Lindros : "Take your ceremony and shove it"

Over at TSN, I saw this innocuous looking article about the Flyers paying tribute to the old Spectrum with a special ceremony on September 27th.

Two things jumped out at me. First, Eric Lindros is still pretty upset about the way things ended in Philly. The Flyers are throwing a party and a pre-season game against the Hurricanes in the Spectrum. They have invited all 15 former Captains to the ceremony. It sounds like most are going to be there, while Lindros has said that he has a "previous commitment".

One other thing about this article is that it's very poorly typed, and not edited at all. In addition to a couple of typographical and punctuation errors, the writer referred to Keith Primeau as "Kevin". I cut and pasted this quote as is:

While Clarke, Lou Angotti, Mel Bridgman, Dave Poulin, Ed Van Impe, Bill Barber, Ron Sutter and Kevin Primeau have confirmed their attendance, Lindros has declined because of a previous commitment according to senior vice president of business operations Shawn Tilger.

That's good for at least one laugh.

While I'm on the topic of Lindros, I beg you to revisit an article about him from The Onion in November of 2007.

In case you've forgotten just how monstrous the 1992 Lindros-to-Philly trade was, I'll rehash it. Quebec sent Eric Lindros to the Flyers in what has to be one of the most ridiculous trades ever. In return, the Nordiques got:

the rights to Foppa, who was still in Swedish Junior Hockey

Steve Duchesne, who put up 82 (20/62) points in 1992-93

defenseman Kerry Huffman

Mike Ricci, who put up 78 (27/51) points in 92-93

Ron Hextall, who won 29 games in nets in 92-93

Chris Simon

a first round pick which became Jocelyn Thibault

a first round pick which became Nolan Baumgartner
and here's the kicker....

$15M in cash.

There is no doubt that Lindros had a brilliant career with the Flyers. There is also no doubt that the Nordiques/Avs got the better end.

That monstrous trade came just after an arbitrator had invalidated a huge trade with the Rangers that would have been:

Doug Weight

Tony Amonte

Alexei Kovalev

John Vanbiesbrouck

1993 first round pick (Niklas Sundstrom)

1994 first round pick (Dan Cloutier)

1995 first round pick

$12M cash

When Lindros was finally traded away from Philly after he missed the entire 2000-01 season due to concussions, the return wasn't quite so fantastic. Two bums who would later become Hurricanes (Jan Hlavac, Pavel Brendl) plus Kim Johnsson and a third round pick (Stefan Ruzcika).

Seven years after the trade, Lindros is still sore about the way team doctors treated him in Philly. He's still sore about Bobby Clarke calling him "soft" in the papers. He's still sore about not getting a trade to Toronto. He's still sore about getting stripped of his captaincy.

What Eric Lindros needs to understand is that this isn't about Bobby Clarke. This isn't about some team doctor. This is about the city of Philadelphia, the fans, the building. This is ...

What would Kate Smith do?