Flyers Season thread

[henchmanUK]

here is a laugh.

do a yahoo image search for "Mutombo"

Two questions.
1. How on earth did you hear about that?
2. What the farg is it doing on the Flyers thread?

[Rome]

<----- Speechless   

here is a laugh.

do a yahoo image search for "Mutombo"

[PhillyGirl]

I repeat...

I married into this?  

[Rome]

Interesting column from Les Bowen today...

Posted on Thu, Jul. 14, 2005


WHAT IF Flyers goalie Pelle Lindbergh had not died?

By LES BOWEN


SATURDAY, Nov. 9, 1985, the Flyers defeated the Boston Bruins, 5-3. The team that had lost to Edmonton in the previous spring's Stanley Cup finals was 12-2 in the new season, riding a streak of 10 victories in a row.

"This is the best team we've ever had," team chairman Ed Snider said as he left the Spectrum that night, according to "Full Spectrum," the Flyers' history written by former Daily News reporter Jay Greenberg.

The next morning, Snider was awakened early by a phone call telling him that Pelle Lindbergh, the reigning Vezina Trophy winner as the NHL's top goalie, had been horribly injured in a car accident. Lindbergh, who had spent the night after the game celebrating a rare, impending 5-day break in the NHL schedule with teammates, was declared brain-dead after driving his specially modified Porsche 930 Turbo into a wall on a curve along Somerdale Road in Somerdale, N.J., around daybreak. Lindbergh's two passengers, Ed Parvin and Kathy McNeal, were seriously injured, but recovered. Lindbergh died 2 days later, after his parents made the difficult decision to allow his organs to be harvested for transplant.

Obviously, many things would have been different for many people had Lindbergh not chosen to drive that morning, with a blood-alcohol level that was tested first at .24, then at .17, far above the legal limit of .10. Pelle's parents, Sigge and Anna-Lisa, and his fiancee, Kerstin Pietzsch, would have been spared an awful, unimaginable tragedy. Lindbergh would be 46 now, perhaps with hockey-playing children to dote upon and many years of life remaining.

John Keeler, of Northfield, N.J., would not have gotten Lindbergh's heart, which allowed Keeler nearly 5 more years of life. Other recipients would not have benefited from Lindbergh's corneas or his kidneys.

Sports considerations are trivial in comparison, but Flyers fans can't help but wonder if their team might have won the 1986 Stanley Cup, with Lindbergh minding the net. Even after his death, his teammates rallied behind backup Bob Froese for a 110-point, 53-win season. But Froese faltered and the Flyers, perhaps emotionally weary, were upset by the Rangers in the first round of the playoffs, which saw Montreal win the Cup, defeating Calgary in the final. It was to be Froese's only season as the team's starter.

The Flyers made it back to the finals in '87, behind another Vezina Trophy-winning goalie, rookie Ron Hextall, but the Oilers, their '85 conquerers, were at their peak that year, winning the third of their five Cups in 7 years. Had the Flyers gotten to the finals in '86, they wouldn't have had to face Edmonton, perhaps the most talented team ever assembled.

"I kind of assume Pelle's career would have blossomed like Martin Brodeur's," Lindbergh's former Flyers teammate Brian Propp said recently. Brodeur, the Devils' goalie, has three Stanley Cup rings. "You could tell he was going to be one of the best goalies in the league. He had just gotten into his groove. Everybody on our team would have run through a brick wall for him... You keep that team together and who knows?"

Even by '87, the Flyers' edges were beginning to fray a bit. "Tim Kerr's shoulder started going," Propp recalled. "Dave Poulin hurt his ribs." The Flyers would fail to make the playoffs 5 successive years, starting in 1990. Hextall, now the team's pro personnel director, would be traded away, then brought back; he finished his career as the franchise wins leader, with 240, but who can say if he was really a better goalie than Lindbergh would have been over the long term?

In retrospect, the '86 season, with Lindbergh alive and well, could have been the Flyers' best chance to win a championship since their last triumph, in 1975.

"I just remember his demeanor," said Propp, who keeps a photo of Lindbergh on his desk. "He was so pleasant, so nice. And his competitiveness on the ice. He hated to be beaten, even in practice." *

Question and Answer with Ron Hextall

Ron Hextall, now the Flyers' director of pro hockey personnel, won 240 games in a Flyers uniform, more than any other goalie in franchise history. But Hextall might never have become a starter for the Flyers if Pelle Lindbergh hadn't passed away following an auto accident that occurred early on the morning of Nov. 10, 1985.

