Another classy pre-game ceremony from the Flyers to honor their own Hall of Famer on Heritage Night at Wells Fargo Center.
Here's some of the comments from Rod Brind'Amour and Dave Poulin. Transcripts courtesy of the Flyers:
Dave Poulin Hall of Fame What does it mean to be a part of an event like this? “It’s unique and let alone the group back on the ice, just walking back and seeing all the familiar faces. Still to this day, I have conversations with people that played a long time in the NHL that are incredibly envious of the Flyers. I had one as recently as Monday night, I was at a book signing for Darryl Sittler who has a new book out. We were teammates here and I had a great conversation with Sly Apps Jr. who was an original Pittsburgh Penguin. And the first thing he wanted to say was “What about those Flyers, what about that Philadelphia!… Guys that never experienced it from the inside were always envious of what they saw, to a man. I think it was Ed Snider, it was a continuity of a leader that through 50 years, which is unheard of in any industry, any business, any let alone a professional sports team that kept it like it was. Everybody assimilated into that, everybody became a part of it, and everybody understood the importance of it. It’s a big part of it, the people side of it is enormous.… That group that’s on the ice, it’s probably not so easy to get them all together. Is everything you were just describing is why everybody is willing to come back at the drop of a hat for this? “Yes, I do. There are a lot of demands on your time and a lot of different things that’s busy for everybody and everybody has different things going on in their life. When this call comes in from Brad Marsh, you mark it on your calendar and you are coming. It is pretty special to be up there with that group tonight.… Fifty years for this franchise, what does that mean to be a part of this history of the team? “Well, I mean you look at your time and you are very humbled by it. You look at the amount of time that I was here, a part seven plus years, you think of the guys you played with. I caught the end of the Broad Street Bullies and Clark, Barber and MacLeish and that group. Then through the Keenan years and into the Holmgren years we had great success. The Stanley Cup Finals twice and the final four three times, it’s humbling to think of your time and it’s funny to think of your time and to watch a video in particularly of you on the ice. It’s probably the most striking part of it, is when you watch it. One of my daughters is here with me tonight and it’s like ‘Yeah that’s pretty cool!… *
Rod Brind’Amour On talking with Eric Lindros “You know I haven’t seen him in forever and it was just fun and when we got out there we just said nice to be back on the ice again, it’s been a long time and I haven’t seen him. I saw Johnny last year but it was just nice to catch up with these guys and relive some stories, we had a lot of great times so it was nice to see him.… A lot of guys are still in the sport, in the league like yourself, why change your schedule, come back at the drop of a hat, what is it about this team, this franchise? “It’s Philadelphia. I mean, it’s meant a lot to me. To be honest with you I think I was out of it, doing my own thing, and last year when they did that whole ceremony for me it just kind of brought me into the fold… that this is important and they really did appreciate what I did here and I think there was time there when I just didn’t really think that was the case. So it has meant a lot to me to be back here and be in the fold. I love the alumni, like these guys, Billy Barber was one of my best friends when I was playing here so any chance to get to reconnect with these guys means the world to me.… Why do you think you fell out of grace, or whatever the right term is? “I think maybe the way you get traded you automatically think ‘well I’m not what I thought’ I was but that wasn’t the case. I mentioned before, I got a great phone call before Mr. Snider passed and him telling me what he thought I meant to this team. It meant a lot. So I really feel connected to the Flyers organization again and I’ll take any chance I can to get back here and be a part of it.… Has it always felt odd that it took you to get traded out of here for you to win a Cup, I think most people consider you an embodiment of what it took to wear the uniform here in Philadelphia but your Cup is with another team. “Well I meant that’s the way it goes, right? We had a great team. We had a great team back then, but trades happen and they were trying to make the team better. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t, but had we stayed together who knows what could have happened, but I’m just fortunate that I got that Cup because obviously that is what I played for my whole life. Would it have been great to have it here? Yes, I mean that would have been something special, but that’s life. It doesn’t always work out the way you want it to.… When you were traded here you were pretty much the whole show, how much did getting through that adversity help you later on in your career in terms of toughness? “Well everybody has ups and downs in their career and you learn from them. I was never the show, I know that, I appreciate you saying that but I think it was a great time to be a Flyer when I first got here. It was an awesome time because we were new and they were transferring over and we got just a whole bunch of young superstar players, two of them were out there on the ice with me, another one couldn’t be here, but that was just a great time to be a Flyer. And like I said, it was just unfortunate we didn’t win because we were one of the best teams in the league there for a long time and things just didn’t work out. It’s hard to win a Stanley Cup, let me tell you.… ______________