February 21st, 2019For more than a hundred years, hockey has been a Pennsylvania passion. Its people and teams have made an indelible mark on both the NHL and the sport itself, and fans on both sides of the state have had plenty to cheer, yell, hope, mope, and even cry about. From Hall of...
January 25th, 2019
A superstar-led Philadelphia Flyers team enters a season with expectations of returning to the playoffs and building on the previous season's first-round exit. The team comes out of the gate flat, the general manager and coach are fired and nothing changes. A...
January 21st, 2019The pro sports world is inherently exclusive and insular, but there may not be many pro sports franchises out there as insular as the Philadelphia Flyers.
The team is now in its 52nd year. The two men who currently hold the reins behind its hockey operations have been...
October 21st, 2018Growing up in Alberta, Canada, Bill Flett became accustomed to handling cattle at a young age, and building his muscles while working on a farm. He had been a calf-roper in and around the Calgary area, and was known to participate in rodeos with regularity.
This...
October 15th, 2018During the 1970s, only the Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins had more victories than the Philadelphia Flyers' 424. During that decade, the Flyers won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975, went to two more Finals, and missed the playoffs once. Furthermore, they...
May 17th, 2018Some records stand for so long, you forget they even exist, let alone entertain the notion someone could actually break them.
One of these mythical marks is Reggie Leach's record of 19 goals in a single playoffs, which he set 42 years ago while a member of the...
January 18th, 2018Prior to the game against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night, the Philadelphia Flyers will honor one of the greatest to ever don the Orange and Black. The No. 88, worn throughout the entirety of Eric Lindros' career, will be retired by the Flyers organization. He is...
October 4th, 2017Mark Recchi will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in November 2017, his fourth year of eligibility. He won a Stanley Cup with three different teams, and his 1,533 points are ranked 12th all-time. But his most explosive season came in 1992-93 with the Philadelphia...
August 30th, 2017On August 28, the Philadelphia Flyers announced that Eric Lindros' number 88 will be retired. Over the course of his career, Lindros was a threat in every aspect of the game. He could shoot, pass and, most of all, he could hit. His career was cut short because of a series...
August 1st, 2017In two previous pieces, THW looked at the Flyers' captains from their inception through the captainless 1992-93 season and from the start of the Lindros era until the 2004-05 lockout. In this piece, we look at each man who wore the C in Philadelphia since that canceled...
May 31st, 2017In a previous post, The Hockey Writers took a look at every Flyers captain from Lou Angotti, the first, to Rick Tocchet, the last man to wear the C before the team's captainless 1992–93 season.
Here, we examine the men who served as captain from 1993–94 until the...
March 28th, 2017After 50 years, the Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins have developed one of the greatest rivalries in sports. They've played each other 281 times in the regular season. The Flyers have won 153 of those matchups, the Penguins 98, and the teams have tied 30 times....
November 13th, 2016They were "The Legion of Doom." Eric Lindros, John LeClair and Mikael Renberg.
From 1995-2000, the three constituted one of the most fearsome scoring lines in the league with the Philadelphia Flyers. It was a stretch which saw the Flyers reach a Stanley Cup Final in...
September 30th, 2016The 2016-17 season marks the Philadelphia Flyers’ 50th anniversary in the NHL. The Flyers have some very special plans to celebrate this year-long anniversary: An alumni game against some of the Pittsburgh Penguins' former greats, a number of Flyers Heritage nights, and...
June 23rd, 2016Five years ago today, Philadelphia Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren changed the complexion of the team within mere minutes by trading franchise cornerstones Mike Richards and Jeff Carter.
Trades of this magnitude hadn't been seen since the pre-salary cap days and...