Philly Flu - urban legend or based in reality?

[seventieslord]

We've all heard that during the heyday of the Broad Street Bullies, opposing players would contract the "Philly Flu" prior to a game at the spectrum, ostensibly because they were afraid of playing the Flyers.

Now that game logs spanning the history of the NHL are available, this can be confirmed or refuted. If there are numerous instances of a player playing in the games both immediately before and immediately after a road game in Philadelphia, then the legend is confirmed.

But checking the records game by game and player by player would be too labor intensive. If anyone can quickly answer this question, I imagine @pnep can.

Click to read more...

 

[pnep]

Season	#PHI_FLU *
1967-68	7
1968-69	15
1969-70	15
1970-71	8
1971-72	11
1972-73	19
1973-74	17
1974-75	12
1975-76	9
1976-77	11
1977-78	13
1978-79	8
1979-80	18
1980-81	20
1981-82	28
1982-83	22
1983-84	11
1984-85	14
1985-86	16
1986-87	19
1987-88	22
1988-89	22
1989-90	25
1990-91	24
1991-92	23
1992-93	17
1993-94	20
1994-95	13
1995-96	17
1996-97	26
1997-98	19
1998-99	15
1999-00	21
2000-01	20
2001-02	13
2002-03	8
2003-04	15
2005-06	14
2006-07	12
2007-08	10
2008-09	15
2009-10	13
2010-11	12
2011-12	9
2012-13	9
2013-14	16
2014-15	19
2015-16	7
2016-17	12
2017-18	9
2018-19	17
2019-20	13
2020-21	2
2021-22	12
2022-23	13
2023-24	12

* - Skaters only

 

[pnep]

* - Skaters only

SEASONS_#PHI_FLU

tinyurl.com

 

[pnep]

* - Skaters only

SKATERS_#PHI_FLU

tinyurl.com

 

[Johnny Engine]

Question I have is, how prevalent are we assuming the Philly Flu was in the first place? Obviously teams weren't showing up with half their roster begging out of the game. If that was true you'd probably have some extreme cases that would be remembered as a famous moment along the lines of the Soviet Red Army walking off the ice. I'd I'm reading pneps numbers right, this is definitively not the case but I also don't think that's what the story would be.

Or if we're talking about a small handful of incidents where people in the dressing room knew or suspected the reason a teammate became unhealthy, does it take that many anecdotes before a narrative arises? Could the whole thing come from 3 or 4 stories, and if so, would that bust the myth or just add context to it?

The middle scenario in which you'd say, you either see it in the numbers or you don't, is that many or most games the Flyers played had one or two guys sitting out questionably. Again, looks like there's no support in the numbers for that.

 

[Staniowski]

The Philly Flu doesn't actually refer to players missing games when they played at the Spectrum (although it's often interpreted that way). It simply arises from the discomfort (in all it's forms) that teams, and players, felt in playing in Philadelphia in the mid-'70s. It was a discomfort that was probably unmatched in NHL history.

The Flyers were a very strong team, intimidating, dirty as hell, aggressive, ultra disciplined defensively...plus the Philly fans were hostile. Players didn't like playing there.

The idea of the Philly flu was a joke, or a way to explain why good players played poorly against this really good (and wild) Flyers team and their crazy fans.

The whole idea of players sitting out games is just a misinterpretation of the term.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Good heavens, he answered in the most thorough way possible in two hours...to this very specific prompt. I shouldn't be surprised at this point, but this is another one for the Legend of Pnep highlight reel...

Also, can we get a "was Ken Morrow soft?" thread...? Haha

 

[Gorskyontario]

Chris Nilan talked about knowing his teammates felt intimidated playing in Philly




I time stamped it, it was probably worse in the 70s.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Good heavens, he answered in the most thorough way possible in two hours...to this very specific prompt. I shouldn't be surprised at this point, but this is another one for the Legend of Pnep highlight reel...

Also, can we get a "was Ken Morrow soft?" thread...? Haha

And Ken Morrow didn't even play in the NHL during the "Bullies" days.

 

[Michael Farkas]

And Ken Morrow didn't even play in the NHL during the "Bullies" days.

Heh, good point. A residual flu, perhaps...

 

[Johnny Engine]

The Philly Flu doesn't actually refer to players missing games when they played at the Spectrum (although it's often interpreted that way). It simply arises from the discomfort (in all it's forms) that teams, and players, felt in playing in Philadelphia in the mid-'70s. It was a discomfort that was probably unmatched in NHL history.

The Flyers were a very strong team, intimidating, dirty as hell, aggressive, ultra disciplined defensively...plus the Philly fans were hostile. Players didn't like playing there.

The idea of the Philly flu was a joke, or a way to explain why good players played poorly against this really good (and wild) Flyers team and their crazy fans.

The whole idea of players sitting out games is just a misinterpretation of the term.

This of course sounds a lot more plausible than any of the other options (though a tiny number of incidents where someone sat out isn't impossible), but I'd still like to see something concrete on the etymology of the phrase.
A quick google turns up a small handful of articles that claim its both - missing games and playing scared - but none of them have any support for the part about missing games, nor any clue as to who coined the phrase. I did see a story about Clarke telling Larouche that he'd kill him if he touched the puck, and Larouche relenting, and that lines up with what I already thought about what Flyers games were like.