By Sam Bush
You want to know how bad the Flyers fans behaved last night as game 3 against the Caps melted down to a wrist-band-throwing debacle that cost the Flyers a penalty and brought back memories of snowballing Santa Claus in 1968?
Here’s an excerpt from Mike Sielski’s Inky column:
In their first home game after the death of Ed Snider – their founder, owner, and chairman – the Flyers and their followers put on a display that manifested the worst instincts within themselves and validated the worst stereotypes about them.
They embarrassed themselves, all of them, in every possible way. When spectators scream during a pregame moment of silence for a team’s patriarch – as several Flyers fans did Monday – and it’s not the most graceless, dishonorable episode of the night, that’s telling. The Flyers ignited a melee with 7 minutes, 43 seconds left in regulation, and from that point until the final buzzer, they took 39 minutes in penalties. The Capitals took none, and they scored two power-play goals, and they could chuckle and gloat as the maintenance crews swept up the wristbands in front of their bench.
“They weren’t interested in playing anymore,” Capitals coach Barry Trotz said of the Flyers. “So we were on the power play for the last seven or eight minutes. I just thought it wasn’t very good for our game. It’s that simple. We were on national television. It didn’t display our game very well.”
