Meltzer's Musings: Teams Of Your Heart January 17, 2017, 6:51 AM ET [493 Comments] Bill Meltzer

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By my recollection, there were about a half-dozen times in my childhood that I was so broken-hearted over the result of a sporting event that I cried.



I remember crying as my beloved Philadelphia Flyers, with neither Bernie Parent nor Rick MacLeish available to play, were dethroned as two-time defending Stanley Cup champions by the Montreal Canadiens in 1976. Then there was a very rainy October night in 1977 when the Philadelphia Phillies lost the deciding game of the National League Championship series to the Los Angeles Dodgers.



In 1980, I wore my trusty Bobby Clarke shirt on the afternoon of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final. Bobby Nystrom's overtime goal -- which I still have difficulty watching to this day without averting my eyes -- ended what had been a magical ride for the Flyers through a 35-game unbeaten streak in the regular season and a playoff run where it had felt until the bitter end that everything would work out well in the end.



After the tears subsided, the rage set in recalled Denis Potvin's high-sticked goal and the blatantly offside play that linesman Leon Stickle missed before Duane Sutter scored in the first period. I marched upstairs to my bedroom, flung a stack of hockey cards with Islanders players then went to the basement of the house and blasted around a plastic Mylec street hockey ball (and probably muttering curse words that would get me in trouble if heard upstairs).



About a year late, I got teary about a little league baseball game in which I made the final out with the tying and winning runs on base, swinging and missing at a final pitch nowhere near the strike zone. I felt like I'd let everyone down. My coach, Mr. Schafer, gave me a pat on the back and then my mom consoled me in the car. Oddly enough, I also recall that the first inning of a Phillies game was on the radio and Steve Carlton recorded a milestone strikeout. I felt better quickly.



The ones that stung most of all, though, were the Flyers teams of the mid-1980s. How I loved those teams.



The Broad Street Bullies era Flyers, to my childhood self, were like superheroes of a sort. I idolized Clarke and Parent above all but I considered each and every player on the team, even the role players, to be somehow larger-than-life. By the 1980s, my teenage years, I fundamentally understood that pro athletes were as human as the rest of us (the sickeningly senseless death of Pelle Lindbergh further hammered home that lesson).



I often tell people that while Bob(by) Clarke was my greatest sports idol, Mark Howe was my all-time favorite player. I had a much better understanding of the game's nuances and that even the "worst" players in the NHL were, in fact, outstanding hockey players compared to most everyone else.



In Howe's case, I marveled at his abilities in every aspect of the game. He made very difficult plays look easy and, even more importantly, routinely executed the routine plays with surgical precision. He was a complete package of hockey smarts as well as skill, and I loved his competitive yet usually calm demeanor. It was only retrospectively that I understood specifically why Clarke was such a great all-around player and a leader. With Howe, I had an understanding that I was watching something special and rare. Hell, this was a star winger who, at age 25, made a tough positional switch to defense and merely became not just the best blueliner on his team but a three-time Norris Trophy finalist with outstanding two-way presence.



It wasn't just Howe that I loved to watch play, though. It was the entire Flyers team. The smarts and heart of Dave Poulin, Ron Sutter and Brad Marsh. The sublime goaltending talents of Lindbergh and Ron Hextall (and even the underappreciated Bob Froese). The bullish strength and soft hands of Tim Kerr. The eternally underrated all-around abilities of Murray Craven. The speed and pure-goal scoring abilities of Brian Propp and Ilkka Sinisalo, including the fear instilled as shorthanded scoring threates. The enthusiasm and productivity of Peter Zezel. The playmaking talents and smooth skating of little Pelle Eklund (who first arrived for the 1985-86 season). The pugnacity and year-by-year goal-scoring emergence of Rick Tocchet. The shutdown abilities and underrated puck skills of Brad McCrimmon. The fisticuffs success and underrated board work of Dave Brown. The defensive reliability of Derrick Smith.



I'll say it again: I l-o-v-e-d those 1980s Flyers teams. They had a lot of quality players All-Star caliber talents and one future Hall of Famer in Howe -- but it was really how they gelled as more than the sum of their parts that truly moved and inspired me. As much as the players hated Mike Keenan, the head coach and the excellent assistant coaches he had consciously assembled to build players back up after he'd tore them down. E.J. McGuire, Ted Sator and a by-now-retired Paul Holmgren were all very good at what they did.



