Another valuable connection to the past is loosened
Paul Holmgren arrived in Philadelphia two years after Fred Shero had taken a chunk of chalk and outlined the most simple yet meaningful policy any pro sports organization ever could hope to honor: “Win today, and we walk together forever.”
Arriving in Philadelphia in 1976, just after the Flyers had won their second and last Stanley Cup, Holmgren was nurtured in that belief, and he became devoted to that culture. The Flyers would be about the Flyers, about their players and their brand, about their service to their community, about blood both spilled and flowing.
He was a player. He was a fighter, the best ever produced by an organization infamous for that hockey art. He was an assistant coach and a scout and a general manager and a president. He walked, and walked, and walked. For him, though, forever all but came Thursday, when he agreed to move into an advisory position and trust the Flyers’ hockey operation to Dave Scott, Chuck Fletcher and Alain Vigneault.
With that, one more of the ties to an era begun so many decades earlier had been loosened. Ed Snider, who held it all together, was deceased. Bob Clarke, the captain turned general manager, was no longer scoring goals or making deals. Ron Hextall was fired. And though Holmgren tried to make it sound like he would still be around, his influence would be reduced, his voice muffled if resonating at all.
“I have eight grandchildren that I like,” he said, “and that I want to get to know and I want to be around.”
So he will.
And as for the Flyers, they will be led by Scott, who wound his way through the cable TV industry to the top of the organizational chart. Fletcher, around since way back in 2018, will become president of hockey operations and general manager. Vigneault, ever bouncing around the NHL with no connection to the Flyers, will be the coach.
Those guys.
Them.
“Bob Clarke is still around the organization,” Holmgren said. “Billy Barber is still around a lot. And myself. It’s not like I am going to go away.”
There will always be connections to the past, even if just by corporate decency. But hockey decisions will be trusted to others. Holmgren said he will lend his voice only when Scott makes the request. And if Scott wanted Holmgren to continue to wield hockey influence, there would not have been a formal change in titles Thursday, complete with the standard spendmore-time-with-the-family justification.
The Flyers had been trending in a corporate direction ever since Snider’s 2016 death. And since they hadn’t won a Stanley Cup since 1975, there were no set-some-fires protests. Something new, anything new, was worth a try. Hey, if Shero didn’t try new hockey plays he learned from the Russians, the Flyers may not have had any Stanley Cup parades at all.
So Fletcher is bumped into Holmgren’s old title, and Scott, who admits to having learned the game only within the last halfdozen years, will have the final say. It’s different. Oh, it’s different.
“I couldn’t be any more pleased with Chuck’s performance, and what he’s done coming out of December of last year,” Scott said. “Probably one of his biggest pluses is he is a collaborative guy. He’s smart. He’s got a very open style. I spent a day with Paul and was so impressed with the group of people we had. You had Chuck’s staff in there. You have the new coaching staff in there. You had the analytics people together. It was something I hadn’t seen in the six years that I’d been here, just full collaboration, and just everybody agreeing on what moves we were going to make.”
How’s that for a hockey policy? Collaboration for all. Maybe Sign Man can hold up a placard reading, “Goallaboration,” after every score. Or does he have to go, too?
Holmgren is 63, had his chances at a Cup, and insists he approached Scott with the idea of the change. He sounds like he thinks Fletcher will do a fine job. At least Fletcher didn’t hire his son’s old college coach to stand behind the bench.
But with Holmgren ready to sit silently with the rest of the nightly scratches, another hands-on connection to a past worth every one of its celebrations is gone. At least the late and legendary broadcaster’s daughter is still around to belt out the occasional pregame “O Canada.”
“I feel like I was raised as a Flyer,” Holmgren said. “And I came here as a 20-year-old kid right when the Flyers had won two Stanley Cups. I was around when they lost in the finals my first year with the team. I was raised a Flyer. And I’d like to think I will always have some ties to the Flyers organization because of how I feel about them, how I feel about the city, how I feel about the people that I’ve worked with in the organization over the number of years that I’ve been here.
“It’s a family to me. It always has been. And I still see it today as a family that Ed Snider and Bob Clarke and Billy Barber and Bernie Parent and all those guys from the early ‘70s had it blossom. For me, it’s still that. I feel a big part of that.
“That’s why I stayed. I loved the Flyers.”
There was a value to having people who loved the Flyers walking together to keep it that way. It was a value that the outsiders in charge will never comprehend.