On Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001, nine days after nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks on the United States, there was a professional sporting event held in South Philadelphia: a preseason hockey game. It was unlike any professional sporting event that those who were connected to it – competed in it, coached in it, commented on it, were responsible for the ceremony and accoutrements around it – had experienced before or since.

The Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers played that night at what was then called the First Union Center. Between the second and third periods, President George W. Bush began an address to a joint session of Congress, outlining what the United States’ response would be to the attacks and effectively beginning the war in Afghanistan – a war that ended just last week, 20 years later.

After a telecast of the speech appeared on the arena’s Jumbotron, the teams never played the third period. This is the story, from those who were there, of how and why that game ended as it did, and of what that night meant to them, then and now.

The opening of Flyers training camp

BRIAN BOUCHER, FLYERS GOALTENDER: You always have those jitters. You’re nervous – first day of camp, like going back to school. I remember how beautiful a day it was. It was a crisp day. Kind of felt fall-ish.

KEITH PRIMEAU, FLYERS FORWARD: We were upstairs getting ready to start a stretch. We were all on the mats for the team stretch in the morning, and the TVs were on. And all of a sudden, they show the first plane going into the first building.

MARK RECCHI, FLYERS FORWARD: We knew we kind of had to get on the ice, but trying to leave the dressing room, watching this, it’s like, “I don’t want to leave. This is insane, what’s going on right now.”

CHRIS THERIEN, FLYERS DEFENSEMAN: Jeremy Roenick and I were looking at the TV when the second plane hit [the World Trade Center]. We were three feet away from each other, and I looked at him and said, “Was that a replay?” We still went out to practice, but it was all everybody was talking about.

RON RYAN, FLYERS PRESIDENT: We were all sitting in the office, waiting for the first group to go on the ice, and this came on TV.

JIM JACKSON, FLYERS TV PLAY-BY-PLAY ANNOUNCER: Ron Ryan looked at me, and he goes, “This is our Armageddon.“ It was such a weird setting. You’re looking down on the ice. There are all these guys skating around, playing hockey, and you’re watching these buildings burn, and you realize it’s a terrorist attack, and you think hockey’s not so important right now.

BILL BARBER, FLYERS HEAD COACH: I held a very, very short practice. It couldn’t have been 10 minutes.

LUKE RICHARDSON, FLYERS DEFENSEMAN: He called everybody in when he realized our heads weren’t there.

Once practice ended, Zack Hill, the Flyers’ director of communications, led the players into a room with a big-screen television so they could watch news coverage of the attacks.

HILL: You could have heard a pin drop.

STEVE COATES, FLYERS TV AND RADIO ANALYST: When the towers collapsed, that’s when everybody said, “That’s it. We’re going home.” Everybody wanted to be with their families.

PRIMEAU: I can’t remember who I was sitting beside, but I leaned over and said, “The world will never be the same in our lifetime.” And 20 years later, our world hasn’t been the same.

MIKE YORK, RANGERS FORWARD: We kind of shut down training camp, and it took us two or three days to get out of the city. It was scary. I think everyone in the nation felt that. But actually seeing the smoke – everything was scary. It was an eerie feeling with no cars on the street, no people on the street, when you’re used to New York City as kind of a madhouse. It was an eerie time. Sad. Sad. Scary.

Nine days after the attacks, the Flyers took to the ice for their first home game of the preseason, against the Rangers. In the Philadelphia area, the game was broadcast on SportsRadio WIP but was not televised. Official attendance was 19,117.

RON GOLDWYN, PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS, SEPT. 20, 2001: Tonight, Bush appears before Congress for a televised speech to explain who he believes carried out last week’s terror attacks – and why. His 9 p.m. speech won’t seek a declaration of war or announce a military strike, Washington sources said. A major aim, they said, will be to lower expectations for a quick response to the terror.

RYAN: I hadn’t focused on that going into the game. But when I did hear that he was addressing the country and the timing was going to be between the second and third period, then I thought that it would be the right thing to do to put his speech on.

