Flyers at 50: The birth of the Broad Street Bullies

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Two memorable playoff series against the St. Louis Blues in which the Flyers were manhandled had led to a call of fists.
 
Flyers chairman Ed Snider, then a mercurial owner who didn’t always use tact, informed general manager Keith Allen that his hockey club would never be bloodied and bullied again after a four-game sweep in 1969.
 
The unmerciful beating Claude Laforge had taken at the hands of the Blues’ Noel Picard in the spring of '68 remained fresh in Snider’s mind a year later.
 
Two months following the '69 ouster, the Flyers selected seven players in the NHL draft, including Don “Big Bird” Saleski and the Dave “The Hammer” Schultz, who would become a legend in short time.
 
While the hidden gem taken was unquestionably Bobby Clarke, he was also the Flyers' only pick under six feet without skates.
 
Teams were picking on the Flyers.
 
“It was not only St. Louis, it was the Boston Bruins,” Simon Nolet said. “We were just a young team that kept getting roughed up. Got roughed up by St. Louis and then go to Boston and the same thing.”
 
Back then, Boston came at you with Don Awrey, Derek Sanderson, Eddie Shack, Wayne Cashman and Ted Green.
 
By the start of 1972, the Flyers had added Bill Clement, Bob Kelly, Bill Barber, Tom Bladon and Jimmy Watson.
 
The toughening of the roster officially began when Kelly showed up for training camp in 1970.
 
“They never talked about [needing tougher players] after they drafted me,” said Kelly, who quickly earned the nickname, “The Hound.”
 
“I was always a tough player as a junior and had no idea how many fights I had down there. Nobody ever had to tell me to stick up for my teammates.”
 
No, but Wayne Hillman advised him on how he might make the roster.
 
Kelly was just 19 and already in exhibition games against John Beliveau, Henri Richard, Alex Delvecchio, Gordie Howe and Phil Esposito.
 
One night in Oshawa, the Flyers were playing the Oakland Seals in another exhibition.
 
“Wayne Hillman says to me, ‘You want to make this team? See that guy with the mustache back there? Go fight him,’” Kelly said.
 
It was fearless defenseman Carol Vadnais, who guarded his ice like few others.
 
“Afterwards, I asked Hillman how I had done,” Kelly said. “I knew nothing about him. I would never let anyone take advantage of one of my players, whether it be a tough guy or anyone else. It’s not in my DNA to do that.”
 
And so a member of the Bullies was born.
 
For most of the past 50 years, as the Flyers celebrate their golden anniversary, Snider, Allen and legendary coach Fred Shero were vilified by the hockey establishment for the birth of the Broad Street Bullies.
 
Snider, in particular, drew the most wrath.
 
Even today, it lingers, in venerable media, such as the Wall Street Journal, where former Canadiens goalie Ken Dryden railed this past summer how the Flyers intimidated their way to win two Cups with just a “sprinkling” of legit talent.
 
Dryden ignored that the Flyers had five future Hall of Famers and three future head coaches, one who’d win a Cup (Terry Crisp). And while Schultz racked up 348 penalty minutes on that first Cup winner, he also scored 20 goals.
 
“We beat Boston and they didn’t cry,” Nolet said. “They played tough and we played tough. That was hockey then. Montreal had big guys who fought. John Ferguson — I fought him and got killed. ...
 
“I never understood why [Montreal] cried how the Flyers won their two Cups with tough teams. That’s how hockey was back then. It was the '70s.”
 
While Snider heaped most of the blame for the creation of the Bullies, one of the greatest men in the sport escaped any blame whatsoever — Scotty Bowman, who has 14 Stanley Cups as both a coach and team executive.
 
It was Bowman’s Blues with Picard, the Plager brothers — Bob and Barclay — and Al Arbour who terrorized the Flyers those first two seasons, forcing them to toughen their roster.
 
Take away those two playoff series in which the Flyers were literally beaten up on the ice and the Bullies era never would have existed.
 
“You’re right, the blame should fall on Scotty Bowman,” said Joe Watson, who was there from the start. “Scotty would never announce that. He was very prim and proper, a Montreal Canadien guy for years and he would never play like that. But he did in St. Louis. ...
 
“They were dirty bastards, they were. We won Game 6 that first [playoff] year, 2-1, in overtime and Bob Plager jumped off the bench and kicked Dorny (Gary Dornhoefer) in the back of the leg. I jumped off our bench and went over and challenged the son of a b----. He was about 40 pounds more than me but I didn’t care.”
 
Bowman waffles on whether he should share blame for the Bullies’ creation.
 
“We had Picard and the Plager brothers,” Bowman said, then pausing. “Snider used to kid me about it and say to me, ‘Don’t ever say anything bad about my team because you’re the guys that started all this.’”
 
The truth is, the birth of the Bullies rested at Bowman’s feet behind the bench.
 
“That’s what Ed always said to me,” Bowman said, trying to deflect the rough house tactics his club deployed. “We didn’t do it by design. Lynn Patrick and I ran the team.
 
“We wanted to be good defensively. We got a great goalie in (Glenn) Hall but (Bernie) Parent was the best young goalie at that time.
 
“Basically, we were able ... I don’t know. The Plager brothers and Picard were very tough. We played hard-nosed hockey, good defensive hockey. Good checking team and it was backed by goaltending.”
 
By the time Schultz joined the Flyers in 1972, along with Moose Dupont and Saleski, the culture had shifted with the roster. The Flyers were no longer pushed around.
 
“The Plager brothers always fighting in threes and we had Schultz sitting down in the minors and 'The Bird' (Saleski) waiting to come up,” Kelly recalled.
 
“I always tried to play a more physical style of game. Vic Stasiuk always wanted guys to play in their faces. But no one ever tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘This is it.’ Really, we all came together in that style of play.
 
“It was one for all. And it happened because Reggie Leach, (Bill) Barber, Dornhoefer — they all just played hard. They could handle themselves. You never sit back. More guys began to buy into the physicality.”
 
Fifty years later, Bowman remains reluctant to share partial responsibility for what happened.
 
“I always coached skill players,” Bowman said. “In Montreal, we played a pretty offensive brand of hockey.
 
“Whatever happened with the Blues kind of developed because of the players we had. We didn’t go out and say, ‘We got to get this guy or that guy to do certain things.’
 
“We picked up guys who could play well defensively. One year, we only gave up 157 goals. Our goaltending coming out of our ears with (Jacques) Plante and Hall. They had 13 shutouts and [22] one-goal games.”
 
They may have helped the Blues win, but the undeniable fact is that the tactics Bowman’s club used against the Flyers led to the birth of the Broad Street Bullies.
 
Still, Bowman and Snider remained friends over the years.
 
“We always got along,” Bowman said. “I used to go to the owners' meetings, it was different then, the club always sent me. I got to know him.
 
“Ed Snider was always a very open guy you could talk to. He was a very competitive guy. Funny thing, I never got a chance to work for him. I was always going somewhere else.”

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