On February 9, 1966, the NHL did something it had resisted for a generation: it admitted the world was changing, and that hockey needed to change with it.
After 24 seasons as a closed, six-team club, the league announced it would double in size for the 1967–68 season. Six new franchises were coming to a more expanded geographical audience. The playing field (or, rather, rink) would have a little more competition. And, most importantly, of course, Philadelphia would have a hockey team again.
A City That Never Quite Let Hockey Go
Philadelphia hadn’t had an NHL team since the Depression-era Quakers folded after one miserable season in 1931. But hockey never fully left the city’s bloodstream. Minor-league teams survived and rinks stayed busy. Fans kept watching, even if the highest level of the sport felt like something happening elsewhere.
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By the mid-1960s, though, Philadelphia was different. Bigger. Louder. Growing into a full-fledged major-league sports city. The Spectrum was rising in South Philadelphia—a bold, modern arena designed not just for hockey, but for spectacle.
To the NHL, all of that mattered. Television, geography, and markets that could sell tickets and draw viewers mattered most of all.
The league was also looking over its shoulder. The Western Hockey League was making noise about becoming a major league. American TV networks wanted more teams, more cities, more games. The NHL had two choices: expand or risk being boxed in by its own conservatism.
So on this February day all those decades ago, the league named its six new homes: Los Angeles, Minneapolis–St. Paul, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and St. Louis.
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And thus, the “Second Six” were born.
Why Philadelphia Was a Lock
Philadelphia was a bet the NHL felt comfortable making. This was a city that lived and breathed sports, one that had already embraced the Eagles, Phillies and most recently the 76ers. Add a state-of-the-art arena and a population hungry for relevance, and the Flyers made sense before they even had a name.
Ownership mattered, too. Ed Snider, the driving force behind the franchise, wasn’t interested in polite hockey or slow burns. He wanted a team that would matter immediately, and that mindset would define the Flyers long before they played their first game.
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When the name “Flyers” was chosen, courtesy of Snider’s sister Phyllis, it was modern, fast, and unapologetically forward-looking. Even the color choice—orange and black—was a departure from the league’s muted traditions. This wasn’t an Old World franchise. It was something unabashedly and unapologetically new. In every sense, the league was put on notice.
The Bullies Are Born
When the Flyers entered the league in 1967–68, there were no illusions about how difficult it would be. Expansion drafts were thin by design. The Original Six teams certainly weren’t giving away stars. The early Flyers were pieced together from overlooked players, role guys, and hopeful bets.
But that was the point. The Flyers established their “Broad Street Bullies” reputation from the jump, leaving no room for questions about who they intended to be. From the get go—to put it kindly—no one liked them, and they did not care.
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Within a decade, the Flyers would become one of the league’s defining franchises—polarizing, feared, impossible to ignore. (e.g., becoming the first expansion team to win a Stanley Cup in the 1973-74 season, winning it again in 1974-1975, temporarily running the Soviet Red Army team off the ice in 1976 before beating them 4-1 during the height of Soviet hockey dominance, etc.)
But on February 9, 1966, none of that was guaranteed. All that existed was a league trying to stay relevant, a city ready for a team, and the belief that hockey could belong in places it hadn’t before.
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