The Flyers are in a bad spot. We know this; it is not breaking news. Frequently, in the NHL’s salary cap era, one of the best ways to build a successful franchise is to start from the bottom. You build a foundation, then you build a first floor, then you build a second floor, then you tinker around the edges of your house until its exactly the way you want it. Then you win a Stanley Cup. It’s not always as easy as that, and it’s certainly much easier said than done.
The Flyers have been at a point where it seems like everyone can agree that they need to start again from the bottom. Tear it down and start again. But everything that Chuck Fletcher did in his reign as the Flyers’ general manager had been with an eye towards getting immediately more competitive. It seems like somebody upstairs had decided that the Philadelphia Flyers would not be rebuilding. They would not bottom out and would continue grasping towards competitiveness no matter how far away they were from it.
I’ve been wondering why the Flyers management—whoever it was giving this kind of directive—didn’t think that Flyers fans would accept a rebuild. And I think I’d like to start with the stereotype of a Philly sports fan from the outside. Other sports fans think of Philly fans as rabid, passionate, harsh, and stupid. Lugheads who throw things and get in fights and yell “shoot!” and don’t understand the sport they’re rooting for so much as they just understand that they want to win at it. We, of course, know this isn’t necessarily true. Throw things and get in fights? Yeah, maybe. Yell dumb things at the athletes or opposing fans? Sure, sometimes. But don’t understand the sport? No.
Philly fans are smart. We know this. It doesn’t matter if anybody else reading this doesn’t think so. Fuck them. Philly fans are smart enough to know that sometimes you need to take a step back to take two forward. After all, look around the parking lot:
- After the late-aughts Cliff Lee, Chase Utley Phillies era ended, they went nine seasons at or below .500 and missed the playoffs in 10 consecutive seasons. This year’s Red October was the culmination of that rebuild, and the Flyers would kill to have the eyes of the region on them the way the Bank did. And now they’ve added this offseason and are one of the most exciting teams in baseball coming into 2023.
- The Eagles won the Super Bowl just five years ago and since then they saw the need for a rebuild, committed to it, fired their coach, drafted a new quarterback, and they were already back in the big game. Now, it’s easier to maneuver around bad contracts in the NFL, and Howie Roseman certainly had a little leeway with that first Super Bowl win on his resume. But the Eagles were the best team in the NFL this year and were just a holding call or a fumble away from winning again.
- And then there’s the Sixers. The Sixers seemingly tanked harder than any other sports franchise ever has. They became famous for how hard they were trying to be bad. They tried so hard to be bad that the league got mad at them. I remember some years in the middle of the last decade where Sixers tickets were cheaper than a soda at a Sixers game. They had three consecutive seasons where they won less than 20 games. In an 82-game season. And now? They’re as popular as they’ve ever been in my lifetime, they’ve got superstar players, and they’re consistent contenders.
Philly fans are rabid, passionate, and harsh. But they’re not stupid. They understand that some good things require patience. Will they display that patience in the form of words? Probably not. But they will display it in the form of something else—their loyalty. Philly fans above all that other stuff are loyal. They’ll always be there and when it seems like they’re not—they’ll come back. Flyers attendance has dipped recently not necessarily because the Flyers are bad, but because they’ve been bad for an extended period of time while trying to be good. It’s not just mediocrity, it’s mediocrity combined with apathy. It’s almost like someone with some kind of control over the Flyers thinks the worst of Flyers fans—thinks they’re rabid, passionate, harsh, and stupid. The people who were running the Flyers think we’re stupid. Maybe that was Dave Scott and that will change with Dan Hilferty. Maybe it was Fletcher and that will change with Dan Briere. Maybe it was somebody higher than that and it won’t change.
In the current search for a new President of Hockey Operations and a permanent General Manager, there is a laundry list of qualifications: understands hockey, knows how to navigate the salary cap, is good at negotiating, embraces new and unique ways of thinking. I’d like to add to the list, though: understands and respects the Philly fans. Because it’s a lot harder to say “fuck you” to the outsiders who think the worst of us when they’re the ones running the team.
