was the game after the infamous fog game at the old Buffalo Auditorium. Let’s go to Gene Hart in his book SCORE! (which I just completed, go buy it and read it and love it like your child) for the story.

There was no fog this time, but it looked like Halloween anyhow, as a live bat swooped and darted about the old Aud. Since it was May 27 and not October 31, the beat was permitted to swoop and dart only until the ever-accurate stick of Rick MacLeish picked it off in mid-air. Buffalo’s Jim Lorentz gloved the poor creature and carried it from the arena, much to the relief of many in the audience.

Oh, yeah, the Flyers won their last Stanley Cup that night too.

I’ve said numerous times (here and here) that I don’t think the Capitals and Flyers are rivals. Washington might consider us one of their rivals, but that’s only because we beat them in the playoffs and they want payback, and because the Southeast Division doesn’t give the Caps anybody to hate.

So it’s a pretty one sided thing between these two fanbases right now, but just because we don’t really hate the Capitals right now, doesn’t mean we can’t hate them later. I would enjoy a rivalry with Washington, but the only way I can see it happening — and I’m talking a legitimate rivalry like Flyers vs Rangers/Pens/Devils — is if they were in our division.

Prior to the 1979/80 season, the Capitals moved from the Norris to the Patrick Division, and with that, a natural hatred developed. Fighting for position with a divisional opponent just two and a half hours south breeds a lot of contempt, it seems.

In 1981/82, the NHL aligned the divisions according to geography for the first time, which meant that Calgary, who had been in the Patrick Division since its days in Atlanta, would move to the Smythe Division, and Pittsburgh would join the Flyers, the Islanders, the Rangers, and the Capitals in the Patrick. A year later, in 1982/83, when the Colorado Rockies moved to New Jersey, the Devils joined, and the dream division was formed.

For eleven seasons, these six teams battled it out for Patrick Division glory, and for many of those seasons the Flyers and Capitals were neck-and-neck in the race. But then in 1991, the NHL welcomed a new team from San Jose, and the following year Tampa Bay and Ottawa joined the ranks.

Gary Bettman became Commissioner before the 1993 season, and with his NBA roots he felt that, to help make the game easier to market with non-traditional fans, the divisions and conferences should be renamed. So, in 1993/94, the Campbell Conference became the Western Conference and the Wales Conference became the Eastern Conference. The Norris Division became the Central, Smythe became the Pacific, while Adams became the Northeast and Patrick became the Atlantic.

The honeymoon for the perfect division was over. Pittsburgh was moved to the Northeast, to compete with Boston, Montreal, Buffalo, etc., while the Lightning and the first year Florida Panthers were thrown in the Atlantic.

The Flyers and Capitals still had their rivalry, but Pittsburgh was gone, and how can we care about Florida and Tampa Bay when they’re A) so far away and B) terrible?

Things in the Atlantic Division would stay the same for the next four years, but Hartford’s move to Carolina in 1997/98 and Nashville’s expansion the following year allowed the league to go to a new three division system. It would be the third major re-alignment in league history, and it mixed up everything.

The Northwest Division was created, and it included Colorado, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver, all former Pacific Division members. Dallas and Phoenix moved from the Central to the Pacific, while the new Predators joined Detroit, St. Louis, and Chicago in the Central.

Toronto moved from the Western Conference’s Central Division to the East’s Northeast. Carolina, Florida, Tampa, and Washington left the Atlantic to form the  new Southeast Division.  And a mistake was corrected by moving Pittsburgh back to the Atlantic.

Since, teams have been added in Atlanta, Columbus and Minnesota to get the current look we have today. It has been 10 seasons and 11 years since this alignment first came about, and we can determine now that it has been a mistake. People in Toronto will tell you that they lost a historic Original Six rivalry with Detroit in the process.

But the biggest complaints will come out of Washington. They had the dream setup in the Patrick Division days, and now their chief competition comes from a team that was in Connecticut just twelve years ago. In fact, the switch to the Southeast almost killed hockey in DC. Hockey was stagnant there for years, in the late-90’s and until, really, last years playoffs. They played the Flyers in those playoffs, an old Patrick Division rival they could love to hate.

Read the rest of this entry »

With some time off of school, I’m finally getting around to reading Gene Hart’s Flyers bible SCORE!: My Twenty-Five Years with The Broad Street Bullies. So, with that, expect some quotes and excerpts posted over the next couple weeks, since this book is chock full of awesome ones.

Hart actually called his first game with the Flyers at the Forum in Montreal. Well, he called his first period I guess you could say, as he tells us in the book that WCAU only had rights to broadcast the third periods over the radio in the Flyers’ inaugural season.

… I can remember praying throughout the pre-game and the first two periods that the team wouldn’t get blown out and be embarrassed by this great and famous hockey club, the Canadiens, perhaps before we even got on the air.

Bernie Parent started in goal in his hometown of Montreal, and he looked very sharp. The first goal of the game was scored by Leon Rochefort (nicknamed, naturally, “Cheesie”), who had been taken by the Flyers from Montreal in the expansion draft. Pat Hannigan scored a goal in the second period to make it two to nothing, but Montreal scored next to make it two to one, Flyers, after two periods. And that’s when the Flyers and I made our first major-league broadcast: ‘Hi from the Forum in Montreal. It’s the National Hockey League, and our debut on WCAU, with the Philadelphia Flyers and the Montreal Canadiens.’

I couldn’t have asked for a better period to broadcast. The Flyers had the only two goals of the period, and both were scored by the ex-Canadien Rochefort, which have him three for the night — a hat trick. It was the first hat trick in Flyers’ history, an it came about in the first Flyers’ victory over one of the original six teams. And, of course, all of this happened in the Flyers’ very first appearacnce in that most hallowed of hockey buildings, the Forum.

At first, the Montreal fans had looked upon the Flyers with disdain, almost as if they were a composite minor-league club. As the numbers on the Flyers’ side of the scoreboard grew from “2-1″ to “3-1″ to “4-1,” the reaction of the fans was one of surprise, and then amazement, and finally, appreciation. In the end, the crowd saluted the young scrappy Flyers with applause, particularly for Rochefort’s hat trick and Parent’s goaltending.

This book by Gene Hart is absolutely awesome (and I’m only on page 41), and if you haven’t read it yet, go find a copy immediately. It’s a must-read for any Flyers fan.

Let’s hope the Flyers have a similiar performance in Montreal this evening.

After Scott Hartnell’s glove-toss last night, I decided to take the time to think of some other classic bonehead moves surrounding the Flyers organization over the past few years.. you’ll notice these don’t date back too far, partly because of my memory, but mostly because the YouTubes don’t have most old videos.

#5: Fan throws stink bomb on ice during overtime, 10/25/2008

#4: Jesse Boulerice hits Ryan Kesler in the face, 10/10/2007

#3: Hartnell throws glove to stop breakaway, 12/02/2008

Read the rest of this entry »