Since R.J. Umberger left Philadelphia in 2008, much has been written about the Flyers tattoo that sits permanently on his leg.
PRETTY AWKWARD HUH DUDE THAT FLYERS TATTOO YOU HAVE ON YOUR LEG. ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Yeah, he doesn’t have a Flyers tattoo.
Fyi everyone this is not true, please stop with this!! RT @J_Spence928: @Umby18 I heard you have a flyers tattoo guy??
— RJ Umberger (@Umby18) July 18, 2013
How’d this happen? Well, the rumors started back in ’08 when then-head coach Ken Hitchcock figuratively said that Umberger had a Flyers tattoo. It was published by the Delaware County Times more than once…
So, he traded Umberger to Columbus for a draft pick one month after Umberger got a tattoo of the Flyers logo, thinking he would be a part of the core for a long time to come.
And who knows, maybe one day when he’s a free agent, this organization will bring him back. Because he always wanted to be a Flyer for the rest of his career. He has a tattoo of the logo to prove it. And he is a model of what a class act is in the sport of hockey.
And in the Philadelphia Daily News at least once:
But it never happened. He doesn’t have a Flyers tattoo on his leg. The Columbus Dispatch has corrected the mistake several times, including this article in 2010, published a few months after those articles in the Philly papers.
There were questions about his “Flyer tattoo.” The ink-free Umberger had no clue what people were talking about until he learned Ken Hitchcock, who coached him in Philadelphia and Columbus, had unwittingly created the confusion. Speaking metaphorically, Hitchcock alluded to the tattoos worn by gritty former Flyers such as Umberger, but several Philadelphia reporters took it literally and wrote about it.
“I still take crap about that,” he said, laughing.
That never seemed to take hold amongst Flyers fans though … probably because we have no business reading the Columbus Dispatch. But let’s let the record show: R.J. Umberger does not have a Flyers tattoo inked into his body.
