The Philadelphia Flyers were always bound to make their fair share of enemies. The franchise dubbed as the Broad Street Bullies during the 1970s always welcomed and encouraged the rough stuff in their team-building process under their founder Ed Snider. The organizational identity created a hotbed for classic rivalries, especially with other competitive Eastern Conference teams in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Related: History of Conn Smythe Winners in Losing Efforts
The fan base in Philadelphia prides itself on creating a hostile and uncomfortable environment for opponents. While the attitude has created an excellent home-ice advantage, it has also encouraged some of the most heated individual rivalries with some of the most polarizing NHL players. There are agitators who ignite the passion of Philadelphia fans. There are enforcers who spark the combative attitude, and there are scorers who have caused misery in devastating losses. Fans might’ve loved these villains if they had played for the Flyers. Instead, they’re the guys Philly loves to hate.
Scott Stevens
The Flyers and the New Jersey Devils developed one of the best rivalries in the NHL in the late 1990s and 2000s. After the Devils advanced past their Atlantic Division foes in two Eastern Conference Finals in 1995 and 2000, it wasn’t the dominance of Martin Brodeur that bothered Philadelphia fans most. One of the most fearsome players in NHL history overshadowed the hate that any goaltender would ever earn.
Scott Stevens played his final 13 NHL seasons with the Devils leading into the 2004-05 lockout. His highest regular-season point total in the final decade of his career was 31. However, what he lacked in offense, he made up for as the ultimate x-factor whose presence struck fear into opponents with a notorious checking style that sent countless players directly to the dressing room.
He cemented his place as the ultimate nemesis in Flyers history with a stunning bodycheck on Eric Lindros in Game 7 of the 2000 Eastern Conference Final. After recently returning from a concussion-related absence, Lindros picked up a loose puck at center ice and gained the New Jersey zone. As he crossed the blue line, his long-time adversary used his signature style and put a shoulder to his jaw with one of the most devastating hits in NHL history. Lindros fell flat on the ice in his final shift with the Flyers. Stevens went on to win the Conn Smythe Trophy for the eventual Stanley Cup champions.
Sidney Crosby
It was almost too obvious when the Pittsburgh Penguins won the NHL Draft Lottery in 2005. Sidney Crosby’s destiny was to become the individual nemesis for the cross-state rival Flyers, who had owned them in recent history. It didn’t take long for the feuds to ignite. The hyped prospect scored an overtime winner in his first regular-season game in Philadelphia in November 2005.
Pittsburgh eliminated the Flyers from the postseason in 2008 and 2009 on their way to two Stanley Cup Finals appearances and one victory. The Flyers turned the tides with an outrageously chaotic series victory in 2012, when it looked like Crosby’s antics would set his team back repeatedly if he didn’t grow as a competitor and as a player.
He answered the bell on the way to two more Stanley Cups and two Conn Smythe Trophies in 2015 and 2016. Flyers fans still glorify the 2012 series when the Philadelphia Daily News coined him “The Cowardly Penguin,” but the best hockey player of the salary cap era has the clear upper hand. No player in NHL history has scored against the Flyers more than Crosby. He also has 36 career playoff points against his arch-rival, padded by a prolific scoring performance in another series victory in 2018.
Claude Lemieux
He might’ve been known better for playing the role of agitator for the Colorado Avalanche against the Detroit Red Wings, but Claude Lemieux was also the perfect nemesis for Flyers fans. The rivalry began in 1987 during the Wales Conference Final when a petty move by Lemieux to shoot the puck into the Philadelphia net during warmups exploded into an ugly pregame brawl that embarrassed the NHL and the entire hockey community.
Lemieux’s move from the Montreal Canadiens to the Devils in 1990 created the chance to reignite the feud, and that’s exactly what happened when the Flyers and the Devils met in the 1995 Eastern Conference Final. The underdog Devils took Game 5 at the Spectrum in Philadelphia behind Lemieux’s deciding goal in the final minute of regulation. Lemieux added another third-period goal in Game 6 that helped send the top seed home empty-handed. He won the Conn Smythe for the eventual Stanley Cup champs.
His time with Avalanche built up his profile as a hated agitator around the league before his return to New Jersey in 1999. Lemieux scored three goals in the 2000 series when Stevens’ hit helped the Devils cap off their comeback from a 3-1 series deficit. In a strange full-circle instance, his son Brendan Lemieux spent 18 games with the Flyers in 2022-23, using his father as an agent.
Patrick Kane
Flyers fans will never truly accept the outcome of the 2007 NHL Draft Lottery. The 56-point 2006-07 season was nothing compared to the upcoming ironic twist of fate. The Chicago Blackhawks jumped the Flyers, the team with the best odds to land the top pick, for the opportunity to select Patrick Kane. The American-born star quickly took off as an elite NHL player with a Calder Trophy in 2007-08.
Second-overall pick James van Riemsdyk had a much slower development, and he wasn’t a key contributor to Philadelphia’s miracle run to the 2010 Stanley Cup Final. When the Flyers advanced to face the Blackhawks, the storyline hadn’t even come close to peaking as dramatically as it did on June 9, 2010. Constant comebacks by the Flyers during a Cinderella run became their calling card, so it wasn’t surprising when Scott Hartnell buried a late goal to fend off elimination and extend Game 6 into overtime.
