10 days ago at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, the Flyers held Ron Hextall night.
Being a regular at the Bell Centre in Montreal, I’ve seen my share of these ceremonies and traditionally they usually take place before the game.

That’s where the Flyers got it wrong, and that’s where they got slapped with a petty fine for violating a not so well known rule.

Yesterday, the National Hockey League announced they have fined the Flyers franchise $25,000 for the 14 extra minutes they took up during the FIRST INTERMISSION of the Capitals-Philly game on February 6th.

Anthony SanFilippo, of the Delco Times, calls this one better than me:
As a result, rather than hold the party at 7 p.m., the Flyers decided to move it to the first intermission. Seemed like a brilliant idea at the time. It guaranteed a full-house audience that undoubtedly would produce those “Hex-tall” chants that still sound so familiar.

That’s exactly what happened. The emotion throughout the building was palpable. Hextall was as eloquent as ever. Watching him stand in front of a net with his classic, wooden, Vic goalie stick, banging it off the pipes creating a nostalgic, cacophonous ring was priceless for anyone who grew up watching the Flyers in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

It was actually a great night and I remember catching the game on my sports package (thank God for ExpressVu) but in the end, you can’t really say the NHL made a bad decision here.
No matter how low this may seem to Flyer Fans, rules are the rules, and the Flyers couldn’t of just held their ceremony before the start of the game instead of keeping the players and opposing team waiting (the Caps weren’t notified of the ceremony taking place in the 1st intermission) for 35 long minutes?

Ron Hextall deserves any recognition he gets, he’s one of my personal favourites too, but the Flyers felt honouring him during the game will all their fans in attendance was worth that 25K slap.

Here’s to an interesting Flyers-Habs matchup tonight!

To take a look at a video presented during the special night, just check out the following (Firefox recommended, might not work with Safari)

-BBeR