The Blues and Flyers have a long history of dislike for one another. Both members of the "Second Six" franchises in the NHL, the early years of the teams saw them play quite a bit. Now, with Philly in the East and the Blues in the West, the bad blood shouldn't really be there any more. And yet it seems like these two teams always get into it. Probably because they both tend to play pretty physical games, and there always seem to be fisticuffs.
But no story about the Blues and the Flyers would be complete without mentioning the famous "Blues vs. Flyer Fans" incident from 1972. When Blues coach Al Arbour had a beer dumped on his head and tried to get into the crowd to catch the guy who did it, bedlam broke out. Many of the Blues players went into the crowd to fight the fans, Arbour wound up with a cut on his head that required stitches and three players were arrested by Philly police. The scene obviously inspired the similar plot line in Slapshot, but in reality the Plager brothers were not the three players taken away in the paddy wagon (John Arbour, Floyd Thompson and Phil Roberto).
Tonight the Blues need to play desperate hockey. The Flyers are a good team and a physical team, so we should be in for some entertainment tonight. It looks like Andy McDonald is still doubtful to play, which means we get to see game two of Lars Eller's NHL career. Go Skeet Go.
The game is on FSN Midwest again with a 6 pm start time. It'll also be on KMOX for you radio folks and this, of course, is your game day thread.
Let's Go Blues!