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It was 50 years ago the Flyers came to Philly

Fifty years ago Tuesday, Ed Snider, Jerry Wolman and others brought an NHL expansion team to Philadelphia. The Snider-Wolman relationship didn't last long. The Flyers? Their relationship with fans grew as they became one of the league's elite franchises.

Ed Snider in March 1980,
Ed Snider in March 1980,Read more

Fifty years ago Tuesday, Ed Snider, Jerry Wolman and others brought an NHL expansion team to Philadelphia. The Snider-Wolman relationship didn't last long. The Flyers? Their relationship with fans grew as they became one of the league's elite franchises.

You could look it up.

Since their first season in 1967-68 - a year after the franchise was awarded - the Flyers have a 1,877-1,304-588 record, a winning percentage of .576.

Only the Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins have a better winning percentage in that span (both at .601), according to the Elias Sport Bureau.

That's not to suggest the Flyers have been the league's third-best team over the years. They have won just two Stanley Cups - the last in 1975 - since the franchise was awarded.

Still, their record, and their trips to the Stanley Cup Finals (eight) make the Flyers one of the NHL's premier franchises in the last five decades. Since the Flyers' birth, only Montreal (11) and Boston (nine) have made more appearances in the finals.

"It feels like it was just yesterday when the National Hockey League awarded us an expansion franchise," Snider said in an email. "In our first season, the Hockey News thought we would be the team least likely to succeed, but were they ever wrong!"

Snider said sharing the franchise's great moments with the players, Spectrum/Wells Fargo Center workers and fans "have made our first 50 years so incredible. Together we truly have something special."

When the Flyers paid $2 million and were awarded an expansion franchise in 1966, the NHL went from six teams to 12. That was the first stage of the league's massive growth. Today the NHL has 30 teams, and more (Las Vegas? Seattle? Quebec City?) could be added in the near future.

Years ago, Snider was in the record business when a friend of his took him to Madison Square Garden to watch the Rangers play the Canadiens.

He became hooked. A seed had been planted.

"The greatest spectator sport I had ever seen," he said.

Together with Wolman, they got the Spectrum built for $12 million in a little more than a year. They were taking a risk. Philadelphia had not been enamored with minor-league hockey in the past, and no one knew if there was enough interest to support an NHL team. The Flyers, who usually fill the Wells Fargo Center these days, were not an easy sell at the time.

General manager Bud Poile and coach Keith Allen did a masterful job in the expansion draft, selecting players such as goalies Bernie Parent and Doug Favell, defensemen Joe Watson and Ed Van Impe, and right winger Gary Dornhoefer. (Sidebar: While at his offseason job in British Columbia in 1967, Watson left work early because he was upset to learn the Flyers had selected him in the expansion draft. He had been playing on a Boston defense with his best friend, Bobby Orr, and was coming off a solid season - and he didn't want to leave the Bruins.)

In their first year, the Flyers' roster was better than most of the other expansion teams, which were located in St. Louis, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, and Los Angeles.

The fans, however, greeted the team with indifference. When the Flyers were getting ready to play in 1967, the city held a downtown parade in their honor. Players were placed in convertibles that drove down Broad Street in Center City.

"There were more people in the parade than there were people watching it," Watson cracked.

Watson, now a senior account executive for the Wells Fargo Center's advertising department, was one of many connected to the organization who wondered if Philadelphia would support an NHL team in 1967. Only 7,812 fans showed up for their home opener, a 1-0 win over Pittsburgh, with Bill Sutherland scoring the goal and Favell making 17 saves.

But before long, the crowds grew. And grew. And then came the glory days of the mid-1970s, when the Flyers, known as the Broad Street Bullies, became despised around the league for their pugnacious play - and made Philadelphia the center of the hockey world as they won consecutive Stanley Cups.

The Flyers owned the city as they became the first expansion team to win the Cup, capturing the championship by stunning Watson's old Boston team in the 1974 finals. In just seven years after they were formed, they were NHL kings. They won another Cup in 1975, but have been 0 for 6 in finals since that victory in Buffalo.

There were plenty of other highlights, including the 1976 win over the Soviet Red Army, and the 35-game unbeaten streak in 1979-80.

There has also been plenty of heartache over the years: Finals losses; part of the roof blowing off the Spectrum late in the 1967-68 season, causing the team to play "home" games in New York, Toronto and Quebec City; the Flyers losing a playoff berth in 1972 when Buffalo's Gerry Meehan scored with four seconds left in the regular season; and the team compiling the league's worst record (22-48-12) in 2006-07.

But the good has outweighed the bad. By far. And you could make a strong case for calling the Flyers the city's most successful sports franchise over the last half-century, fulfilling the dreams of the visionary Snider.

scarchidi@phillynews.com

@BroadStBull

www.philly.com/flyersblog