The New Year's weekend was a time for wholesome fun, especially for hockey fans.
A rink was installed inside Philadelphia's big baseball stadium and two terrific outdoor events were scheduled for the fans.
The National Hockey League Alumni Game between former players of the New York Rangers and the Philadelphia Flyers was Saturday. The NHL Winter Classic was Monday, between the current Rangers and Flyers, before a crowd of 46,967.
I did not go to Philadelphia. I was among the millions who watched both events on television, but they looked like fun.
The alumni game featured former greats like the Flyers' Bernie Parent, Bobby Clarke, Bob Kelly and Eric Lindros, and the Rangers' Mark Messier. Monday's Winter Classic was a regular-season NHL game, won by the Rangers.
Watching the alumni game was particularly fun for me, because years ago I played in a charity game in Whitehall Township, featuring local yokels on one team and former Flyers on the other. I'm proud to say I got creamed by both Kelly and Dave "The Hammer" Schultz.
On Tuesday, I was delighted see a story in The Morning Call that said a bus filled with fans from the Lehigh Valley had gone to Monday's game, many wearing orange and black Flyers jerseys. It said some of them booed the arrival of fans in Rangers jerseys. That was poor sportsmanship, but not enough to spoil my warm feelings about what had taken place over the weekend.
Those warm feelings turned sour on Thursday, when The Morning Call posted a disturbing video distributed by Philadelphia police.
The video showed a pack of thugs outside the famed Geno's cheesesteak joint in South Philly, not far from the stadium, wearing orange and black Flyers jerseys, beating up people in Rangers jerseys.
Philadelphia newspaper stories said two Rangers fans were injured in the fracas and that police were treating it as a case of "aggravated assault." The "main aggressor," it was reported, wore a number 28 jersey of the Flyers' Claude Giroux, a magnificent player and a top NHL scorer. Another attacker wore a number 68 jersey of a star of similar stature, Jaromir Jagr.
The video shows vicious attacks, with the thugs in orange and black knocking the Rangers fans to the ground and then punching and kicking them as they lay unconscious. The Rangers fans were outnumbered at times by 2-to-1 or even 3-to-1.
This was not just a fight among inebriated imbeciles. This was savagery perpetrated by a bunch of cowardly thugs who needed to heavily outnumber their adversaries before they could act tough. It was absolutely sickening.
On Friday, news reports said one of the thugs was bragging on Facebook about his role in the attack.
Ironically, it was Giroux and Jagr who highlighted the Flyers' performance in the Winter Classic game. They are two of the finest hockey players who ever lived, and both consistently display good sportsmanship to go with their awesome talents. Also ironically, one of the injured victims is a New Jersey police officer and former Marine who was wounded in Iraq. This is how those who serve the public get treated in the City of Brotherly Love.
The police said they were distributing the video of the attacks at Geno's to seek the public's help in identifying the attackers.
I fervently hope it works and the video serves to catch these gutless brutes. I also hope that none of them turn out to be from that bus filled with Lehigh Valley fans.
There was one other disturbing emotion evoked by that video of the attack.
A few months ago, writing about a wave of "flash mob" attacks in Philadelphia, I said they apparently were racially motivated, with gangs of blacks targeting whites. I argued that such hate crimes are encouraged by rap music with "kill whitey" and similarly inflammatory lyrics.
That should cause concern in Allentown, I argued, if the flash mob trend spreads, because a new hockey stadium is being built in the minority-dominated downtown area. It will be for the American Hockey League affiliate team of the Philadelphia Flyers.
Hockey crowds are almost exclusively white, for reasons I do not understand, and I said the placement of a new arena in the downtown area could be problematic.
Now, as I watch that video, I can't be sure, but it appears the faces of those cowardly thugs attacking the Rangers fans are white.
Maybe my concerns about minority flash mobs were premature.
paul.carpenter@mcall.com 610-820-6176
Paul Carpenter's commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
TOWN SQUARE
Flyers fan fracas is sickening
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