Saturday, August 25, 2007

Let Me Entertain You, Let Me Make You Smile

Please allow me to introduce myself; I am ForeverFlyer16, a regular of HockeyBuzz... I will attempt to blog with both content and humor... Please watch out for thick slabs of sarcasm in my blogs as well as more than a few dashes of silliness and fun... With some serious rants tossed in for balance.

A little history about my love for hockey in general, and the Flyers in particular... I am not a talented hockey player -- although I wish I were -- rather, I'm a die hard fan of the greatest sport on Earth, hockey... Prior to the 'First Expansion' in the NHL Philadelphia hockey consisted of watching the 'Original Six' teams on National TV and minor league Philly teams of various levels. I attended some 'Philadelphia Rambler' games and watched few TV games; I was far from a knowledgeable hockey fan back then... Then came the Flyers.

I was a big Philly sports fan so I adopted the new team into the fold of 'my' teams. They started off their existence while I was away in the service, in Vietnam and other places, so I had to follow them and my other Philly teams as best i could, with 'old' Inquirers that were sent to me and other less than ideal sources... I was taken in by their first year and their battle to win their Conference although they had to play their crucial stretch of 'home' games in NYC and mostly Quebec due to a wind storm that blew a major portion of their roof off at the newly built Spectrum... They won the conference and almost played .500 in the process; they would have been over .500 had they been able to play at their real home, no doubt since thay were only one win short... The seeds had been firmly planted and the city of Philadelphia and myself had taken to the upstart team, and the NHL, and hockey in general.



To make a long story short; I moved across the river upon discharge from the service and resided in the area of most of the players' residences... My love for hockey and the Flyers grew with each passing game... I was newly married and had two young children so my free spending money was not great; I could not afford to get in on the ground floor as a season ticket holder so I had to buy games where I could in a tight market where the tickets were hard to come by and sellouts were the norm... There was a long waiting list for season tickets... I bought seats in various location until the mid-Seventies when I was able to find someone who was willing to sell a fairly nice amount of games each year... That quickly turned into an official partnership in the season tickets that started at a quarter share and evolved into a half share as some partners left the group... I started taking my son when he was old enough to appreciate the sport and the Flyers; he is now as large a fan as I am.


My passion grew by leaps and bounds each year, although I didn't think it could since it was so huge to begin with... I am now at a fanatical point where the Flyers family is as much a part of my life as anything could be that was not a flesh and blood member... And I have learned to really appreciate other teams as well over the years... And with HockeyBuzz, I have now learned to really like very many opposing fans.

Being a Flyers fan has spoiled me greatly... This past year has brought my feet down to Earth; I will not take winning for granted any longer.

Living in South Jersey, and being a member of the Flyers Fan Club, and traveling to road games has given me the chance to meet many Flyers players and management, both past and current... I will use all this experience in composing my blogs here, and I hope that you can appreciate my love and passion, since my only aim is that you do.

The humor was not present in this first blog, as promised... It will be in the future ones, you can count on that.

I will use the Flyers as a base much in many of my blogs, but I will also look at the NHL and the World of Hockey in depth also... all of which will be, IMHO.

3 comments:

Greg Balloch said...

Too bad you never played hockey FF, that would've just added icing to the cake! I can see that you obviously know the game, and I look forward to your opinions down the road.

ForeverFlyer16 said...

Had I grew up North of the border, my life would surely have been different hockeywise... no doubt about it.

By the time my passion was lit, I was a family man with other responsibilities and concerns that took up my time... what time I had left I applied to my Flyers.

That plus, by then, I was too old to play serious hockey... so I lived my life vicariously through my team.

Avsfan19 said...

If it helps, I've also stopped taking winning for granted after last season...