Broad Street Bully: Combat couldn't stop this die-hard
GETTING PUMPED for today's start of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Bruins, Broad Street Bully's spirits soared at the sight of mini-fan Mia Clark, rocking Flyers gear at the tender age of 7 months.
GETTING PUMPED for today's start of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Bruins, Broad Street Bully's spirits soared at the sight of mini-fan Mia Clark, rocking Flyers gear at the tender age of 7 months.
The photo came from Mia's mom, Karen Clark, a Vineland, N.J., native now living in Virginia Beach, Va. Clark served as a Navy nurse in Al Asad, Iraq, in 2004, and decorated the shock-trauma area with Flyers towels, posters, and game stories her dad sent from Philly newspapers.
"I kid you not," she wrote, "I would wake up at 3 a.m., go to the Internet tent and hit the 'refresh' button over and over again until the end of the game.
"That's how I 'watched' every Flyers game from February until the end of the Tampa Bay series [when the Flyers lost the Eastern Conference Finals to the Lightning in a Game 7 heartbreaker]. So Mia has no choice but to be a die-hard as well!"
Clark admits to being "really superstitious - a little too much at times. Mia wore her Flyers shirt for Game 6 against Buffalo, and we won, so she had to sleep in the same shirt for Game 7."
Holy Pronger! It worked! Whatever you do, Karen, don't wash that shirt! It's the Mia Power Play we need to beat the Bruins!
FLYERED UP IN LONDON: Longtime SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney told Broad Street Bully that his son James, 21, "a beyond-fanatical Flyers fan" studying at University College London, was watching the Game 6 nail-biter vs. Buffalo at a pub when the unthinkable happened.
"James found this pub, owned by Canadians, that has live NHL games on its TV," Maloney said. "He was in heaven, watching Game 6 live. Well, by law, London pubs close at 11 p.m. [our time - which is 4 a.m. in England]."
The clock struck 11 as the third period ended, 4-4. "Off went the pub's TV," Maloney said, "and everyone was ushered out into the street - unable to watch sudden-death overtime."
After missing the Flyers' winning goal, "it took a long time for James' blood pressure to return to normal," Maloney said.
"As a young boy, James was a very timid, chubby guy," Maloney said. "We signed him up for youth hockey in Aston, Delaware County, where, to our amazement, once he donned his gear and got on the ice, he became ferociously competitive. He wasn't the most talented player, but he was all heart and worked fanatically."
Sounds to Broad Street Bully as if the kid was a Flyers-style blue-collar grinder, eh?
Maloney remembers being a young reporter at KYW back in the '70s, doing fan stories during both of the Flyers' Stanley Cup championship runs at the Spectrum.
"My ears are still ringing from the crowd noise," he said fondly. "And the place was so filled with cigarette smoke, you could barely see across the arena."
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