SNIDER IS NEVER TRULY ABSENT
When the Philadelphia Flyers took their annual team picture on Thursday, club chairman and founder Ed Snider was not there. At least not physically. The 83-year-old Snider has been limited in his ability to travel while dealing with health issues. He was, however, very much there in spirit. The Philadelphia Inquirer and Camden Courier Post both had good articles with current Flyers players and head coach Dave Hakstol talking about how the team draws inspiration from Snider. Hakstol has known Snider for less than a year but already seems to understand the enormity of his impact not only on the hockey organization but on the sport itself.
Wayne Simmonds may have said it best, in talking to the Inquirer: "Ed Snider
is the Flyers."
Ask most anyone who ever played for, coached, or worked for the team: being a Flyer means something. It's an identity, mostly for the better but which requires levels of commitment and sacrifice that some are not capable (or at least not willing) to make.
Talk to members of the Flyers Alumni from any generation of team history and you will find that, while there may be generational differences on personal levels there is also a common bond that holds them together. What gives Danny Briere and Kimmo Timonen something to identify with the players of 20, 30 and 40-plus years earlier is that they don't consider themselves "ex-Flyers" but as "Flyers Alumni"; meaning that the Flyers are still a crucial part of their own identity.
Ed Snider was and remains a big part of why that identity exists. Even today, he keeps up with everything that goes on with the team. He asks questions -- tough ones when toughness is required, due diligence queries when he wants to have a fuller understanding of the cost and potential reward of doing something.
For instance, when the Flyers traded for Mark Howe, general manager Keith Allen was reluctant to meet the price the Hartford Whalers demanded. Specifically, he did not want to include Greg Adams in the deal.
Snider asked Allen two simple but crucial questions, to which both men already knew the answer but which Allen needed to talk through aloud.
Question 1: "What would Mark Howe mean to our team?"
Answer: He'd immediately be the team's best defenseman.
Question 2: "Is Greg Adams worth losing the chance to get Howe?"
Answer: No, because there were other players who could fill Adams' projected role but precious few who could do everything Howe did.
Allen's mind was made up. The Flyers got their man.
While Snider is very much a businessman, he has always followed his heart as well. Every part of the Flyers identity has been forged above all in a burning desire to win and an intolerance of accepting losing. In building the identity of the organization, he had an innate understanding that in order to be a first-class organization, things had to be done in a first-class way. Sometimes that involved making decisions that may have cost more monetarily but which engendered loyalty. Other times, it was simply a matter doing what felt right.
When the Flyers Alumni decided to embark on their $2 million donation drive for Snider Hockey, it started out with a simple question: "What can we do to show our appreciation to Ed Snider for all he's done for our own lives and careers?"
They decided upon making a generous gift to Snider Hockey, because they know that it's his legacy project to bring hockey access and educational support services to youths in under-served communities in the Delaware Valley. While he has been deeply involved in a host of charity endeavors and community causes, for instance his longtime support of the Anti-Defamation League, the only one he's ever attached his own name to is Snider Hockey.
Many Flyers Alumni have stories to share about what Snider has done for them both on a larger level -- the way he's run the Flyers -- and sometimes on a direct personal level. When the stories are of the former, they'll fill tape recorders on the record about big and small ways they appreciated their time as Flyers over and above anywhere else they played. When it's the latter, they'll quite often ask you to keep it off-the-record because Snider did not do it for publicity or even to be shared privately.
One example I can pass along here -- a case in point of how, sometimes, the smallest gestures of caring mean the most -- is one that Pelle Lindbergh's late mother told Thomas Tynander and myself when I came aboard to put together an English version of
Behind the White Mask. When the Lindbergh family was at the hospital after the horrific accident -- before they learned Pelle would not survive the crash -- Ed Snider briefly came over and spoke to Pelle's fiancee, Kerstin. Not wishing to disturb the family but wanting to do something on their behalf, he stayed nearby in the hallway in case he was needed.
At one point, Anna-Lisa (Pelle's mother) was summoned to the nurse's station to receive a phone call. Keep in mind that she could not speak English and, above that, was in the throes of anguish. On the other end of the line was someone, presumably a reporter who had found out their location, speaking in rapid-fire tones in a language she did not understand. Overwhelmed is too mild of a word to describe her emotions at the time.
Ed Snider interceded for Anna-Lisa. He then proceeded to let it be known in no uncertain terms that she was not to be disturbed again. No one bothered her again. Twenty-one years after Pelle's death, Anna-Lisa Lindbergh asked for that story to be included in the book because she was still grateful for the way he took control of the situation in one of the darkest days of her life.
Something else that people who are removed from the organization do not understand -- especially those who were throwing out the term "culture change" very loosely a couple years ago -- is that Snider was never opposed to new ideas. When things such as hiring assistant coaches, investing in video equipment, building on-site training facilities, etc. were considered oddball ideas and wastes of money by most every other owner in the league, Snider got on board.