TIM PANACCIO, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, SEPT. 21, 2001: Fans attending the game received miniature flags on wooden dowels.

BOB COONEY, PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS, SEPT. 21, 2001: A brilliant, four-minute video honoring America, an on-ice appearance by local police and firefighters, and a beautiful, a cappella rendition of “God Bless America” by Lauren Hart shook off most of the cobwebs.

BOB FORD, FLYERS FAN: You knew it was going to be special when Lauren Hart did “God Bless America.”

P.J. SISBARRO, RANGERS FAN: At the time, we lived in Lancaster, Pa. My dad had Flyers season tickets, even though we are Rangers fans. It was always the easiest way for us to see the Rangers play. We wanted to go to try to have some sense of normalcy and get our mind off things.

LAUREN HART, FLYERS ANTHEM SINGER: I did see a different way that the people saw the anthem or “God Bless America” in that moment. Just the look on people’s faces had changed from what I had seen a few years before. Before, people were kind of paying attention, happy to get the game started. But it wasn’t this look. I wish I could describe it. But it just started to mean something else to people who probably normally didn’t think about it too much. And that goes until today. I just felt like I had a bigger responsibility to do it in a way that would really connect with people and bring us together and bond us in a different way. My father had always told me, from the time I first wanted to sing it, to sing it straight. “It’s not about you. It’s about everybody.” So I really tried that night – as I always do, but particularly that night – to get everyone in the room feeling that connectivity and that reverence.

PRIMEAU: We were trying to rush to get through the game so maybe we could catch the speech after the game. We’d get done in enough time to get back to the locker room to hear it. But the timing was that it came on after the second period.

ARTHUR STAPLE, NEWSDAY, SEPT. 21, 2001: Barrett Heisten and Mikael Samuelsson scored for the Rangers. Mark Recchi tied the game at 2 in the second period. Jesse Boulerice also scored for the Flyers.

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MARTIN OTREMSKY, CHIEF ENGINEER OF ELECTRONIC MEDIA FOR COMCAST-SPECTACOR: The Jumbotron, the sound system, the cable TV system, all the televisions – basically anything that made a sound or had a picture fell under my role.

The decision to broadcast the speech inside the arena, ultimately, was Ryan’s.

RYAN: I thought it was a very important speech at the time because there were still a lot of unanswered questions. We were all wondering what was going to happen and what the response was going to be. As an organization, we thought we should put it on for our fans.

TIM SAUNDERS, FLYERS RADIO PLAY-BY-PLAY ANNOUNCER: In a typical intermission in a broadcast, we have a set log with a certain number of commercial breaks. Once you have that format, you can’t really get away from the log without screwing something up.

Mark DiNardo, Comcast-Spectacor’s director of electronic media, told Otremsky to broadcast the speech on the Jumbotron.

OTREMSKY: I was caught completely off guard. Our control room was not set up to take live cable TV feeds equipment-wise. He’s like, “Yeah, we need the presidential speech out on the board between periods.” And I’m like, “Huh? How the hell am I going to do that?” And he’s like, “Yeah, you’ve got four minutes.”

PRIMEAU: Guys were moving in and out of the locker room to the changing room, where the TV was. Locker-room banter usually is, “What happened in that period? What do we have to do in the next period?” But it was solemnly quiet, and guys’ minds were elsewhere.

OTREMSKY: So I grabbed an old VHS off the shelf. I jury-rigged it. I hooked it up to cable TV, to CNN. I took its outputs and, through some Rube Goldberg wiring, got the video into the Jumbotron and the audio into the sound system.

PANACCIO: Bush’s address … began about eight minutes before the start of the third period.

OTREMSKY: The whole place just stopped and stared.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. Speaker, Mr. President Pro Tempore, members of Congress, and fellow Americans: In the normal course of events, presidents come to this chamber to report on the state of the union. Tonight, no such report is needed. It has already been delivered by the American people.

