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Death By a Thousand Cuts

© Robert F. Engler III

Tagged as "The Next One" when he came into the NHL eight years ago, Eric Lindros brought speed, strength, and skill to a Philadelphia Flyers team desperately seeking a redeemer. The 18-year-old also brought a nastiness and a willingness to go that made him a fan favorite in the city that uncorked rock-em, sock-em hockey on the league 30 years ago.

The only thing he can't do is stay healthy. Over his career, Lindros has missed more than a season-and-a-half worth of games to injury, the latest a brain-bruise suffered March 4 in Boston. And the repercussions of that concussion are damaging the team as much as the injury damaged its star.

Now, the captain and the organization are pointing fingers at one another. Lindros says says the team should have known he had a concussion. The team says Lindros hid the injury. Caught in the middle is a pretty good hockey club, distracted from the business at hand - catching East-leading New Jersey - by the controversy.

And up in the stands, the Philly fans are in full-throat. Universally regarded as the loudest, least-informed herd of talk-radio callers in all of sports, they know somebody's to blame for jeopardizing their Cup hopes again. They just don't know who, torn as they are by their love-hate relationships with Flyers President Bobby Clarke, the captain of the Flyers '73-74 and '74-75 Cup teams, and their current captain who seems to break so easily.

In a city that alternately reviles and reveres its sports heroes (See: Schmidt, Michael Jack; Hall of Fame Philadelphia Phillies third baseman), the atmosphere surrounding the Flyers has sunk to new depths of bitterness and bad feelings.

In the beginning

Before all injury scratches added up to a Death by a Thousand Cuts, it was hope for glory in the City of Brotherly Love: someday, and soon, Eric Lindros would lead the parade down Broad Street.

The Flyers saw it. They traded five players - including Peter Forsberg - to the Quebec Nordiques for the rights to Lindros, and then wrestled him away from the New York Rangers in arbitration.

The fans saw it. Lindros had the talent and the grit to bring back the Stanley Cup. He was a bigger, self-enforcing version of Clarke, a hard-nosed skill player who scored and slashed with equal enthusiasm.

Team owner Ed Snider saw it too. As Clarke began building a supporting cast, Snider, like Kubla Khan, did a pleasure dome decree -- a gazillion-dollar arena to showcase the triumphs-to-be.

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