If you’re a fervent Philadelphia Flyers fan, I have some advice for you concerning the playoffs this year. Actually, it’s advice that concerns you EVERY time the Flyers make the playoffs, but we can stay in the present tense just for kicks. Do yourself and your loved ones a big favor this spring and try not to invest much hope in this hockey club until they start to show some genuine promise in crunch time. Year after year, the Flyers play the same games with us in the regular season, to the point where you can predict weather patterns and maybe even Homeland Security’s Terror Alert color by watching to see when Jeremy Roenick catches his next slap shot in the face. Year after year, this hockey club challenges for and/or wins the division crown, storms into April with 100 points, and then does a graceful swan dive in the first round of the playoffs against a sub-par team like the Buffalo Sabres. Year after year, Flyers fans tear out their hair and curse the hockey gods as if they are witnessing something completely new.
As our ever-eloquent Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush once said, “There’s an old saying in Tennessee – I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee – that says, ‘fool me once, shame on – shame on you. Fool me – you can’t get fooled again’.” Maybe that’s relevant because Tennessee now has a hockey team (one with a mascot that has more teeth than anyone in that state) but I believe it’s appropriate because that’s what’s happening to the Delaware Valley – the entire Flyers season is one big inside joke, and the first round of the playoffs is the punch line.
1998 – Lost in five games to the Sabres. 1999 – Lost in six games to the Toronto Maple Leafs. 2001 – Lost in six games to the Sabres. 2002 – Lost in five games to the Ottawa Senators. So, with the exception of two years, (in 2000 they lasted three rounds, and last season they ground out just two) the Philadelphia Flyers have played the exact same belated April Fool’s joke on us. They’ve survived injuries, goaltending controversies, last-minute trades for veterans looking for a last Stanley Cup ride, incompetent coaching and Eric Lindros, only to roll over and die in the games that actually count.
Even worse, unless they pull one of the best series in recent memories out of their collective orifices against the New Jersey Devils, this might be the last time we get to watch hockey if the NHL is interrupted with labor disputes next season. To see them lose against the Devils, one of the most backward teams in sports, would be the ultimate slap in the face. (With a ridiculously good hockey team and ridiculously low fan support, the state of New Jersey doesn’t deserve the Devils. No wonder the Nets and maybe even the Jets are ready to pack their bags. In fact, consider this sentence one big literary flip of the bird to the “Toxic Waste State.” I’m ranting.) Nevertheless, to see the Flyers lose to arguably their biggest rivals would be nothing less than an unsatisfactory end to a humdrum season.
So, for your sake, and the sake of your loved ones this season, give it a rest until at least the second round this year. Leave the rear window decals in the trunk, leave the bright orange sweaters in the closet, and brace yourself for what could be a huge end-of-the-season letdown. If Ken Hitchcock and Company manages to make like a skipping record once again this year, don’t say I didn’t warn you.