FRANK KLOSE, FLYERS FAN: Everybody was really appreciative to see it. A certain sense of patriotism was roused by it.

RYAN: The whole building was just hushed, watching this speech. There was no moving around. People were frozen in their seats. The concourse was empty when it normally would have been full with people at the concession stands.

JACKSON: We weren’t all with our heads buried in our phones back then.

YORK: All of a sudden, it just came on the Jumbotron. We had no idea.

RECCHI: I stayed in the dressing room as long as possible and was watching it.

SAUNDERS: A typical intermission is 15 minutes long, and it became clear to me that this speech isn’t going to be over by the time the players come back out to start the third period. And I’m starting to worry. What are we going to do on the air? We can’t create commercial breaks and extend this longer. So I’m asking questions no one seems to have an answer to, like, “What are we doing if this speech isn’t over?”

JACKSON: You noticed the players starting to filter back out because the time was winding down on the clock for the start of the next period. I remember saying to Coatesy, “What the heck are they going to do here?”

RYAN: I was running around. I told the referees, “We’re going to start the game as soon as this speech ends.”

COONEY: After the horn sounded to begin play for the third … the players simply went to the bench, took a seat, and watched, gripped by the president’s every word.

LOU NOLAN, PUBLIC ADDRESS ANNOUNCER: Some were sitting on the bench. Some were sitting on the boards. Some were sitting by the gates where you come on the ice.

RICHARDSON: It was still going on, which was very odd. When you come out to the bench, it doesn’t usually happen like that. It’s usually music and things from the game that are entertaining the fans. It’s definitely very weird to be in a building of 20,000 people and there’s not a peep being said except from the person addressing the crowd.

SAUNDERS: They did take it off the screen, like they were going to restart the game, and it wasn’t until the fans booed that they realized, “Wait a minute. We’ve got to rethink this.”

ED SNIDER, FLYERS CHAIRMAN, SEPT. 21, 2001: We felt we should show part of it and gauge the fans’ reaction. We did what the fans wanted.

RYAN: The conversation was, in a critical time like this, how do we turn the president off and start a preseason hockey period? It just didn’t seem to make sense to any of us.

FORD: If you’re sitting at home, watching a speech, obviously it’s very emotional. But being in a crowd of 20,000 people, people were cheering at the lines that Bush was giving. It was a real cool event that you just don’t get. It was crazy.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.

JACKSON: Mark Recchi and Brian Boucher were leaning on the net, looking up at the screen.

RECCHI: I was in the crease with him. I was like, “Why are we playing hockey right now?”

BOUCHER: I really had no interest in playing.

THERIEN: It would have been the most meaningless 20 minutes in the history of sports.

PRESIDENT BUSH: The leadership of al Qaeda has great influence in Afghanistan and supports the Taliban regime in controlling most of that country. In Afghanistan, we see al Qaeda’s vision for the world. Afghanistan’s people have been brutalized. Many are starving, and many have fled. Women are not allowed to attend school. You can be jailed for owning a television. Religion can be practiced only as their leaders dictate. A man can be jailed in Afghanistan if his beard is not long enough.

PRIMEAU: We wanted to hear what was going on, what the president had to say. We were listening just as intently as the fans were. We’re all humans at the end of the day, and we’re all listening for the same things, wanting the same things, expecting the same things.

RYAN: It was a situation where it just absolutely seemed like not only the wrong thing to do, but almost the impossible thing to do – to just turn off the president, at a time like we were in, and start a preseason period.

SAUNDERS: Now I’ve got to make a decision on the air: What the hell are we doing? I’m not going to talk over this nationally important speech by the president. So, in the heat of the moment, I just made the only decision I thought I could make and explained what was happening and that we were going to carry the rest of the president’s speech. So we have audio of it on our board, and I just brought on the air the rest of Bush’s feed, in effect turning WIP for those next 20 minutes into kind of a news radio station.