Q: Have you ever thought about how your life and career might have been different, had Pelle Lindbergh's accident not occurred?

A: "I've never really thought about it in those terms. I always thought I was good enough to play in the NHL, and would have played somewhere, somehow, here or somewhere else. If a team has two No. 1 goalies, it eventually makes a decision on which of them to keep. But that was way down the road, at the time; it's not even like we were battling it out or anything."

Q: What do you remember about that time, when Lindbergh died? Did you know him well?

A: "I was with Hershey, we were in Rochester. Our team was pretty much rocked by it. I had been called up for, I think it was 11 games, in 1984-85, when [veteran goalie] Bob Froese was injured. I remember Pelle taking me out to lunch, giving me advice. Sometimes guys don't treat young guys that well, they see them as threats, but he wasn't like that at all. I remember thinking how lucky I was, what a special guy [Lindbergh] must be. He was a happy-go-lucky guy, he had a great mentality for a goaltender - he competed, but he didn't let things weigh on him."

Q: What did you think of him as a goalie? It was a bit of a different era - goaltending has changed a lot in the last decade or so - but who would you compare him to?

A: "It is very different now. He was kind of a 'standup' guy; you don't see that style now. I remember he kind of jumped across [the crease] on his skates. Most guys slide, especially now. I know he was close to Bernie Parent, and stylewise, I think they were the same, the same size and everything."

Q: You were close to Darren Jensen, the other goalie at Hershey that year. He ended up playing for the Flyers in the first game after Lindbergh died [a 5-3 victory over Edmonton], after Froese was injured in practice. It was a hugely emotional night, with a 22-minute pregame tribute. Did he ever talk to you about that?

A: "He said it was the most nervous he'd ever been. I can't even imagine what that would have been like."

I remember that like it was yesterday.  I was up at Bloomsburg with my girlfriend and when we woke up the local television station was covering the story as it unfolded.  What a waste.

[PhillyGirl]

Growing up, I was best friends with Bernie Parent's daughter. I remember the night of Pelle's accident like it was yesterday. It shook that family to the core. I was at their house every single day for like 3 years, including the time around his accident. Pelle and his fiancee were like adopted kids to the Parents. They were also there every day. I watched TV with him on many occasions. He played street hockey with us in the summer (he used to let us shoot and score to make us girls feel better...lol).

It hurts to even think about that. He was the first young person I knew that died and it affected me a lot. One day he was there, the next, gone and it was really hard to comprehend as a young girl how that was possible.

Needless to say, I became the President of SADD in HS my junior year as a result of his recklessness. This was back when SADD/MADD actually had a serious purpose.

RIP Pelle. 

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

RIP Pelle. 

I don't think people who drive with a BAL of over .2 deserve to rest in "peace."  That's just stupid beyond all comprehension, and at least he didn't shuffle anyone else off the mortal coil with him.

[Zanshin]

here is a laugh.

do a yahoo image search for "Mutombo"

1) I'm offended that you would lead me to such a picture.

2) I'm even more offended that someone photoshopped another dude's head on my body.  Damn Internet.  I should sue.

[PhillyGirl]

RIP Pelle. 

I don't think people who drive with a BAL of over .2 deserve to rest in "peace."  That's just stupid beyond all comprehension, and at least he didn't shuffle anyone else off the mortal coil with him.

I said he was reckless. He was dumb, idiotic, stupid, etc....I know this.

[MDS]

At morning lineup, they announced that hockey was back and about 75% of the people starting booing. Including me.

[PhillyGirl]

At morning lineup, they announced that hockey was back and about 75% of the people starting booing. Including me.

Good, now I don't have to worry about reading your whiny ass posts during the season on the Flyers threads. 

[Wingspan]

the hockey fanbase has been rolled back 24%

[BigEd76]

The Flyers have given permission to Anaheim to let them interview John Stevens for their head coach spot... 

The Devils have hired Larry Robinson as head coach......again.....

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

What's with the "uneasy" smilie, Eddo?  If Anaheim hires him, the Flyers might as well have a fire sale and start afresh with rookies?  No chance without awesome assistant coaches?  None at all?

Jeezass, Ed.  Drama queen.

[Seabiscuit36]

The Chief can take over the ship

[PhillyGirl]

New deal has tough drug testing policy