Moreover, long before Ron Hextall brought in Dave Hakstol to coach, the team has hired its share of coaches, scouts, etc. who came in from outside the organization. Just as the internal promotions had mixed results, so did the external hires.
Yes, Fred Shero and Mike Keenan and Peter Laviolette brought great success to the team after coming in from the outside. But Terry Simpson and Wayne Cashman were also external hires, while Terry Murray and Ken Hitchcock (as an assistant coach) had previous Flyers ties. The latter two proved to be better head coaches for the Flyers than the other two.
On the scouting side, two of the top scouts in franchise history, Simon Nolet and Dennis Patterson, had previous Flyers ties from their playing days. Chris Pryor was brought in from the outside having neither previously played nor worked for the Flyers, but nevertheless advanced his way up from scouting staffer to scouting director. None of that backstory mattered at all once they were in place.
Actually, the Flyers scouting staff has one of the most important traits that any good NHL organization needs to have in that department: no one is territorial. Western scout Mark Greig does not push for WHL players simply because he seems them more. Ilkka Sinisalo, when he was scouting in Europe, did not automatically gravitate to pushing for Finns. It's all about finding the best players and consensus, especially early in the draft. It's not about which scout sees someone more than the cross-over scouts.
During the best eras of Flyers scouting throughout franchise history both at the amateur and pro levels, there has been a strong cohesiveness in the process and prioritizing the right things. That has very been much the case again in recent years, which is why one can look from the 2012 draft onward and see that the team has not just done well in round one but they've started to once again crank out deep draft classes as a whole.
Once again, Ed Snider has had a hand in it, even if an indirect one. One can look all the way to back to the 60s, 70s, 80s and even to this day and find that Snider has always insisted that his hockey operations staff a) functions on the same page with one another and b) is given the tools it needs to do their jobs properly.
While some owners have cut corners in their commitment to these sorts of behind-the-scenes areas, Snider never did from day one and never wants to see it happen when he's gone. In Snider's eyes, at least, he same thing always applied not only to the hockey staff but all other areas.
As a matter of fact, the very reason Paul Holmgren was entrusted with the role of team president had zero to do with "finding him a title" after he moved on from being the general manager and Hextall became GM. It's because Snider sees Holmgren -- the only person who played, served as both a head and assistant coach, scouted for, and served as a head and assistant GM for the organization --as someone who thoroughly understands the Flyers brand. He believes deeply in the identity that Snider has created and fought to uphold for 50 years.
Snider put the massive responsibility on Holmgren's shoulders of helping him to uphold the Flyers identity and also carrying it forward both in the public eye and behind the scenes. In many ways, that's an even bigger challenge than he faced in turning the team around as general manager after the 2006-07 season.
I do not know Ed Snider personally, have never met Mr. Snider on a one-on-basis, and have never worked directly for him. My only interactions with him have been in group interview settings at press conferences, Flyers training camps and, once in awhile, during one of his Flyers locker room visits. However, one does not have to know the man personally to see that that the franchise he fought tooth-and-nail to get on the ice in the first place and then built into one of the sporting world's most identifiable brands has always more than just a business to him.
In working on a daily basis around the team through my position with HockeyBuzz as well as being the Flyers Alumni Association's content writer and manager and my roles assisting Jay Greenberg's comprehensive Flyers 50th Anniversary History book and as Flyers 50th Anniversary content writer, the number one thing I've learned is that Ed Snider is the Flyers and the Flyers are Ed Snider.
As such, he need not be sitting in the front row in a team photo. He's there, and will always be wherever the team crest is.
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SCOREBOARD WATCHING
With two nights off in their schedule, the Flyers can only watch the scoreboard to see how the teams closest to them in the Eastern Conference standings.
Unfortunately, the Flyers (89 points) got no meaningful help on Thursday night in the drive to move up from the lower wildcard seed in the Eastern Conference. The New York Islanders defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets in regulation to pull four points ahead of the Flyers with a 37-35 tiebreaker advantage in regulation and overtime wins.
While the New York Rangers (95 points, 4-3 losers to the Carolina Panthers) and Pittsburgh Penguins (97 points, 5-2 winners over the Nashville Predators) are still mathematically reachable, it is unlikely the Flyers can catch either club.
On Friday night, the Detroit Red Wings (87 points) host the Minnesota Wild and the Boston Bruins (88 points) are on the road to take on a St. Louis Blues team that is battling the Dallas Stars for the top spots both in the Central Division and Western Conference and has a 23-11-4 home record. The Flyers will have two games in hand on both Detroit and Boston at the end of the night.
If either the Red Wings or Bruins lose -- preferably both, from a Flyers standpoint -- in regulation on Friday, the Flyers will be in good shape to nail down a playoff spot as they begin a whirlwind journey of six games in the final nine days of the season.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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