48 Hours with Ed Snider

Last Monday, Comcast-Spectacor chairman Ed Snider was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame, one of the many milestones in his decades-long career in hockey. In the days surrounding Snider's induction, held this year in Chicago, the 78-year-old Snider talked with SportsWeek about his life, his legacy, his love of his plane's landing-gear cam, among other things. Here's a behind-the-scenes look at a man who - love him or hate him - has built one of the most iconic franchises, and successful businesses, in professional sports.

The blacked-out window of the white Cadillac Escalade descends, and a hand emerges to punch in a four-digit code. The gate opens to a well-guarded compound in the marshlands on the backside of Philadelphia International Airport.

The Escalade glides through an airplane hangar, where two jets - one of which jockeys Comcast executives Ralph and Brian Roberts around the world - sit. The SUV stops at the foot of a Gulfstream V wrapped in orange and black striping, an aircraft that looks less like a business jet than it does a sky-bound sanctuary.

Minutes later, 14,970 pounds of thrust push its 12 passengers back into their leather seats as the planes climbs the sky. There are no security lines, no bag checks, and no need for identification. This is what it feels like to be the owner of the Philadelphia Flyers.

10:24 a.m.: After the plane climbs to 41,000 feet, Ed Snider, chairman of Comcast Spectacor - owner of the Philadelphia Flyers, the Wells Fargo Center, Comcast SportsNet and Global Spectrum - unbuckles his gold-plated seatbelt and invites me to the cockpit for a tour. There, pilot Chris Matte, who has flown Snider for seven years, is guiding the plane. To his right, first officer Norby monitors an electronic panel to avoid a collision.

Commuting between his homes in Gladwyne and Montecito, Calif., where Oprah Winfrey is a neighbor, Snider spends about 200 hours in the air each year. Equipped with wireless Internet, a shower, and a flight attendant, the plane pairs the performance of a Ferrari with the luxury of a Rolls Royce. It can fly from California to Europe without refueling and has a ceiling of 51,000 feet, allowing it to fly nearly 2 miles above commercial traffic, where you can see the curvature of the Earth.

Snider traded in his old plane, a Gulfstream IV, for this 2001-built model, which runs about $40 million new. Before he took possession in November, he had the interior tailored to his specifications, with a Flyers logo painted on the tail. "It's got all of the latest and greatest avionics," Snider says. "I was able to put this together the way I wanted to do it. Pretty cool, huh?"

10:38 a.m.: Back in his captain's chair, Snider swivels to face me. His ride is as singular as his status among professional sports owners. Out of 122 teams in the four major pro sports, just five have longer-serving owners than Snider. He is now one of the rare sports owners who - like the recently deceased Al Davis with the Oakland Raiders or Art Rooney with the Steelers - made his money from the team he owns. Today, pro sports is a big-boys club that requires deep pockets to buy-in.

"Everything that I have has come through the Flyers and the Spectrum," Snider says. "Most guys make their money somewhere else and lose money in sports. It's very difficult in sports today to make money because of the incredible salaries that these players get. You can't come and buy a team and make your living that way anymore."

Everything is bigger in today's NHL. A journeyman player makes more in a single season than Snider paid the league in expansion fees in 1967. "That first season we grossed $950,000 in ticket sales," he says. "Now, we gross $1.2 million in ticket sales in a single home game."

But it is not ticket prices that allow Snider the luxuries he enjoys today. More than 30 years ago, he founded Spectacor Management Group, the largest arena-management firm in the world. He sold it in 1997 and two years later created Global Spectrum, a competitor in the same field. The company now manages more than 90 buildings around the world, with interests in television, ticketing and food service. The company's concessionaire, Ovations Food Services, rakes in $200 million a year in revenue. "I haven't gone out and built a widget factory," Snider says. "I've only stuck with what we know how to do well, and then we've expanded it."

