Some of what you may know, or think you know, about the history of the NHL is wrong. We fondly label the Blackhawks, Canadiens, Rangers, Red Wings, Maple Leafs, and Bruins the "Original Six". In fact, there were other teams that, for one reason or another, didn't survive: Quebec Bulldogs, Ottawa Senators (originals), Montreal Wanderers, Hamilton Tigers, NY Americans, Pittsburgh Pirates, Montreal Maroons, and St. Louis Eagles. Most of these teams struggled in the post-WWI and Great Depression realities.
Then in the 1960s, the NHL expanded, doubled, actually. Franchises were planted in St Louis, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Oakland (which folded after moving to Ohio), and Philadelphia. Now, we are used to expansion teams pretty much sucking (although the Vegas Golden Knights have thrown a wrinkle into that) for a long time. However, with just a dozen teams, someone has to make the playoffs. The "Original Six" teams were in the Eastern Division, and the "Expansion Teams" comprised the Western Division. The way the playoffs were established, the top four teams in each division would face off in a best-of-seven series.
In their inaugural season, the Flyers captured the Western Division title with a record of 31-32-11 (73 points). However, they were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round by the St. Louis Blues in seven games. In the following season, the Blues again knocked the Flyers out of the playoffs in a four-game sweep.
And when I mean knocked out, I don't just mean they lost a playoff series. The Blues beat the tar out of Philly. St. Louis had a solid goalie in Glenn Hall, but it was the physical play of Noel Picard, Barclay Plager, and Bob Plager that decided the series in both seasons, especially in the second matchup. Philly was, in effect, bullied around; pushed aside, slammed into the ice, crashed into the boards, and punched in the face. It was reminiscent of the South Park episode where the Red Wings take on the South Park Pee Wee team.
In a famous incident, Flyers forward Claude Laforge, a 5'9" left winger, was hit from behind by Picard during a line brawl. Laforge hit the ice hard, shattering his cheekbone and eye socket while also losing five teeth. It was the last game the 31-year-old ever played. It was a year after Gary Dornhoefer broke his leg during a fight with Barclay Plager. St. Louis, in their first season, would go to the Stanley Cup Finals; something no expansion team in the first year would do again until the Golden Knights.
But someone who was not impressed was Flyers owner Ed Snider. He saw how the Blues pushed and battered his beloved Flyers around and was furious. After the Flyers got beaten into submission, he vowed that nobody would ever do that to them again. He told Bud Poile, the general manager, to start drafting and signing bigger, tougher players. The Flyers may not win, but nobody is going to beat up his team. If you are going to play the Flyers, you will have a fight on your hands.
Birth of the Bullies
In 1969-70, the Flyers had some of the players who would be critical to the success of the team during the 1970s. Ed Van Impe was the team's captain. Dornhoefer was there, as was Joe Watson and Andre Lacroix. Bernie Parent was in net, and Bobby Clarke joined the team after being drafted that season. The Flyers would just miss the playoffs, missing out on a tiebreaker, but the foundation had been laid down.
In 1970-71, the Flyers again made the playoffs, only to be knocked out in the first round by the Chicago Blackhawks (the divisions had been realigned). But now they had some bigger players around. Orest Kindrachuk and Rick MacLeish joined the team. The following year, they added Dave Schultz, Bill Clement, Don Saleski, Jimmy Watson, and Barry Ashbee. This team started to mesh well and play well. In fact, the 1971-72 season would be the last time the Flyers would miss the postseason for the next 18 years.
This team started to play with an edge. Instead of being pushed around, they started pushing other teams around. Sure, you could call them dirty. By today's standards, they most definitely were. However, by the standards in the 1970s, they were uberphysical. They took physical to a whole new level. Line brawls were common, especially if someone had leveled an extra hard hit on Clarke. You did that, there was certain to be some retaliation. To quote Rodney Dangerfield, "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out!" If you went to the Spectrum, that's pretty much exactly what you'd see. Fans couldn't get enough of it.
"The image of the fightin' Flyers spreading gradually around the NHL, and people are dreaming up wild nicknames. They're the Mean Machine, the Bullies of Broad Street, and Freddy's Philistines." Philadelphia Bulletin writer Jack Chevalier wrote after several brawls between the Flyers and the Atlanta Flames.
The nickname "Broad Street Bullies" stuck. And their fearsome reputation grew. In the 1972-73 season, the Flyers took their physical play all the way to the Stanley Cup semi-finals before being beaten by perennial Stanley Cup Final competitor Montreal Canadiens in five games.
The following season, the Flyers would win the first of two back-to-back Stanley Cups. The Canadiens would block Philly's attempt at a three-peat in 1976.
While Flyers fans were excited, the rest of the league was...well, not so much enthused. Many teams would sit their star players rather than subject them to being "abused" by the Bullies. It was called the "Philly Flu"; a mysterious 24-hour bug that affected star NHLers who happened to be playing in Philadelphia.
In their three-year stretch run for the Stanley Cup, the Flyers went a staggering 96–14–9 in 119 games at the Spectrum. You could also tell that Snider loved hoisting the Stanley Cup in front of the old guard NHL team owners. Although the NHL didn't mind when the Flyers put the beatdown on the Soviet Red Army Team in 1976, but that's a different story for a different time.
End of an Era
While many of the Bully Era players would stick around until the early 1980s, their era of dominance had ended. It wasn't that the Flyers didn't play well. Between 1976 and 1981, they would go to the playoffs five times, losing in the conference finals twice and the Stanley Cup Finals once.
The major issue was that, despite their hatred of what the Flyers had done to their teams, everyone else had seen the success that Philly's intimidating style of play had brought. Other teams began to copycat the Flyers' way. Everybody brought out fighters and instigators and goons. The Flyers were no longer the only team doing it efficiently.
So, while they weren't the first team to play physical to win games, they were the first to use it often. They became the first NHL expansion team to win the Stanley Cup. They became the inspiration for the movie Slapshot, by far the best hockey movie ever made and most definitely in the top five best sports movies.
The Broad Street Bullies also cemented this city's love affair with the Flyers. Philadelphia has a blue-collar reputation (despite all the white-collar jobs and history), and the fans just ate it up. Even today, the team is still called the Broad Street Bullies because for years afterwards, the Flyers tried to replicate, in some form or fashion, the success of those years by building teams bigger and better than everyone else.
Who knows? Maybe this current crop of Flyers could add to that legacy.
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