On February 9, 1966, the NHL did something it had resisted for a generation: it admitted that the world was changing and hockey must evolve with it.
After 24 seasons as a six-team club, the league announced it would double in size for the 1967–68 season. Six new franchises were aimed at a wider geographic audience. The playing field (or rather the rink) would have a little more competition. And above all, of course, Philadelphia I would have a hockey team again.
A city that never really gave up hockey
Philadelphia hadn’t had an NHL team since the Quakers’ Great Depression, after a miserable season in 1931. But hockey never completely left the city’s bloodstream. Minor league teams survived and the rinks remained busy. Fans continued to watch, even though the sport’s highest level felt like something was happening elsewhere.
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In the mid-1960s, Philadelphia was different. Bigger. Stronger. Become a full-fledged sports city. The specter was growing in South Philadelphia, a bold, modern arena designed not just for hockey, but for spectacle.
To the NHL, all of that mattered. Television, geography and markets that could sell tickets and attract viewers mattered above all.
The league was also looking over its shoulder. The Western Hockey League was making noise about becoming a major league. American television networks wanted more teams, more cities, more matches. The NHL had two choices: expand or risk being boxed in by its own conservatism.
So on this February day decades ago, the league named its six new homes: Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and St. Louis.
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This is how the “Second Six” were born.
Why Philadelphia was a lock
Philadelphia was a gamble the NHL felt comfortable making. It was a city that lived and breathed sports, a city that had previously hosted the Eagles, the Phillies and most recently the 76ers. Add in a state-of-the-art arena and a population hungry for relevance, and the Flyers made sense before they even had a name.
Property mattered too. Ed Snider, the driving force behind the franchise, wasn’t interested in polished hockey or slow burning. He wanted a team that would matter immediately, and that mindset would define the Flyers long before they played their first game.
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When the name “Flyers” was chosen, courtesy of Snider’s sister, Phyllisit was modern, fast and decidedly forward-looking. Even the choice of colors – orange and black – was a departure from the league’s low-key traditions. This was not an Old World franchise. It was something shameless and unapologetic new. In every sense, the league has been put on notice.
Bullies are born
When the Flyers entered the league in 1967-68, there were no illusions about the difficulty of the task. Expansion plans were slim by design. The Original Six teams certainly weren’t handing out stars. The early Flyers were pieced together from overlooked players, role players and hopeful gambles.
But that was the point. The Flyers established their reputation as the “Broad Street Bullies” from the start, leaving no room for questions about who they wanted to be. From the start – to put it nicely – no one liked them and they didn’t care.
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Within a decade, the Flyers would become one of the league’s defining franchises – polarizing, feared and impossible to ignore. (e.g. becoming the first expansion team to win a Stanley Cup in the 1973-74 season, winning it again in 1974-75, temporarily knocking the Soviet Red Army team off the ice in 1976 before beating them 4-1 at the height of Soviet hockey domination, etc.)
But on February 9, 1966, none of this was guaranteed. All that existed was a league trying to stay relevant, a city ready to host a team, and the belief that hockey could have a place in places where it didn’t have a place before.