In 2000, Snider turned over the bulk of the day-to-day operations of Global Spectrum to president and chief operating officer Peter Luukko, who is sitting in the back of the plane next to Flyers' GM Paul Holmgren. Luukko believes that given the economics of sports today, there will never be another person with a career like Snider's. "Without extreme wealth, it would be nearly impossible for an individual to step in and alter the landscape as Ed has done," Luukko says.

10:54 a.m.: Snider's daughter Lindy, 53, sits in front of him on the flight. One of her most vivid memories of her father's run as the Flyers' president - aside from the two Stanley Cups - is a picture she drew as a first-grader. "It said: 'My mom is really pretty. My mom is really nice,' " she recalls. "Then it said: 'My daddy is really handsome. My daddy's face turns purple when the Flyers lose a game.' "

She knew not to ask him for a raise in allowance, or anything else, unless it was after a win. Now, Lindy says, the whole family is superstitious, all because of her father. "If you're sitting somewhere and score, you're staying there," she explains. "One time, they locked me in the bathroom because we had scored a goal when I was in there. You cannot change your seat. It's what you wear. If you're on the escalator, you better go back to the escalator. It's an entire culture, and now it's been passed to our kids. That's how seriously he takes winning."

11:26 a.m.: As the tree-lined streets of Chicago slowly come into focus below, the flight attendant walks through the cabin offering an assortment of mints, chewing gum and candy. The monitors in front of Snider flick back to his favorite part of the flight - watching the landing-gear camera - for the final approach to Midway Airport. Then, with a thud, the landing gear touches down. After the plane taxis to its parking spot, the door opens and the stairs descend. A limousine bus is parked just steps away.

12:57 p.m.: Snider is never late, and even after a plane ride and a 30-minute drive into downtown Chicago, he and his entourage stroll into the swank Catch-35 seafood restaurant on Wacker Drive a couple of minutes before their 1 p.m. reservation.

Snider is hungry. After perusing the restaurant's gluten-free menu - Snider suffers from celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder caused by a reaction to the protein found in wheat - he wants to order. "I think we're all good to go," Snider says to the waitress.

"I will give you guys a few more minutes," she replies.

Snider sighs.

3:35 p.m.: Snider is due back in the Renaissance Chicago Downtown hotel for a 3:40 pm. media availability. In the hallway of the hotel, he's stopped by fellow Hall of Fame inductee Chris Chelios, the former longtime defenseman for the Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings. Chelios' respect for Snider is common among NHL veterans, for both the team's longstanding competitive record and their first-class treatment of players.

Yet Snider's relationship with Philadelphia fans is complex. In most cities, an owner who has delivered 15 division titles, eight trips to the Stanley Cup Finals, and two championships might expect a statue to be erected in his honor. In Philly, though, Snider is often perceived as an imperious hard-ass, one who neglected his NBA franchise while trumpeting the history of a team that hasn't won a title in 36 years.

"I'm not really sure why he gets a bad rap sometimes," said son Jay, who served as president of the Flyers from 1983-94, and who flew in for the Hall of Fame event from his home in California. "I can tell you that there is not an owner in sports who cares more about winning."

Jay points to the Flyers' payroll in 2003-04, last full-season before the yearlong NHL work stoppage, when the Flyers paid their players a reported $72 million. This season the NHL salary cap is $64.5 million.

3:52 p.m.: At the media event, Snider is asked the first of many questions about what he has described as his lasting legacy in Philadelphia, the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation. Last month work was completed on refurbishing and enclosing three city rinks with the help of a $6.5 million donation and matching grant from the commonwealth and city.

The rinks will help balloon the program from its current capacity of 2,500 kids to upwards of 10,000 participants, all of whom are able to receive after-school tutoring, mentoring, hockey equipment and ice time, for free. The only requirement is steady attendance in school and improving grades. The program is one of the reasons for Snider's induction into the Hall. "It gives me a tremendous amount of satisfaction," Snider says. "A lot of these kids don't have a heck of a lot. Just to see how they respond and appreciate these opportunities, to see parents stop me and tell me what a godsend it is for their child means everything."