PRESIDENT BUSH: The United States respects the people of Afghanistan. After all, we are currently its largest source of humanitarian aid. But we condemn the Taliban regime. It is not only repressing its own people; it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists. By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder. … The Taliban must act, and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate.

“[To have continued playing that game], it would have been the most meaningless 20 minutes in the history of sports.”

SISBARRO: Lots of “USA, USA!” chants, Flyers and Rangers fans cheering together.

PRIMEAU: I do remember feeling a sense of pride in knowing there was going to be retribution. It wasn’t just about what had happened and we’re going to get through it together. It’s what we’re going to do to take care of this or rectify this. We all wanted something in return for what they had done.

RYAN: The speech went on longer than we thought it would. There wasn’t any indication that he was getting finished, and we said at that point, “Listen, I don’t think we should continue to endanger the players.” The players weren’t focused. They’ve been sitting, and they’re cold. That was the hockey side of it.

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PRIMEAU: You have a 15-minute intermission, and then we sat there for another 20 to 25 minutes. You’re at 35 to 40 minutes, and it just didn’t seem important.

BARBER: Emotion takes over. You’re emotional. Hockey goes on the back burner because it’s a game. A terrorist attack is not a game.

RYAN: I went down to the Rangers bench and said, “Listen, guys, we’re not going to finish this. We can’t shut this speech off. You’re all sitting on the bench watching this. If you agree, we’re going to call this a night.” And the Rangers agreed completely.

YORK: It was guys looking at each other: “I think we’re done. That’s it.” I don’t think anything was really said or talked about. We stopped playing. It was over.

RYAN: So I went to both benches and explained this just wasn’t the time and we should just go home.

NOLAN: Not one person booed after I made the announcement. They understood the situation.

OTREMSKY: When it was over, there was this brief period of … nothing. We didn’t know what to do. So we played music.

When the game was stopped, the Flyers and Rangers lined up at center ice and shook hands.

NOLAN: Other than the last game of a Stanley Cup playoff series, I had never seen that before. And the fans cheered as the handshake went on – after the president had finished.

JACKSON: All these guys from two rival teams and nations all over the world got together and shook hands. I always marked that down. People ask me my most memorable games, and I wasn’t technically broadcasting that night, but I always throw that one in there because I’ll never forget it. It was so emotional and so patriotic and so appropriate, the way it was handled in the end, that it’s a moment I’ll never forget.

COATES: It was probably the most surreal thing I’ve ever seen in all the years I’ve been doing this. It was like, “OK, we came here. We had a little bit of a scrimmage. But that’s not the important thing in life right now. Let’s shake hands and go in the locker room and try to understand what’s going on in the world.”

RYAN: We were actually expecting some feedback or refund requests or something. But if I can’t honestly say we had zero, we had so few cases of any kind of complaint that, to me, it was zero. People seemed to understand fully what was going on.

KLOSE: I can honestly say I don’t remember one fan complaining.

SAUNDERS: The next morning, I got a phone call early from the program director at WIP. He was a headstrong, difficult guy to deal with at times, and he was [ticked] at me. He said, “Who gave you the right to program my radio station and make a programming decision on the fly like that?” I was dumbfounded. It’s like, “What else did you think I was going to do?”

BOUCHER: Until the baseball playoffs started, it was hard for me to focus. When baseball came back and the playoffs took off and you could see the country rally around that sport, then I felt like I could refocus a little bit. Until then, I felt like I was in this lull a little bit. I was in this funk for about a month. It was hard to do anything except watch the news.

OTREMSKY: That’s the last time the country was actually unified behind a single cause. Over time, we’ve just started going in different directions as far as politics. To me, that was the last time the country was united and standing firm as one, and it’s a shame.

RYAN: I don’t look upon this as a good night. There wasn’t anything that was good at that particular time. I look upon it as a moment when, as an organization, we did the right thing.