By: Dan Sokil

It's been there for more than four decades, and until last October was the only place in Philadelphia where any of our sports teams had actually won a championship. So what better place to spend a few hours and see some Philly history while it's still there, than the Spectrum?


Waiting outside for the rest of my group, I had some time to wander around the outside of the old arena, and was surprised at how similar it felt to games at the Vet during the last season there. The feel of the exterior is very similar, with the near-oval shape of the building and concrete concourses leading up and down from the parking lots...although the ice and snow all over the place was not something you'd see often at baseball games! Still, I was able to visit with some Philly icons who will soon be leaving Broad Street, like Dr. J and Kate Smith.

The statue of Gary Dornhoefer down by the Will Call window is a particularly fun one to look at, because only from above can you see the puck actually in the net! The goal was an overtime winner against the Minnesota North Stars, who have since moved to Dallas, and Dorny has recently retired from years of broadcasting with the team. I wasn't around for those classic Broad Street Bullies, but get the impression that the goal Dorny scored was as great a moment for that generation as the overtime winner Keith Primeau scored in 2000 vs the Penguins...a comparison I like because Primeau had gotten the puck on that play from Keith Jones, who took over in the broadcast booth from Dornhoefer!


Walking around the concourse of the Spectrum is very different from inside it's bigger brother, the Wachovia Center next door. There's only one level in the Spectrum, no big escalators or super high seats, just poured concrete stairs that again are very similar to the old ones at the Vet. Our seats were in section 300, but even though we were only ten or so rows from the roof we could see every play, and that feeling of being right on top of the ice is one of the Spectrum's hallmarks. The ice we watched them play on is the same place the Flyers beat Bobby Orr's Bruins for the Cup in '74, where they beat up the Red Army team from the USSR so badly in 1976 they walked off the ice, and where Wayne Gretzky's Edmonton Oilers, perhaps the greatest team in hockey history, took the full seven games to beat Flyers teams led by goalies Ron Hextall and the late great Pelle Lindbergh.


Hextall became the first goalie in NHL history to score a goal here, Eric Lindros and John LeClair first formed the "Legion of Doom" here, and after the big team left the minor league Phantoms won two Calder Cups in the Spectrum. Current Flyer coach John Stevens captained one of those teams and was head coach of the other, and so many current Flyers like Jeff Carter, Mike Richards, and almost all of the young defensemen have worn the Phantoms' purple and orange. In fact, prospect Ryan Parent wore #77 in the game we went to, and we may be seeing him on the big team's blue line for many years to come, along with winger Jared Ross who recently had a league record six assists in the AHL All-Star Game.



It may not have luxury boxes, microbrews at every concession stand or bathrooms on the same floor as the concourse, but the Spectrum is a unique part of Philly history. When it was built in the late 1960s, the only thing down at the Sports Complex area was old JFK Stadium that was built for America's 150th birthday celebrations in 1926. What was once state of the art is now the oldest arena on the block, as the Spectrum literally paved the way for construction of the Vet in 1971, the Wachovia Center (where JFK Stadium used to be) in 1996, and the newest additions to the sports complex, Lincoln Financial Field (2003) and Citizens Bank Park in 2004. I suppose it's fitting that the Spectrum will be torn down after this season: ever since the Vet was closed in 2003, it had been the only building left in Philadelphia where one of our sports teams won a championship. Now that the Phils have finally ended that title drought, the Spectrum will give way to bigger and better things...but one fan I talked to before last weekend's game thinks in this economy, ownership may decide a minor league hockey team is a better bet to draw crowds than the high-end retail and sports bars they had planned to replace it with. It's just my opinion, but it sure seemed like most of the 9,270 who came out to watch the Phantoms play the Albany River Rats on Saturday weren't ready to say farewell to the Spectrum quite yet...

Editor's note: In a twist of fate, the Phantoms were sold February 5 to a group from Pittsburgh. No formal announcement on their fate has yet been made.