When the Flyers, the youngest team in the NHL, surprised the league in 1984-85 by compiling the league's top record in the regular season and then reaching the Stanley Cup Final, it was disappointing to lose in five games to the otherworldly Edmonton Oilers. It wasn't devastating, though. Lindbergh, who had tried to play through torn quadriceps in the Final but eventually had to sit out the fifth game, won the Vezina Trophy that year and there was a feeling that he and the team would just keep getting better from there. The disappointment of getting blown out in the Cup-clinching game went away quickly. The Hall of Famer laden Oilers, whom the Flyers usually handled well in the regular season. weren't going to be denied in the Final.



The next two seasons were a roller coaster of emotions. There was a pall over the remainder of the 1985-86 campaign after Lindbergh's death. The team, which found strength by channeling into unity and relentlessly pushed even harder by Keenan to the point that the locker room leaders were already hard at work to keep the group playing for one another rather than quitting on the head coach, was emotionally spent by the first round of the playoffs. Even then, it took a spectacular first-round series by Rangers goalie John Vanbiesbrouck to steal two games New York had no business winning to send the Flyers to an early summer.



By 1986-87, when the Flyers overcame all sorts of adversity and came so achingly close to winning the Cup -- losing in overtime in Game 2 and being right in the hunt in Game 7 until late in the third period -- the team truly deserved to lift the Stanley Cup and join their predecessors of the 1970s. The dynastic Oilers had better talent, yes, and still had enough hunger to capture another Cup after going home too early the previous spring. But this Flyers team was as collectively lion-hearted as any team I have ever seen, before or since and that includes even the back-to-back Cup teams that went to three straight Cup Finals. They wanted it even more than Edmonton; no price was too high to pay. Moreover, rookie goalie Hextall had what proved to be his career year.



The dream died with 2:34 left in the third period of Game 7 when Glen Anderson gave Edmonton an insurance goal. As the seconds ticked too low for the Flyers to pull off one more big rally the way they had in Games 5 and 6, I felt the tears started to roll down my cheeks.



Without even knowing all the behind-the-scenes tempests going on in the locker room, I think a part of me already sensed that the Stanley Cup window for these teams that I loved so dearly was already closing. It didn't feel like there'd be a "next year" where every single element of a champion would be in place. The run to Game 6 of the Wales Conference Final in 1989 under Holmgren was an unexpected last hurrah for the nucleus of those Keenan teams, but it always felt like that run would eventually fall a bit short of the Cup after a so-so regular season.



I have never been sadder, truly devastated, by a sporting event than during the waning minutes of Game 7 of the 1987 Final. It wasn't supposed to end with the Oilers' glamour boys celebrating. The pain lasted for a couple days.



Then, to my amazement, my melancholy was replaced by another feeling: tremendous pride in what the team of my heart had accomplished. The outcome of Game 7 didn't change or dampen how I felt about that Flyers team, especially after all they'd been through (right along with their fans, I might add) for three seasons. Keenan's kiddie corps had grown up before our eyes. I could not have been any prouder even if they had somehow pulled out one more win in Game 7.



I've never again cried about a sports event. That doesn't mean I haven't agonized emotionally. The final Flyers teams that I followed as just a fan -- before ever getting pressbox access and following a long and winding road from hockey writing hobbyist to professional -- were the 1990s squads. I loved the Terry Murray era teams, too, and nearly as much as I did the teams of the '80s but nearly is the operative word. I really wanted to see them capture a Stanley Cup but it didn't feel shattering when they came up a bit short.



To me, while Bob Clarke will always be the ultimate Flyer and the top captain in franchise history, Poulin is right there, too. His erudite intellect and gentlemanly off-ice demeanor were what often struck people, but Poulin was a steel-willed competitor and stickler for accountability. In fact, the internal leadership group of the mid-1980s teams, with players such Marsh and Sutter, was as strong as I've ever seen. At least after his first year with a young and inexperienced team. Keenan need not have cracked the whip as often as he did because there was already an internal leadership group in place that would not accept anything but each other's best.



Fast forward to the postgame locker room after the 50th Anniversary Alumni Game. Walking in there and seeing players, quite literally, from every generation of Flyers history in very close proximity -- unlike the cavernous Phillies clubhouse that served as the home side locker room at the 2012 Winter Classic at Citizen Bank Park and unlike the big party setting that was the Golden Anniversary Reception the previous night -- was an unbelievable feeling. It took me a second or two to snap into "reporter" mode.



