The Broad Street Bullies had iconic Stanley Cup banners. The Flyers say they’ll look into hanging them again.

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

Joe Watson’s friend recently returned home from Prague and told the former Flyers defenseman about the cabdriver who picked him up from the airport.

“The cabbie asked him where he was from,” Watson said. “He said, ‘Philadelphia.’ The cabbie said, ‘Home of the Bullies.’”

The Broad Street Bullies were beloved in Philadelphia, feared throughout the NHL, and still remembered 50 years after their first Stanley Cup victory by cabdrivers 4,200 miles from where the Spectrum once stood.

The Flyers of the early 1970s were iconic, matching their intimidating presence with the skills to become hockey’s premier team. They transformed Philadelphia into a hockey town and gave the region something to finally cheer about.

» READ MORE: Toughest Broad Street Bully of them all? Barry Ashbee’s legacy lives on.

The Bullies repeated as champions and the banners in the rafters — bright orange with a shadow font that looked like a 1970s concert bill — were as cool as the team. It was harder to find a more original championship banner in sports. And it was harder to find a more original champion as it seemed like every skater could both fight and score.

The banners first hung at the Spectrum before moving to the Wells Fargo Center when it opened in 1996. But they were replaced about eight years ago with standard banners with block-faced font, a generic look for an anything but generic team.

“We’re going to track them down,” Dan Hilferty, the team’s governor and the CEO of Comcast Spectacor, said when asked about the banners. “It would be cool to bring that back. Maybe that will be our catalyst to move in that direction.

“Why do the banners mean something to you? Why do those cool banners mean so much to you? I’m going to answer for you. Because it hearkens back to a time where we were on top of the hockey world and it hearkens back to a time where people felt good about the Flyers brand and felt a part of it.”

The 1974 Stanley Cup champions led the NHL in penalty minutes, averaging nearly three times as many per game as the least-penalized team. They earned their Bullies nickname as Dave Schultz, Andre Dupont, Don Saleski, and Bob Kelly each had more than 130 penalty minutes that season.

Five years earlier, the Flyers had been swept out of the playoffs after being battered and bloodied by St. Louis. Never again, Ed Snider said. The bullied became the bully.

“It was a great image for us and very intimidating for the visiting teams,” said Watson, a member of the original Flyers roster who stayed for both Stanley Cup teams. “I’m friends with Bobby Nystrom, who played for the Islanders. He said, ‘We would be rumbling down the New Jersey Turnpike, we’d get to the top of the Walt Whitman Bridge, and see the Spectrum on the left-hand side. The bus shut right up. The players were very quiet.’ They knew they were going to a battle.”

Opposing players weren’t the only ones who caught the Bullies’ wrath. In December 1972, Barry Ashbee went into the crowd and punched a fan during a game in Vancouver.

“Barry was on the ice and this guy stands up behind the glass and is yapping,” Kelly said. “He’s talking about all kinds of stuff. ‘Ash Can’ had enough. He just had enough. He went over and drilled him. Don’t you know, he turned out to be a lawyer. We all got a free trip back to Vancouver.”

The following summer, seven players returned to Vancouver for a court date.

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

“We were in the Hotel Vancouver,” Watson said. “Cowboy [Bill] Flett had a big beard and he had passed out. Barry Ashbee lit his beard on fire. Next thing you know, we’re getting water to put this damn thing out and he was asleep. He slept right through it.”

The Bullies — both on the ice and off it — were wild.

“It was like a bunch of college kids getting together,” Kelly said. “You go from being a young adult back to being [in] your childhood again. We all missed where we left but appreciated where we were and where we came from. We were proud to be a Flyer and I think we set the standard.”

The Flyers didn’t reach the Stanley Cup Final in 1973, but they did enough that season to know that they had what it took to get there. They won a playoff series for the first time before falling in five games to Montreal.

“After the final game, Bob Clarke called a meeting and asked coaches and trainers to get out of the dressing room,” Watson said. “He said, ‘Boys, we’re not that far off. Take care of ourselves in the summertime, come to training camp ready to go.’ That’s what we did. We just took right off.”

The Flyers, seven years after being an expansion franchise, played nearly every night in front of sellout crowds. The Eagles were terrible, the Phillies collapsed in 1964 and had yet to recover, and the 76ers were in last place. Going to see the Bullies was an experience.

