The Flyers won’t give away orange tshirts at a playoff game when they take on the Rangers in Game 4 on Friday night. This is very rare.
Instead, there will be rally towels. They have the dumb #ClutchTime hashtag on them. But no shirts.
A closer look at the rally towels all fans will receive at tonight’s Game 4. #ClutchTime pic.twitter.com/A8v1SfkHZF
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) April 25, 2014
This, in a word, sucks. A brief history of the Flyers handing out orange tshirts to everybody:
- It started in the 2004 Eastern Conference Finals vs. Tampa Bay. The team handed out “Orange Crush” and “Crush Tampa” shirts to every fan at every home game that series, and it was the first time the crowd was fully decked out in orange. It was awesome. This happened. Then the Flyers lost Game 7 and the lockout happened.
- The first game back out of the lockout, the home opener of the 2005-06 season, the tshirts were back. They said “Back Where We Belong” and they were cool. The shirts were off an on in that series — Game 3 had ’em, but Game 4 and Game 6 did not. The Flyers lost to the Sabres in the Conference Quarterfinals.
- In 2006-07, the Flyers missed the playoffs for the first time in basically forever. So no shirts.
- The Flyers returned to the postseason during the 2007-08 season. They beat the Capitals in the Quarterfinals in seven games, then beat Montreal in five. They lost to Pittsburgh in the Conference Finals, but for all but two games, the orange shirts were there.
- It’s an early-round, second home game thing that the Flyers don’t give away the shirts: in 2008, 2009 and 2010, they avoided giving out shirts at the second home game of the first and second rounds. But that doesn’t make it right. Look at highlights from any of those games and … it’s just weird.
They fixed this in 2011 and 2012 — giving away shirts at all home playoff games those years — but they’re going back on their old ways tonight. It’s not cool.
So you’re not getting a free shirt tonight, Flyers fans. You’re getting a nice rally towel, and that’s fine. But make sure you wear your own orange, because a playoff game at the Wells Fargo Center that’s not glowing orange looks pretty weird.