The unfortunate luck of the 2007 lottery (and the constant weakness of goaltending) caught up to the red-hot Flyers. Kane dumped a weak shot on Michael Leighton, and a fluttering puck somehow skipped its way into the net to silence a rowdy crowd at the (then) Wachovia Center. Kane hasn’t done much else to torture Flyers fans since 2010, but he really doesn’t have to.
Matthew Barnaby
He was arguably the most hated player in the NHL during the 1990s. He loved to get under the skin of the most aggressive players on the ice, and he faced the Flyers in playoff series in 1997, 1998, and 2000. His reputation as a pest around the league consistently grew throughout the early 1990s. Matthew Barnaby was the natural villain destined to draw some vitriol from Flyers fans.
It became personal for Philadelphia during a wild line brawl in 1996 between the Flyers and the Buffalo Sabres. Barnaby found himself in the thick of a net-front scrum. He turned up the heat when goaltender Garth Snow provoked him away from the play with a quick stick jab. Barnaby jumped Snow, and Rod Brind’Amour had to step in to bail out his netminder.
The incident came during a season when Barnaby racked up 335 regular-season penalty minutes (PIMs). He followed it up with 249 in 1996-97 and 289 in 1997-98 for the Sabres, Philadelphia’s first-round playoff opponent after both seasons. Barnaby stirred the pot against all opponents, especially the ones who faced him in seven-game series.
Darius Kasparitis
Darius Kasparitis played 852 of his 863 career regular-season games for the New York Islanders, the Penguins, and the New York Rangers. If his uniform choices weren’t enough to become a player Philly fans loved to hate, his aggressive style as a ferocious hitter certainly pushed him over the edge.
The Lithuanian defenseman could close gaps and hammer opponents in transition as well as anyone in hockey during an era when physicality defined many defensemen. He could throw hip checks or body checks. He could come low, or he could come high. When teams around the league evaluated him, they didn’t even worry that his highest career single-season point total was 23.
Kasparitis threw a vicious check on Lindros in March 1998, causing the first of a string of six concussions for the franchise superstar. It was the type of hit that would require supplementary discipline in the new era of the NHL, but there was no penalty on the play. Kasparitis played 91 games after the 2004-05 lockout, scoring only 10 points. His style suited him well in a bloodthirsty era that isn’t really present in the NHL anymore.
Tie Domi
The Flyers met the Toronto Maple Leafs in the postseason in 1999, 2003, and 2004. Tie Domi, one of the most feared enforcers of the 1990s and early 2000s, sits third in NHL history with 3515 PIMs. He battled with Flyers enforcers like Donald Brashear and Craig Berube in tight contests between respected Eastern Conference contenders. An individual battle between Jeremy Roenick and Darcy Tucker also developed in the heat of the postseason competition, but there’s one big reason why Philadelphia fans thought about Domi a lot more than any other opponent on those Toronto teams.
On March 29, 2001, Domi and Luke Richardson earned coincidental minor penalties. Fans in Philadelphia heckled Domi from behind the penalty box, which pushed the enforcer to squirt a water bottle right into the crowd. An incredibly misguided fan took the shenanigans to a whole new level with one of the most ridiculous things ever seen in the history of professional sporting events. He stumbled with his body weight through the glass separating the (then) First Union Center seats from the penalty box to fight one of the toughest enforcers in the NHL.
Domi’s career as the quintessential NHL tough guy playing for an opponent certainly led to a good amount of distaste among Flyers fans. He even recorded 14 career fights against the Orange and Black. However, no hockey fans can hear Tie Domi and Philadelphia Flyers together without thinking of the infamous penalty box incident.
Chris Neil
Chris Neil probably isn’t one of the first names Flyers fans would list off the top of their heads as an individual rival. However, the Flyers and the Ottawa Senators had somewhat of a forgotten rivalry at the beginning of Neil’s career in the early 2000s. The Senators knocked the Flyers out of the playoffs in 2002 with an easy five-game series victory, allowing just two Philadelphia goals. History repeated itself in 2003 when the Senators sent the Flyers home in six games, allowing only 10 goals.
The mini rivalry came to a head in March 2004 when the two teams squared up in one of the biggest brawls in NHL history. They combined for an NHL record 419 PIMs in a game when a legitimate enforcer could’ve squared up with anyone on the ice. Neil had seasons of 231 PIM and 141 PIMs under his belt, but he fought Radovan Somik, a journeyman Czech player in his only career NHL fight.
Philadelphia fans were never going to focus their thirst for Ottawa blood on a player like Daniel Alfredsson, so Neil became the target. He ended up sticking around in Ottawa through the 2016-17 season, an impressive tenure uncommon for enforcers. The Senators even retired his number in April 2023.
Would the most passionate fan base in North American sports have felt differently if these eight players wore the colors of their beloved Flyers? Most likely. Do they have hate for them outside the sport of hockey? They shouldn’t. NHL players follow respectful etiquette with their ability to leave conflicts on the ice. It’s the entire reason for a playoff handshake. Fans should feel the same way. However, when an opposing player gives the Flyers a run for their money, Philadelphia fans will never take it kindly.
