Flyers Finish a Philly Sports Miracle

With just over 7 minutes left to play in the decisive 7th game of their NHL playoff series at the TD Garden in Boston, Philadelphia Flyers' winger Simon Gagne, himself an inspirational comeback story, beat Bruins' goalie Tuukka Rask for a power play goal to put Philly on top by a 4-3 score.

That the Flyers were even still playing hockey on May 15th after the predicament in which they found themselves just 10 days earlier was a minor miracle. What they accomplished by holding on to that 4-3 lead for a game and series victory was nothing short of a major Philly sports miracle.

On May 5th, the Bruins defeated the Flyers in Philadelphia by a 4-1 margin to take an overwhelming 3 games to none lead in a best-of-7 Stanley Cup playoff series. Two days later, the Bruins took the Flyers into overtime, needing just a goal to sweep a Philly squad that had been inconsistent all season long out of the post-season.

Boston would not get that overtime goal to win the series. In fact, they would never get any goal to win the series. That night, Gagne returned from a broken foot that had kept him off the ice for the first three losses to score the overtime game-winner for the Flyers, sending the series back to Boston. Most felt it was just a temporary reprieve for Philly, and that the Bruins would put the series away back on their home ice in the 5th game.

Back in Boston, Flyers' goalies Brian Boucher and Michael Leighton stood tall in the visitors net, combining to shut out the Bruins by a 4-0 margin. The Flyers' complete dominance had taken the hometown crowd out of the game, and left them disheartened at having missed a chance to witness their team clinch the series on home ice. Still up though by a 3-2 margin in the series, surely the Bruins would regroup to finish off the Flyers back in Philly. And even in a worst-case scenario, the decisive 7th game would be back in Boston where the Bruins couldn't possibly lose.

In Philly for the 6th game, Leighton would get his first playoff start. The former backup had bailed out the Flyers regular season, but an injury had knocked him out, and Boucher had stepped in to lead the Flyers into post-season action. Boucher had made the big save in the shootout victory in the season's final game that had allowed the Flyers to get into the playoffs. He had been marvelous in the Flyers opening round upset of the New Jersey Devils. But in that 5th game in Boston he had suffered an injury and had to leave the game. Luckily for the Flyers, Leighton was just returning that night from his own injury.

Leighton showed no nerves and was solid in the Flyers net, and goals by captain Mike Richards and Danny Briere led the home team to a 2-1 victory that evened the series up at 3 games apiece. Only two teams in NHL history and three in major North American professional sports had ever come back from an 0-3 deficit to actually win the series. It had not happened in the NHL playoffs in 35 years. This was the history that Philly would try to make happen back in Boston.

In the penultimate Game 7, the hometown Bruins stormed out behind their boisterous fans at the Garden, pouncing on the Flyers for an early lead and extending that lead out to 3-0. Surely here was the final stake in the Flyers hearts. But these Flyers kept coming, kept playing the game hard, and incredibly worked their way back to a 3-3 tie. It was then that Gagne struck for the goal that silenced the Garden.

The Bruins made one last charge at avoiding their historic meltdown. In the final minute, they stormed the Flyers end of the ice, looking for the equalizer, trying to take the heart out of the Flyers with a stunner and then steal the series back for themselves. But it was not to be for the home team. The visiting Flyers held on for the 4-3 win to complete the miracle comeback from a 3-0 series deficit with a miracle comeback from a 3-0 game deficit on the road.

On May 5th, the Bruins had taken a seemingly insurmountable 3 games to 0 lead with a win at the Wachovia Center. On May 15th, the Flyers finished a Philly sports miracle with the 7th game win at the TD Garden. What a difference 10 days can make, possibly the most inspirational 10 days in the storied history of the Philadelphia Flyers as they made their mark in hockey history.

