Flyers Playoff Outlook

Alexis Nicgorski
Apr 10, 2000

The Flyers have overcome a 15 point deficit that held them in the no. 4 seed behind New Jersey since February, finding out their coach and friend had bone marrow cancer, minor lineup changes and trades, the insanity that is Eric Lindros and Bob Clarke (a discussion I will refrain from having, we don't need another one of THOSE articles) to reach the no. 1 seed in the East.

Their reward? Dominick Hasek and the Buffalo Sabers. 

I don't believe God plays any role in sports, but somewhere, someone has a sick sick sick sense of humor.

Home ice would have appeared to be the only advantage in the match up. 

I have read more than one article saying how certain people, not from Buffalo, will be rooting against the Flyers, just because they don't like the Clarke/Lindros debacle. Oh, by the way, they aren't real hockey fans either, they tend to add. That makes my blood boil. To hold Clarke's mishandling the situation against the entire organization is unfair and obscene. That's like punishing all of you children because one of them did something wrong. Not only that, but you don't even like the sport, so why are you writing about it? I personally wasn't fond of the John Rocker thing, but I'm not a baseball fan, so I kept my mouth shut and left it up to the people who understood the sport to discuss it. And so it should be in all sports. If you don't know, don't talk.

Many should and have acknowledged what the Flyers have done to achieve the no. 1 seed. In fact, they should get a parade for that. It wasn't really easy for them. The distractions were everywhere and they pushed on to win. 

These guys play in a city where sports is almost a religion, (there's always a Sunday game somewhere) and the city has placed tremendous pressure on the Flyers to win. The fans not only watch, support, and talk about the Flyers, but they usually belong to a weekend league, or coach a little league team; they have watched and supported said team their entire lives. We can Monday quarterback like nobodies business. At the end of the day though, we understand. We know the high of a win and the low of defeat. We will scream and yell, complain and criticize the Flyers. However, if we hear criticism from anyone else, we will remind you the John LeClair has had 4 consecutive 40 goal seasons. Not to mention Brian Boucher has the lowest GAA average for a rookie in the league since Al Rollin's in 1950. How's your goalie doing?

After all of that the Flyers are No. 1 in the East. Thursday we meet Mr. Hasek to begin the run for the cup. Maybe he's not so scary after all.

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