The legend of Sign Man: Meet the Flyers fan who urged on the Broad Street Bullies to the Stanley Cup

Second in a series remembering the Flyers, who won their first Stanley Cup championship 50 years ago.

It was May 19, 1974. Less than three minutes separated the Flyers from their first Stanley Cup in franchise history. The Broad Street Bullies had a 1-0 lead on the Boston Bruins in Game 6, courtesy of a Rick MacLeish goal and Bernie Parent’s characteristic brilliance.

The Spectrum could feel it. The city that had not won a major championship since the 76ers seven years earlier was moments away from seeing its newest team reach the mountaintop — if only it could protect a razor-thin lead.

But then Bobby Clarke drew a holding penalty on Bobby Orr, putting Boston down a man as the clock ticked down. Two rows back from the Spectrum glass, a curly-haired man unfolded a paper sign with the magic marker words:

CHECK-MATE!

When the buzzer sounded minutes later, Dave Leonardi, the Flyers’ “Sign Man,” unfolded another: HOCKEY ENTERS A NEW ERA.

And it had. The Flyers had become the first expansion team to topple the mighty Original Six in the playoffs, the first to hoist the Stanley Cup. The NHL had entered a new generation, with the Flyers at the top.

Fifty years on, the franchise has since cycled through many highs and many lows. Most recently, the modern Flyers vowed to usher in a “New Era of Orange” this past season. But through it all, Leonardi and his signs have been there, migrating from the second row at the Spectrum to the second row at the Wells Fargo Center, a link back to those golden years.

» READ MORE: Quiz: How many 1974 Stanley Cup champion Flyers can you name?

Leonardi, 75, first bought single-game tickets in 1970, when the Flyers were a three-year old expansion team. Wanting a better view, he bit the bullet on season tickets in the second row of the Spectrum for the 1972-73 season. His signs, which would become a decades-long habit, started with a Sesame Street joke.

“I like to yell when I go to sporting events. And in the second row, if I yelled, it just bounced off the glass and came back at me,” Leonardi said.

As a season-ticket holder, Leonardi had become friendly with the people in the rows around him. One day, a man sitting near him noted Don Saleski’s uncanny resemblance to Big Bird from Sesame Street.

It was decided that in the next game, the group would make signs that said just that to hold up when Saleski skated by the glass during warm-ups. Leonardi brought paper and magic markers for everyone.

“We held them up when he came out, and everybody got a good kick out of it,” Leonardi said.

While the interest from those around him in making signs eventually waned, Leonardi never stopped. He made another sign for Dave Schultz and another for Bob Kelly, and eventually, Flyers broadcaster Gene Hart started to take notice.

At the time, to supplement the rudimentary Spectrum scoreboard, fans would bring transistor radios to the game and listen to Hart’s commentary. Hart would describe the signs on air, and people started finding Leonardi in his seat to tell him that he’d been mentioned on the broadcast.

The players had noticed the signs, too.

“He was always worth a half a goal,” defenseman Joe Watson told The Inquirer. “Because of all the things he came up with. The captions he had were funny: ‘TELL IT TO THE CZAR’ when we beat the Russians.”

“He would help, at times, to bring your spirit up,” added Parent. “This man was a beautiful human being.”

Leonardi’s methods have evolved significantly since those early days. Now, he brings a case — which he gets in the building with the help of “special dispensation” from security — filled with meticulously organized signs so that he can be prepared for almost any outcome.

“He was always worth half a goal.”

His reach has extended well beyond the Flyers, too. Leonardi, who operates his own publication, Skier News, has covered the American Century Championship since 2003. The celebrity golf tournament attracts many NHL stars to the event in Lake Tahoe, Nev., many of whom Leonardi has been able to meet and interview. One year, he spotted Wayne Gretzky on the green.

“I walked up and I introduced myself,” Leonardi said. “And Gretzky says to me, ‘Oh, I remember watching you when I was growing up in Toronto when I was a teenager.’

“I’m thinking, ‘Are you kidding me?’ Here’s the greatest player in hockey telling me he remembers watching me.”

