January 27, 2024
George Bridges/KRT / SIPA USA
Former Flyers great Mark Recchi will be inducted into the team's Hall of Fame on Saturday.
Mark Recchi spoke glowingly of his time as a Flyer, his second stint from 1999-2004 especially.
Skating with John LeClair, Eric Desjardins, Michael Handzus, Keith Primeau, a young Simon Gagné, and so on, it was a great group, a blast to come to the rink every day with, he said, and even though it was one that didn't win in the end, it was one Recchi is incredibly proud of regardless.
"We truly loved each other as teammates and friends, and had a blast on and off the ice," Recchi said in a press conference on Friday, ahead of the Flyers' alumni game that night and his induction into the team's hall of fame the next day. "We supported each other. We pushed each other. We held each other accountable, and the things that you would expect on great teams, that's what made it so much fun, because we had that every day."
Recchi went on to say that he remembers the feeling of being on those teams and not necessarily any particular moment. But if you were to specify to, say, that infamous brawl against the Ottawa Senators in 2004, which yielded an NHL record 419 penalty minutes? He'll tell you all about it like it happened yesterday.
"When you go through stuff like that, we had guys I think who never had a fight in their life before that were fighting," Recchi recalled.
"Sharpy was fighting," Keith Jones, Recchi's former teammate and the Flyers' current president of hockey operations, chimed in about – at the time – prospect Patrick Sharp (who was also in town for Friday's alumni game). "He did a great job. that's why we brought him here today."
"Yeah, and I think we had Handzus, [Radovan Somík], it was great," Recchi continued.
He'll also tell you...
"I loved it," Recchi said of being right there in the mix of it all. "I was just doing it, like 'Hey, it's our turn! Let's go, boys!' We jump on the ice. I think when I fought, I saw [John LeClair] all of a sudden was fighting somebody and I turned around, grabbed the first guy, and said 'Let's go!' And then everybody else was going as well.
"It's what you do as teammates. We were a team, we wanted to show that, and we did."
As a refresher: On March 5, 2004, the Flyers were visited by a Sens team that had their number and had bad blood boiling over from their last meeting when Ottawa's Martin Havlat swung a stick at Recchi's head. Havlat was suspended two games for the act, but his return lined up to be in Philadelphia, and the Flyers didn't have a short memory over it.
They weren't in much of a forgiving mood either. So late in the third, after the Flyers had the game well in hand, the gloves were off – all of them.
"I mean, hey, fighting's fighting," Recchi said. "But the way we handled it as a team, and the way Ottawa handled it, I think it kinda hurt Ottawa. We went one direction, they went the other because of the way we handled it and the way everybody was involved – everybody. From top skill guys to our role guys, everybody was involved, and [Ottawa] didn't do that.
"I think it kinda divided their dressing room a little bit, and it brought us even closer. I really feel that way. It's just one of those things where it really brings your team together."
And something Flyers fans queue up on YouTube to this day – just shy of 20 years later.
The Senators and Flyers were both playoff-bound by that point, but Ottawa burnt out in the first round to Toronto, while those 2003-04 Flyers stormed all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals, falling a game shy – a goal shy – to the Tampa Bay Lightning for the right to play for the Stanley Cup.
"I've been thinking about that a lot lately," Recchi said with his Flyers Hall of Fame induction looming. "The one thing that didn't come out of it, we didn't get to the promised land, but I was still very proud of what we did as a group.
"It's hard to win. We almost got there, but fell short. But it wasn't because we weren't a close team or weren't a special group of guys."
"We had a lot of character," Recchi added. "And to me, those are the things I remember now being out, how great of a group we were together."
Recchi, who scored 232 of his 577 career goals as a Flyer, will be inducted into the team's Hall of Fame ahead of its early afternoon matchup against the Boston Bruins Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center.
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