In six decades as a sports journalist, I covered almost everything. One year at Sports Illustrated, I was dispatched to the world championship of squash, and I knew absolutely nothing about the sport; not even how to keep score. Furthermore, the event was at the Yale Club in New York City, where I was initially denied admission because I wasn't wearing a sports coat. I went to a discount clothing place next door and charged one to my expense account. The coat lasted for about a decade — a decade longer than my dalliance with squash. But I digress.
During those six decades, I never covered hockey. Just not in my bandwidth; never played it, can't skate very well, found the arenas cold. But I would be remiss in my duties as a general chronicler if I did not highlight perhaps the most famous moment in the history of the Philadelphia Flyers because today, January 13, 2026, is the 50th anniversary of that moment.
I speak of the night that the Broad Street Bullies, as the beloved Flyers teams of the 1970s were known, drove the best team in the world — the Red Army team from the Soviet Union — off Spectrum ice. Credit for this commentary, by the way, comes from my friend and hockey hall-of-famer Mike Farber, a fellow Sports Illustrated alum who lives in Montreal and knows almost everything about the game, which I do not.
Here's the background. It was the mid-70s. We were still in the deep freeze of the Cold War. Every sporting engagement between the U.S. and the Soviets — nay, every engagement of any kind — was a big deal. The Red Army team at that time was without a doubt the best hockey team in the world, possibly the best hockey team of all time, as chroniclers like Farber will testify. But the mysterious Russians had agreed to a temporary detente, a North American tour that was big news in the hockey world.
There was no exhibition feeling about the games; no Glasnost, no Gorbachev. The atmosphere was all Khrushchev banging his shoe on a desk. The last game on the Russian tour was against the Flyers on this night 50 years ago, and the Red Army team came into the Spectrum undefeated, but sure to be tested by these Broad Street Bullies, who had won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1974 and '75. In one of the more astounding sports quotes I've ever heard, Flyers coach Fred Shero said before the game that losing would be "worse than dying."
In the first period of a scoreless and incredibly physical game, Flyers defenseman Ed Van Impe put a hard check on Valeri Kharlamov that left the Red Army star on the ice for a full minute. No penalty was called, plus Red Army coach Konstantin Loktev pulled his team off the ice, which eventually led to a delay of game penalty against the Soviets. And that prompted the coach to lead his team into the locker room in protest. "They're going home! They're going home! They're going home," shouted Canadian hockey announcer Bob Cole, three words that are still legendarily recognizable in hockey circles.
It is believed that Flyers owner, Ed Snyder, who, according to Farber, loathed the Russians, reminded them that their payment of $400,000 would not be forthcoming if the game did not continue. Losing that level of nalichnye resonated with the Russians and they returned to the ice, where they were soundly beat 4-1.
Philadelphia fans desperately wanted this year's Eagles to be like the Broad Street Bullies; tough, yes, but also strangely lovable and, more to the point, talented and cohesive enough to win two championships in a row. But those Eagles weren't the Bullies, and after a season of disharmony and mysteriously feeble offense, we watched the final seconds of Sunday's game against the 49ers tick away and thought, "they're going home! They're going home."
