Boston Bruins: How Philadelphia Flyers Rivalry Is Most Like Red Sox-Yankees

Boston Bruins TV announcer Jack Edwards had it right on May 6 when he assessed the state of the team following its redemptive sweep of the Philadelphia Flyers.

“Remember what happened in ’03 to the Sox?” Edwards asked his color analyst, Andy Brickley. “And remember what happened the year after that?”

Edwards left his insinuation at that. But since then, the Bruins have only done more and more to cast themselves as hockey’s equivalent of the 2004 Boston Red Sox, all the while casting the Flyers as the skating New York Yankees.

Some Bruins Buffs may still prefer to file the 24-time Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens under “Yankees of hockey.” Some were hoping to have the Habs in town when the TD Garden ceiling welcomes its newest championship banner.

While there is no need to take anything away from that time-honored, undying Original Six rivalry, more recent history and the sheer present makes the Flyers the Bruins utmost rival. From both partisan and nonpartisan standpoints, no pro hockey rivalry on the local sports scene quite compares anymore than Red Sox-Yankees is matched by any other battle on the baseball front.

Just like the team that conquered the Curse of the Bambino, the team that splashed Boston’s 39-year Stanley Cup drought had to bring its fan base to an emotional nadir first. Just as the 2003 Red Sox failed to top the Yankees even after leading Game 7 of the ALCS by three runs, the 2010 Bruins spilled a three-game and three-goal advantage en route to defeat at the hands of the Flyers.

Naturally, after applying the necessary offseason tweaks, both Boston teams earned a double-take against the same adversary in the same round. The Red Sox played another Game 7 at Yankee Stadium in 2004 and won. The Bruins sculpted a three-games-to-none lead on the Flyers in the 2011 Eastern Conference Semifinals and finished the sweep in Game 4 this time.

With that, just as the Sox had ended an 18-year wait to bring a World Series game back to Boston, the Spoked-Bs ended an 18-season hiatus (not counting the 2004-05 lockout) from the NHL’s Conference Finals.

If that’s not enough, the 2004 Red Sox finished their journey and then hoisted the long-awaited banner before their 2005 home opener against none other than the Yankees. Word of that matchup came out shortly after the Commissioner’s Trophy had been clinched in St. Louis, to which honorary franchise ambassador Johnny Pesky simply said: “Sweet.”

Although there is no confirmation of Milt Schmidt applying the same adjective, who could disagree upon hearing that the Flyers will be on hand Oct. 6 to help drop the puck on the Bruins’ title defense?

The fact is that even if there is no epic playoff “three-match” this year or anytime in the near future, the Bruins and Flyers will continue to constitute a uniquely intense matchup. That is as long as they are both playoff contenders and they retain their respective fundamental identities.

Odds are the drive to uphold the legacy of the Big Bad Bruins and the Lunch Pail Gang will not waver anytime soon. Ditto the latter-day specimens of the Broad Street Bullies.

Translation: You can expect to see your fill of chippiness when Milan Lucic, Shawn Thornton and Zdeno Chara cross paths with Chris Pronger, Jody Shelley and Scott Hartnell.

Have you ever noticed, especially since 2003-04, that when Red Sox Nation joins other baseball fan bases in scorning the Yankees’ unparalleled payroll, everybody looks at New Englanders as if they are one to talk? It’s the same sort of concept with the Bruins, Flyers and their exemplary elements of toughness.

In recent years, the Bruins, among other teams, have endured their share of jutting bruises at the hands of the Flyers. But there are also teams and fan bases who are doubtlessly still nursing physical and psychological wounds inflicted by the Beantown bear.

At the end of the day, though, Red Sox fans are entitled to keep maligning the Yankees as money-grubbers because New York’s payroll is still the only one in Major League Baseball to exceed $200 million. Similarly, a New England puckhead can credibly argue that the Bruins do not cross the line with their physical play nor throw habitual cheap shots quite as much as the Flyers do.

There’s your fundamental difference between baseball and hockey right there. And that’s also where the parallel draws itself. Boston fans see the Yankees as the quintessence of the metaphorical, fiscal bully while they glare at the Flyers as a literal, physical bully. But still, their own team has to beat the rival in question by, to at least a moderate extent, playing it at their own game.

Because no matter who’s playing, who’s watching and who’s rooting for or against whom, it simply comes down to a chronic hunger for a higher mark on the scoreboard than one’s opponent.

Boston fans want continued success for their own clubs and continued frustration for their closest enemies. They most preferably want both in a single serving.

And in terms of hockey, there is nobody Bruins fans should want to make sure to keep one step behind more than the Flyers.