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Many columns and articles have already been written since Ed Snider passed away last week. The owner of the Flyers and founding father of the National Hockey League franchise in Philadelphia was eulogized by most of the local media. This column is not written to discredit the notion that Snider was a sports icon here. Neither is it meant to deny any of his considerable accomplishments. The fact is that I met him only once at a Christmas Party that included members of the Flyers organization and radio station WIP where I worked as weekend sports talk show host. But sometimes when public figures die, we deny their complexity as real human beings and turn them into cardboard saints. My father always said, “Do not speak ill of the dead.” If the dead are to remain important to us as living human beings, we should provide balance. Balance, then, is the purpose of this column.
The first time I heard anything about Ed Snider was before his acrimonious split with Eagles owner Jerry Wolman and his organization. Someone inside the organization mentioned Snider as undercutting Wolman, surrounding himself with loyalists and using a player to spy inside the locker room and report on other athletes. The much-publicized business breakup between Wolman and Snider came as no surprise. The feud was worse than the one between the Hatfields and McCoys, only this one never died. They remained bitter enemies into the grave.
Fast forward to October 19, 1967 when the Flyers played their first NHL game at the Spectrum. Ed Snider was the driving force that brought Philadelphia into the wonderful mania of pro hockey, although at the time only about 7,800 people showed up for the game. I had written a column for this newspaper heralding the advent of hockey in Philadelphia and caught hell for it from the original Review owner, Leon Levin. Unknown to me, Levin had his own feud going with Snider and admonished me never to write about the team again, desiring not to give Snider any free publicity. As an aside, Mr. Levin (yes, he, too, liked being called “Mister”) assured me hockey would never make it in Philadelphia.
Snider outlasted and was more successful than Jerry Wolman. He outlasted Leon Levin, too. His hockey team won the hearts and minds of a loyal core group of sports fans in this city. In his club’s winning the Stanley Cup two seasons in a row in the mid ’70s and defeating the legendary Red Army team in ’76, Snider’s legend grew as much as did that of his team. The fact that the team hasn’t skated around the rink carrying the Stanley Cup aloft seems not to have made a dent in either fan loyalty or Snider’s reputation as a winner. This despite the fact that some fans have always felt that Snider’s short-term vision for the team hurt its chances, until oddly enough this season when he agreed to allow his general manager to go with a youth movement.
Unlike the Eagles while playing at Veterans Stadium, Snider never allowed dissenting banners either in the Spectrum or the Wells Fargo Center. While the Vet was festooned with banners vilifying then-unpopular Eagles owner Norman Braman, there was never a discouraging word, at least on a banner, at the home of the Flyers. That was no accident.
Snider not only didn’t brook dissent from his paying customers, he didn’t take criticism well from members of the media. Some of them recounted such episodes in the columns they wrote as a light note, but there was real intimidation of the sports media by Snider and members of his organization, and there was nothing light about it.
In point of fact, Snider and his corporation, known as Spectacor at the time, took ownership of WIP while I was working there in the mid-’80s, and I was witness to that intimidation first hand. Much to my chagrin, I found that anytime the Flyers organization discerned one of my comments about the team that it deemed negative, the studio phone would light up and a member of the organization demanded to go on the air to refute me and place a positive spin on the story. One time, even legendary Flyers announcer Gene Hart played the protector for the Flyers. If I or any sports host is factually wrong, we welcome correction, but most times it was a matter of opinion. No other professional sports team in town was as thin-skinned.
Snider played a wonderful philanthropic role in the community, particular with youth hockey, but I smile when I think of how one of the first things his minions at Spectacor did was cut the number of attendees at the annual Christmas Party the next year.
In retrospect, Snider’s legendary hatred of the Soviets and, by extension, their players, was understandable. The Soviets were not letting Jews emigrate, among other horrors. His refusal to allow Soviet players on his team long after other NHL franchises were doing so likely hurt the Flyers, but it was a matter of principle. His decision to honor Sarah Palin when she was campaigning as the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee was beyond the pale for many of us at the game that day.
Hey, it was Ed’s team, Ed’s arena. It seemed as if he even owned the song “God Bless America.” ■
