Flyers take on Lightning in near darkness following Wells Fargo Center power outage

It’s probably fitting that the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has a song called “Fishin’ in the Dark,” because Gritty’s No. 1 team was playing hockey in the dark.

With 13 minutes, 39 seconds left in the first period, some of the lights went out at Wells Fargo Center during the team’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday.

The outage affected a chunk of the main Wells Fargo Center Jumbotron, left one of the ribbon boards out and another frozen in time, and other in-arena boards not working. The cause of the interruption, discovered shortly into the first-period intermission, was that a transformer blew or “got burnt out,” according to Wells Fargo president Phil Laws, adding that crews were quickly working to restore full power.

“Electrical crews have removed [the damaged transformer] from the system, which allows us to turn the leg of power on that we lost briefly,” Laws said. “They are right now going around restoring the systems starting with the game critical ones, sports lighting are back up now, clocks and [the public address system] will be next.”

The Flyers led 1-0 thanks to a Bobby Brink goal. After an ice cleaning and roughly a nine-minute delay, play resumed with partial lighting as shadows danced alongside the players as they skated on the ice.

“They asked me if you want to play,” Flyers coach John Tortorella said of the game officials. “I did. And [Lightning coach Jon Cooper] did. And we both decided, let’s ask the goalies. We’re up 1-0 at that time, I think, aren’t we? Yeah, I asked [goalie Sam Ersson]. I don’t think Erss was too crazy [about it]. I really don’t give a [expletive] what Erss thought at that time, we were up 1-0.”

The power outage left much of the main concourse in darkness. Laws noted that this was the first time he could recall an electrical issue of this magnitude. Fortunately, the transformer did not affect the chiller that keeps the ice frozen or any other refrigeration. Laws noted that out of precaution, the arena which houses three chillers for the ice, but generally runs two for games, was running on one given the immense amount of power it takes.

“So HVAC we are down,” Laws said. “We have three chillers and we like to run two at a time. Right now, we’re running on one [but] we do believe will get us through the night. I wouldn’t want to do this in June during the Stanley Cup Final when we get there. But for right now we have enough to get through tonight and we’ll obviously have to get this back up to get the full capacity.”

That partial lighting remained deep into the second period, though signs of restoration looked to be happening as lights flickered on the scoreboard and audio returned fittingly behind the popular Rolling Stones track, “Start Me Up.” The scoreboard was never fully restored but at least one ribbon had the proper time left in the game for the majority of the final period.

And it all seemed to kick-start the Flyers offense as the team went on to win the game, 6-2.

“I don’t think we were really expecting it,” Travis Sanheim said. “But, I mean, once you get used to that lighting, it’s just like anything, you play in a dark building, you get used to it. So, the guys adjusted and found a way to win.”