Full Spectrum: The Complete History of the Philadelphia Flyers Hockey Club

Sporting News, The, Jan 13, 1997 by Steve Gietschier

When the NHL embarked upon its first and greatest expansion, going from six teams to 12 to begin play in the 1968-68 season, Philadelphia was not on the league's list of expected franchise applicants. If teams were going to be placed in the eastern part of the United States, the leading candidates were Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Baltimore, all of them established minor league cities. Yet, when the league announced its decision in February 1996, Philadelphia, a city with a checkered minor league past whose application was bolstered by businessman Ed Snider's promise to build an arena, was one of the winners.

The Flyers, the team that emerged from Snider's bravado (and the money of some generous bankers) became the first expansion team to win the Stanley Cup (in 1974) and can certainly vie for the title of the sport's most successful expansion franchise. This season is the Flyers, '30th, and with the team having left The Spectrum, the arena that Snider promised, for the new CoreStates Center, it's a suitable time for a skilled writer to take stock of the past three decades.

Jay Greenberg is just the man, having covered the Flyers for The Philadelphia Daily News for nearly two decades. In this massive book, he has left nothing to chance. He conducted many fresh interviews, did detailed research and has produced a team history unlike any other in scope or size.

Greenberg's final product, in fact, resembles a college textbook. It is an odd size, 8 1/2-by-11 inches, has many pages unadorned by photos and includes, by rough calculation, more than 250,000 words. The Flyers, epic January 11, 1976, game against the Soviet Central Army, for example, consumes better than two pages. Comprehensive doesn't begin to describe Greenberg's approach. And there is no index.

In short, 30 years of Flyers history is all here, well done and objective, too. He does not neglect the fighter side, either, including the Flyers, extraordinary relationship with singer Kate Smith and her rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America."

But this book is a long haul. Casual readers will probably find it too exhaustive to be pleasurable. It is hardly one to snuggle up to on a cold winter's night.