Leonardi’s rise to prominence as Sign Man was perfectly timed to the Flyers’ rise to the top of the NHL in the mid-’70s. During the 1974 Cup run, Leonardi was in attendance for Games 3 and 4 in Atlanta, where the Flyers completed a sweep of the Flames.

He typically wears suits on the road, rather than a Flyers jersey, and usually doesn’t bring his signs.

“I don’t see any merit in wearing the visiting team’s jersey in other arenas,” he said. “It’s a no-win situation: If your team wins, you’re in for a hard time. If your team loses, everybody’s telling you how bad your team was.”

The Flyers advanced to face the New York Rangers in the semifinals, and Leonardi found himself in New York at the same time as the team, but without any tickets. He ran into a few members of the Flyers organization at a hotel and asked if they had any extras, but had no luck.

That is, until the team’s PR director, Joe Kadlec, found him to give him the good news: Team owner Ed Snider had gotten wind of the situation and invited Leonardi and his friend to sit with him at Madison Square Garden. Snider’s seats at the Spectrum put him directly in view of Leonardi’s signs, and he’d become a big fan of the fan’s handiwork.

“I said to my friend that came up with me, ‘I’m glad we’re in jackets and ties,’” Leonardi said.

The Rangers ended up winning that game, and the series ultimately came down to Game 7 at the Spectrum. Gary Dornhoefer scored twice, and MacLeish and Orest Kindrachuk each tallied goals in a 4-3 victory that sent the Flyers to the Stanley Cup Final against Boston.

“I really felt that [Snider] embraced the signs when he gave me a big hug after we beat the Rangers in that Game 7,” Leonardi said. “I was downstairs with my girlfriend at the time, and I see Ed, and he comes up and gives me a giant, big bear hug.”

The two would continue to maintain a friendship over the years. When Leonardi married his wife, Lorie, in 1982, Snider sent champagne to their seats, and even honored them with a special commemoration on the Spectrum scoreboard.

With the Flyers carrying a 3-2 series lead into Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final, Leonardi prepared several signs for the occasion. One was POP THOSE CORKS, in anticipation of other fans sneaking in champagne bottles to celebrate the possible clincher.

“But with a 1-0 game, I was a little bit more tentative than I would normally be if we were winning 4-0 with a minute to go,” he said. “I probably got on the goalie with a NEXT GOALIE sign, as much as I could.”

After those corks were popped, after he unfolded his last sign, and after on-ice celebrations had concluded, Leonardi wandered down to the hallway outside the Flyers locker room. Snider’s friendship came with its perks — namely, that Leonardi had pretty much free reign in the Spectrum.

“Joe Kadlec, who had been their PR director, motioned to me, go ahead in, and I’m like, ‘Really?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah.’ I’m thinking, This is something special.”

The room was packed with players’ families, friends, and even a few members of the Eagles. All took turns drinking out of the Cup. It’s a moment that, thanks to Leonardi’s forethought in bringing his Super 8 camera along with him, has been immortalized on film.

The following day, Leonardi rode on a bus with the Flyers Fan Club in the Stanley Cup parade. The players rode in convertibles, and more than 2 million people lined up on Broad Street to celebrate their Bullies.

Leonardi’s legacy as Sign Man had only just begun. The next year, he was invited to ride with the Flyers front office in the parade celebrating their second Cup. In 1979, he traveled with the team during its 35-game unbeaten streak. He got to know all the players off the ice.

“They’re different personalities,” he said. “Dave Schultz, you could give him the hardest time possible. He was the nicest guy, still is the nicest guy. Kelly, same thing. All the guys that were the Broad Street Bullies, nicest guys off the ice.”

Head coach Fred Shero famously wrote, “Win today and we walk together forever” on the chalkboard in the Flyers’ locker room before that Game 6. It’s a few too many words for a magic marker sign. But thanks to a tradition that started with a Sesame Street joke, in a way, Leonardi walks with them.

“They were all close,” he said. “And from the outside, I feel a part of that. That moment, that classic moment in the city’s sports history.”