A White-Knuckle Ride Home

Last night's drive home from work was one of those nightmare rides that thankfully only come along once or twice a year. I was on a night work schedule so my ride home began when most of you were headed to bed or already sound asleep on your pillow, tucked under your covers like a bug in a rug, warm and toasty. Myself and two of my co-workers along with a few dozen others were just beginning our trek home, but we had a major obstacle in our paths. A snowfall that every local weather person from Cecily Tynan to John Bolaris to Glenn 'Hurricane' Schwartz was predicting would be 1-3 inches in the city turned out to be more like a half foot. Note to local weather persons: 1-3 inches is a minor annoyance just a little worse than a rainy day. A half foot of snow, especially as a surprise accumulation level, is a big deal. These television stations trip all over themselves to advertise how their weather is better than the other guy. "The futuristic Accu-Zoom 12000 Radar/Sonar Skycast powered by the Flux Capacitor" or some other such nonsense. In the end, they all get it right, or they all get it wrong. To give them some credit, weather forecasts are shinier and more technical looking than they used to be a half century ago. But I don't see much more difference in their reliability than I did as a kid back in the 1970's when Jim O'Brien was giving us the Five Day Forecast. Anyway, back to that ride home. It begins with the chore of cleaning off your car. Since you have inches of snow all over it, you start by cleaning off the area around your driver door, so that you can get into the car and start your engine. With the car now started, the engine warming, and your defog settings beginning to work you start the process of clearing the rest of the snow from the car. This is a good measure of how much it has actually snowed. How high in inches that it has piled up on your roof is pretty close to how much has fallen on the ground. Last night there was a lot. Okay, so you spend a few minutes clearing off your car and warming the engine, and now comes the tricky part, actually maneuvering this machine with rubber tires home over frozen, snowy surfaces. Did I mention that I hate some of you yet? You would be the folks with the gas-guzzling, humongous, I-can't-see-around-you SUV's. Seems that these things generally handle this kind of weather better than my little old 1994 Toyota Camry. I slowly and carefully eased out of the parking lot just south of Spring Garden Street and moved on to southbound 10th Street. From here down to Vine Street, which is just about three city blocks, gave me a nice preview of what was in store. The conditions were slick and the roads were totally snow covered. PENNDOT had not yet won the battle, perhaps caught a little off guard by that forecasting fau pax. In any event, the roads last night can best be described as dangerous. That's worse than hazardous or treacherous, and just a notch below impassable. I thought there was a chance that if I could just get to I-95 safely, that I would be alright until exiting at my home neighborhood. No such luck. The interstate was worse than the city streets had been thanks to both the condition of the road itself, snow covered and slippery, but also thanks to a heavy volume of traffic. Little did I know that the Philadelphia 76ers buzzer-beating loss to the Boston Celtics had happened a short while earlier. The fans who had exited into this same storm had cleared their cars at the Wachovia Center parking lot and made their way this far north. Whenever you have weather conditions that are poor such as this or even a hard rain storm, you get 'those' drivers out on the roads. You know the ones. The ones that are driving all 'damn the torpedoes' down the highway. The ones that are bound and determined to drive 80+ miles per hour, weaving in and out, in an effort to get home 5-10 minutes earlier than you will? When one of these rocket scientists on wheels goes zipping past me I realize that they care more about reaching their destination a few minutes early than they do their own safety. More importantly I know that they don't care about mine at all. Well these people were out last night. Thankfully not many of them. Most everyone was realizing either out of intelligence or by slipping and sliding that speed was not on the menu tonight. Most of the ride up I-95 towards my goal of the Woodhaven Road off-ramp was slow going, 30-35 miles per hour. Then we saw nirvana. Well it was for me at least. As I hit the Cottman Avenue area traffic began to slow and bunch, and I feared there was an accident ahead. Instead off to the distance were the spinning yellow lights of those PENNDOT trucks, plowing and salting the road ahead. From here on out the drive on I-95 was a little slower, but it was mostly just wet roads thanks to those wonderful PENNDOT crew workers. And luck for me their plow train continued right where I was headed, westbound on Woodhaven Road. It was there as traffic exited from I-95 on to Woodhaven, just before Franklin Mills, that the final two idiots came barreling along. Apparently they had been road-racing in these conditions and were continuing it into this area where traffic had tightened. Not only were they riding each others bumpers, but they were blaring their horns and cutting in and out of traffic. That these two idiots (nice term for what they are) managed to maneuver their little ego-driven race through the traffic and the weather without causing an accident was one of last night's little miracles. On exiting from Woodhaven and moving into my neighborhood, the conditions again got slick and snow-covered, but now I was almost home. I took it slow through the mostly deserted streets of Somerton and finally eased into a parking spot on my block. I flipped off my wipers and turned off KYW from my car radio. The white-knuckle ride was over, and now it was my turn to finally join the rest of you folks, warm, cozy, and safe with my head on my pillow. Until next time.