FLYERS FANS SALUTE NO. 88
Lindros was — and still is — a big deal in Philadelphia as team retires his number
Over in the arena bar with a viewing window of the rink below, a couple of patrons were watching the Philadelphia Flyers lose 5-1 to the New York Rangers on Tuesday night, while lamenting the team’s need for a big No. 1 centre.
It’s been a while since they had one, they concluded. Claude Giroux came close before he was moved to the wing. Mike Richards and Daniel Briere were both good in their own right, but they lacked the necessary size. Keith Primeau was certainly big enough, but he lacked the offensive skill set.
Like the team’s ongoing search for a No. 1 goalie, you have to go back more than a decade to find a centre who blended both skill and size and everything else into one. You have to go back to Eric Lindros.
“There has not been a player before or after him like that,” said 47-year-old Eric Berkey of Johnstown, Pa., who was wearing a Flyers toque and a black Lindros jersey. “He’s a legend.”
The legend, who held a “Skate with 88” event in a suburb of Philadelphia earlier this week, will have his famed No. 88 jersey retired by the Flyers before Thursday night’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs in a ceremony most agree is a long time coming.
Lindros spent only eight years in a Flyers jersey. But for fans, they were an important eight years. From 1992 to 2000, the Big E was a big deal in Philadelphia. He scored 40 or more goals four times, won a Hart Trophy as league MVP and led the Flyers to the Stanley Cup final. He might not have always been the best player in the league, but he certainly was the most physically imposing.
“He was the total package,” said 47-year-old Rich Georg of Somerset, Pa. “Skilled. Ferocious. He was scary to play against, not just physically but on the score sheet.”
Georg still has the ticket and the newspaper clipping from the first time he saw Lindros fight as a 19-year-old rookie in November 1992. “Lindros Pounds St. Louis,” was the headline in the Philadelphia Examiner the following day.
“I think it was Lee Norwood that he beat the hell out of,” Georg said. “In the article, Lee Norwood said he’d wrestled a bear in the Pennsylvania state fair and that the bear wasn’t as strong as that kid was.”
That’s not a bad description of just how impressive Lindros was at the time. Even as a rookie, the six-foot-four, 230-pound centre was strong and mean. But it wasn’t just brute strength that struck fear into opponents. His hands were so soft and he was so skilled.
It was why Quebec drafted him first overall in 1991 and why the Flyers and Rangers were both willing to give up a boatload of prospects when Lindros sat out the year and refused to report to the Nordiques. Ultimately, an arbitrator was brought in to decide which team would win his rights.
“It was strange,” Lindros admitted. “I was watching TV and waiting for my agent to tell me where to report.”
It wasn’t just Lindros. Talk to any fan in Philadelphia and they will tell you where they were on the day the trade was announced.
“I’ll never forget it,” said Mike Kool of Philadelphia. “I was 18, I was sitting in my friend’s living room and we were listening to the radio and they were announcing whether he was going to the Flyers or the Rangers. The Eagles had lost Randall Cunningham and the Phillies were here and there. It was all about the Flyers. They were just about to explode. It was amazing.”
Lindros hadn’t been to Philadelphia before the trade. Upon his first visit, he witnessed his first celebrity sighting.
“I remember walking down the hotel hallway and we walked right by Will Smith,” he said, referring to the actor. “He was on Fresh Prince at the time.”
His memories of the city, of the team, of the years he spent in Philadelphia, are positive ones these days. He doesn’t dwell much on the injuries that slowed and ultimately stopped his career, or the nasty feuds with management over his medical care. He has turned the page.
The same goes for the fans. While Lindros was painted as a whiny baby in the press during his final days in Philadelphia, we now know enough about concussions and the severity of brain injuries to realize Lindros’ concerns about his health were more than justified.
The things he was criticized for — seeking a second opinion, questioning the care he received, not wanting to rush back — are normal in today’s NHL.
“For me, a lot of fans didn’t have any hard feelings about him,” Al Perry said.
“I didn’t, personally. I was always an 88 fan. But it’s nice to have him back, welcome him with open arms. It’s a nice, warm and fuzzy feeling.”
After the “Skate with 88” event on Tuesday night, Lindros sat down with fans and shared stories about his time in Philadelphia.
There was no talk about the feud with then-GM Bobby Clarke or whether the Game 7 hit from Scott Stevens in 2000 was illegal.
Instead, Lindros talked about why Dave Brown was the funniest teammate he had (“He used to pretend the middle aisle on a plane was a ski hill”), why Bobby Holik was the toughest player he played against (“80 per cent of the plays wouldn’t develop because of him”) and how he knew it was time to retire in 2007 (“I started looking at the clock during practice. When you’re having fun, it zips by”).
And so, with the Flyers out of a playoff position and in need of some help down the middle, a fan asked the inevitable. “Can you still play?” Lindros didn’t answer. Instead, he elicited one more belly laugh with a question of his own.
“Are you done with those chicken wings?”
He was the total package. Skilled. Ferocious. He was scary to play against, not just physically but on the score sheet.