At one point, I asked Poulin about what he thought made the Flyers and the Philadelphia market unique in his mind, and also about the makeup of the teams of his era and why they went as far as they did. He went on to eloquently discuss each of the elements he felt were essential and distinctive, including taking pride in being the next generation after the Broad Street Bullies teams. He also talked about how it was hard this weekend not to pause and think about the guys like Lindbergh, Zezel, McCrimmon and McGuire, among a few others, who have since passed away.



Poulin concluded by saying something that filled my heart with joy, given how strongly I felt (and still do) about those 1980s teams.



"Fred Shero very famously wrote, 'Win today and we walk together forever' before the Flyers won their first Stanley Cup. To me, our group walks together forever, too, at least in my mind," he said.



I feel exactly the same. It's why I'd seethe when people justified Mark Howe's long wait for the Hockey Hall of Fame with "well, he never won the Stanley Cup" or when people deem every Flyers team since 1974-75 as a failure in way or another. One close loss, especially in Game 7 the Stanley Cup Final, does not render a team a failure.



Most folks who followed the Flyers closely in the mid-80s would likely agree with Poulin's view, and mine. It's also understandable why there was so much focus on the LCB Line playing its final Alumni game together in the 50th Anniversary Game and for the first on-ice reunion of the fully intact Legion of Doom. But what got underplayed, at least in my view, was that the trio of Propp (barely a year-and-a-half removed from a stroke), Poulin and Kerr (playing in his first-ever Alumni Game) was also back together.



The other day, a well-meaning article in one of the Philly newspapers said that the '70s and 90s teams and specifically Clarke and Eric Lindros spearheaded the most two successful eras of Flyers hockey. I felt some of the old fire build up inside. Those overachieving 80s teams, with their two Cup Finals trips -- and four combined wins between the two series -- and their 323 regular season points from 1984-85 through 1986-87, deserved to be recognized above the '90s teams and Poulin recognized as a spectacularly effective captain who'd have been the best in most any franchise that hadn't already had been blessed with Bob Clarke wearing the C.



I loved the 90s teams, too. They also had most of the elements of a champion but, in retrospect, they were perhaps one additional two-way defenseman away, a tad too inconsistent in goal and a little more fragile mentally at times than they should have been.



Those Flyers probably should have at least reached the Cup Final in 1995-96. In the second round, the neutral zone trapping, frequent icings and extreme clutch-and-grab tactics by the underdog Florida Panthers plus strong goaltending by Vanbiesbrouck frustrated the heavily favored Flyers more than it should have. The Flyers seemingly had the series under control after Game 3, lost in OT in Game 4 with a chance to take a three games to one edge, and then started to play like a mentally shaken club. The next year, despite being most pundits' pick to defeat the Red Wings in the Final, the Flyers were not as deep or well-balanced as the eventual champs. However, Philly was plenty good enough to push the Wings to a six-game or seven-game series. They didn't, getting swept.



The fatal flaw of the 90s teams was its tendency for whatever reason to let negativity creep into its mindset when any significant adversity hit. That's painful to admit to myself, because it always felt like they would eventually pull everything together and go all the way. It just didn't happen. Even the 1997 run to the Final was fairly adversity-free in the postseason -- never trailing in any series, never needing to go more than five games -- until the Flyers ran into the Red Wings in the Final.



The thing that made both the 70s and 80s teams (as well as the 2003-04 and 2009-10 squads) stand out was how they picked themselves up whenever knocked down and then plowed forward with even more collective determination than before. The 90s teams were not devoid of heart nor are some of the more recent teams, but the indomitable spirit of the Shero and Keenan era teams was their greatest shared trait.



Final anecdote: I covered the 2010 Stanley Cup Final jointly with HockeyBuzz and the former Versus.com. It was quite the odd experience in that any legitimate sports journalist must separate personal rooting interests from one's coverage. Yes, I wanted the Flyers to beat Chicago but as soon as Patrick Kane scored his bizarre Cup winning and the handshake line was ongoing, my first thoughts were on getting down to the event level. I was on the ice during the Blackhawks' post-victory skate with the Cup celebration. I was in the mortuary-like Flyers post game locker room, and experienced the stark contrast of emotions. Then I focused on getting blogs done for Versus and here for HockeyBuzz before I left the building.



I went back to the house, crashed for a few hours and woke up to the realization that I would not be flying to Chicago for Game 7. Then the Flyers fan in me kicked right back in. I wasn't relieved not to have to travel and scramble around to cover one final game. I'd have gladly done it. The season being over was a lousy, empty feeling that continued through locker cleanout day and a flight to Texas.



There were, however, no tears.