PHILADELPHIA FLYERS
1974-75

The scene was Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The time was late May, 1975. The Occasion a victory parade for the hometown Flyers. It had a certain sense of deja vu to it... That strange, warm, but unsettling feeling that you've been here before, sometime, somewhere, somehow.

The millions of Flyers' faithful who lined the streets of the City of Brotherly Love were not experiencing a psychic Flashback but, instead, a present reality. The Flyers had won the Stanley Cup... Again.

Last year they became the first expansion team to ever win the coveted Cup. This year they proved to all the remaining disbelievers that it was no fluke. They became the first U.S. based team since the 1955 Detroit Red Wings to win back-to-back Stanley Cups. The Philadelphia Flyers had won the World's championship... Again.

It all seemed so familiar yet all so deliciously, deliriously different.

There were Bobby Clarke and Bemie Parent skating around the rink in a victory lap with the cherished chalice... Again. Only this time it was in Buffalo not at the Spectrum.

There were the Flyers lined up to give a handshake and receive a victory salute from the vanquished foe... Again. Only this time it was the Buffalo Sabres and not the Boston Bruins.

So comfortably familiar yet so strangely new. Barry Ashbee seated on the Flyers' bench last year player, this year a coach. The Familiar faces were there... Again. Lonsberry, MacLeish, Domhoefer, Barber, Schultz, the Watson boys, and all the rest. But there were new faces too. Ted Harris and Reggie Leach, for instance.

And there was the Shero System working to perfection... Again. It all melted together in a mysterious Buffalo like log, yet It all seemed so fresh and warm and new... Like a warm day in Spring on Broad Street, Philadelphia Pennsylvania in the year of our independence 1974.