Please allow me to preface this section by stating for the record that I am not an avid hockey fan.\u00a0 I will, however, watch the NHL playoffs because\u00a0they’re very exciting and the intensity level is high.\u00a0 Even from watching just the playoffs it is clear that this team has been cursed.<\/p>\n
Pre-curse, the Flyers were a championship machine.\u00a0 They won consecutive Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975 to go along with theee other conference championships in that decade.\u00a0 Post-curse, that is, after 1985, this franchise has consistently tortured its fans with one heartbreak after another.<\/p>\n
That’s what is so excruciating about being a Philadelphia fan: the market is large enough for our teams to spend competitively for players and coaches, and they have been so close to winning so many times, that the cumulative effect of these disappointments is unbearable.\u00a0 It’s not just the losses that hurt: it’s how close we’ve come and how often.<\/p>\n
In 1985, behind the phenomenal goalkeeping of Pelle Lindbergh, the Flyers posted the best record in the NHL and\u00a0advanced to the Stanley Cup finals, won Game\u00a01, then lost the next four games and the series.\u00a0 Lindbergh’s tragic death in an automobile accident after that season is but one example of the curse’s fatal dimension, as later tragedies will show.<\/p>\n
In 1996, behind the outstanding play of young superstar Eric Lindros, the team advanced to the Stanley Cup finals, but was then swept in embarrassing fashion by the Detroit Red Wings.\u00a0 This was followed by a string of 5 straight first-round exits from the playoffs despite having highly talented and favored teams each year.<\/p>\n
In 2000 the team was on the cusp of advancing to the Stanley Cup finals again when it held a 3-1 series lead against the New Jersey Devils.\u00a0 Amazingly, the Devils captured three consecutive games to steal the series and deal another painful blow to this once proud franchise.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2004 the team again advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals and won Game 6 in dramatic fashion against the Tampa Bay Lightning to force a decisive Game 7.\u00a0 Of course,\u00a0they\u00a0lost game 7.\u00a0 Losing a\u00a0hockey game to a team from Florida adds insult to injury.<\/p>\n
Another dimension\u00a0of the Philly Curse is for star players to underperform.\u00a0 Eric Lindros was widely hailed as the next Wayne Gretzky, but his career here will be remembered for his feuding with management, his chronic concussions and his bad attitude.\u00a0 As will be seen with other Philly teams, this is not unique to the Flyers.\u00a0 It’s par for the course: every time this city thinks it has found its sports saviour, it painfully discovers that no one player can undo this horrible curse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Please allow me to preface this section by stating for the record that I am not an avid hockey fan.\u00a0 I will, however, watch the NHL playoffs because\u00a0they’re very exciting and the intensity level is high.\u00a0 Even from watching just the playoffs it is clear that this team has been cursed. Pre-curse, the Flyers were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":753,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/753"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/philadelphiacurse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}