“You had bragging rights at work the next day if you went to the Flyers game,” said Dave Leonardi, the super fan known as Sign Man.

The Flyers made their sport relevant in Philadelphia, where street hockey games throughout the region only paused when cars drove down the street.

“It was because of the Flyers that we all fell in love with street hockey,” Hilferty said. “Street hockey was a regular to the point where the city built boards where we could play.”

The Flyers finished 1973-74 in first place, swept the Atlanta Flames in the first round, and pushed past the Rangers in seven games to reach the Stanley Cup Final. Waiting for them were the Boston Bruins, who would have six days to rest before Game 1, while the Flyers had just one day.

“We weren’t given much of a chance against Boston,” Watson said. “But Freddie Shero devised a system of ‘This is what were going to do.’ He said, ‘This is the way we’re going to beat Boston.’ He didn’t say, ‘This is how we’re going to play against Boston.’ There’s a big difference in those two words: beat and play. Freddie said, ‘We were going to beat them,’ and we believed him.”

The Flyers had hired Shero in 1971, believing the minor-league coach was the right guy. He traveled to Russia to study schemes, left motivational phrases on the chalkboard, and was beloved by his players.

» READ MORE: Bernie Parent was the Broad Street Bullies’ brightest star. Now he’s the Flyers’ de facto mascot.

“When he first came over, he started running some drills,” Kelly said. “Clarkie skates over and goes, ‘Freddie, this makes no sense.’ He said, ‘Exactly. I’ve been waiting for someone to come and tell me that.’ Freddie was always challenging. He liked to push his glasses over his nose with one finger and you’d think he was giving you the finger. A remarkable guy to be under. A tremendous leader.”

The Flyers won the Cup in six games with Watson shuffling the puck behind the net as the clock hit zero. Streamers fell onto the ice, the players stormed Bernie Parent, and the Spectrum was bedlam.

“Everything erupted,” Terry Crisp said. “Joey went to hug Bernie and I raced down to get the puck. Don’t ask me why. The linesman beat me to it. He’s standing there, looking at me and I’m looking at him. I said, ‘I understand, but this means a lot more to me than it does you.’ He said, ‘Crispy, you’re right.’ He gave me the puck. It’s right up here in my house.”

Hilferty grew up in Ocean City and interned during college in Washington for his congressman. The bus from American University to Capitol Hill would stop at the National Archives, allowing Hilferty the chance to glance at the building and what was inscribed outside.

“The one that stuck with me was ‘The past is prologue,’” said Hilferty, who joined the Flyers in 2023. “For us to think about — not recreating — but building an exciting future where we’re on top of the hockey world and the whole city and region gets energized by what we’re doing, we better not only understand our past and where we came from, we need to acknowledge it, cherish it, and use it as a catalyst to create a new excitement.”

Under Hilferty, the Flyers have had several nods to their past. They brought back the “double logo” look at center ice, paid homage to their early years in the uniforms they released last season, installed two former Flyers — Danny Brière and Keith Jones — as the team’s top decision makers, and refer to the Bullies as “foundational titans.”

“It’s helping people feel that what we’re doing is special and cool, in a sense,” Hilferty said.

The original Stanley Cup banners, which were displayed on the main concourse during Flyers games, were certainly special and cool.

“You can’t forget about the past,” said Hall of Famer Bill Barber, who scored 34 goals in each of the Cup-winning seasons and later coached the Flyers. “Why? Because you learn from the past. It should always be recognized. Good, bad, or in between. Always remember the past. Good times? Absolutely. Tough times? You say, ‘I learn from that.’ You can’t turn your back on history. The Flyers have made some giant steps in that area to recognize the past. Dan Hilferty, and Jonesy, and Danny B, they know that. I think it’s important for the old guys who are still in the area here to be a part of that. Hey, we are Flyers. They’ve done a great job. My fingers are crossed that we keep getting better, stay healthy, and they go on to win a championship. We’ll pass the torch.”

If so, maybe the next Stanley Cup banner will look like the ones they hung for the Bullies. Those banners were a fitting honor to an iconic team that was nothing like the stale, simple banners that now hang in the rafters.

“When you accomplish as a hockey team what we did, you don’t need rings or banners to remind you,” Clarke said. “For me, it’s a special part of my life that nothing was bigger in my work. My work was playing hockey and we got to the top.”