A Bully's Impact

The 1972-73 Philadelphia Flyers more than earned the nickname The Broad Street Bullies. Just the season before the Flyers had finished 6th among the 14 teams in the league with 45 fighting majors. When the last punch was thrown in ’73 the Flyers had tallied 95 fights while the second place Bruins had only 47. Not only was that a significant increase within the organization itself, but when you consider that the average number of fights among the other NHL teams dropped by 5 a piece it gives you an idea of exactly how strong of a statement that campaign actually was.

Over the next two seasons the Flyers took steps to cement a reputation that will likely outlast the Walt Disney’s frozen corpse. In 1973-74, the first time they won the Cup, they finished with 100 fighting majors with the Kings coming in second at 58, and in 1974-75 the Flyers 98 fights were 34 more than the Leafs, who set the bar for the rest of the league. Three out of the next four seasons the Flyers would take the heavy weight belt, but with not nearly the same margin. Guys like Tiger Williams and Terry O’Reilly had taken steps to close the gap while convincing their teammates to do the same. Everyone had seen the success that the Bullies style had garnered, and the correlation was obvious. But even more than the Bullies rough and tumble style of hockey had affected other players in the NHL, statistics can show us that it had an even greater impact on the farmers, miners, and doctor astronauts in Canadian towns from Montreal to Oxbow.

All across Canada guys who had grown up playing youth and Junior hockey with these NHL players sat at the corner table in a bar littered with lunch pales and hard hats drinking whiskey and telling stories that started off “I squared off with Schultz once in Swift Current and the kid didn’t even want to go.” These same hard working men were caring fathers too, which is why they were all sipping coffee at the rink next morning watching their 10 year old sons play squirts. After each game the father and son would perform the time-tested ritual in which dad breaks down the son’s high and low points like a post-game analysts does on Versus. But instead of “You have to get your head up when you’re carrying the puck” or “you need to make sure you get that one over the blue line” toughness became one of the top points of discussion. “That big number 5, next time he pushes you after the whistle you push him right back.” The captain had turned the ship, and the course was now set for the type of NHL hockey that would allow Rodney Dangerfield to hit a homerun with, of all things, a hockey joke.

When the Flyers became the Bullies Rick Tocchet was 9 years old. When they won their first cup he was 10. When he lead the Flyers in fighting majors by contributing 30 of his own to their 185 in total he had just turned 23. Think about that. In 1986-87, 12 years after the Flyers won their second Cup with an at-the-time astonishing 93 fighting majors, the same organization had almost doubled that astronomical number. But it wasn’t just the Flyers anymore. The entire league had changed. The Bullies 93 fighting majors from their second run at the Cup would have landed them at 19th in a league of 22 teams by the time the Broad Street Boxers(?), Terrorists (?), Bin Laden’s(?) were running the league in ’87.

The ’73 Bullies impact on the game of hockey is undeniable. The young crop of kids that were watching this show of force during their most formative hockey-loving years mimicked what they saw their heroes doing every Saturday night on Hockey Night in Canada. By the time 18 year old Rick Tocchet finished his first year of Major Junior in 1981-82 the swell could be seen from the shores of the NHL. The year before the Bullies there were .40 fights per NHL game. During the 1981-82 NHL season there were .93 fights per game. When the Flyers unleashed hell in 1986-87 the NHL was hosting 1.17 fights per game – three times as many fights as there were before The Broad Street Bullies came into existence. The next year the wave crashed with a never to be topped 1.3 fights per game in the NHL.

Into the NHL were now entering a slew of decently skilled, young hockey players that were also tougher than nails – made in the mold of Dave Schultz himself, who in his 4 seasons as a Flyer averaged 347 PIM a season but also 29 points. You had guys like Bob Probert, Tie Domi, Joey Kocur, Basil Mcrae, and Marty McSorley entering the league as players who were both dangerous with their stick (McSorley in more ways than one) and their fists. But there was also another type of tough kid coming out of juniors at this time, something the NHL had never seen before – the pure enforcer.

Things may have been getting too tough for their own good. Raise your mouse if you can name the team that any of these guys played for: Gord Donnelly, Mike Hartman, Shawn Cronin, Alan May. These four guys are the original examples of the pure enforcer, long before it became an extremely popular and heralded position. They didn’t do too much offensively but each of the them finished in the top 5 in fighting majors at least once during the end of the ‘80’s and beginning of the ‘90’s.

By the end of the 1988-89 season, when fights had become more frequent than they ever would be again, the league started looking at ways to make this trend peak. And a lot changed in 1992 with the passing of the instigator rule. There are books written on it and its effect on the sport. The main consensus is that it deterred fighting, and there’s no denying that the number of fights in the league is down significantly when you look at the years post versus pre instigator rule. But the culture of the league had changed over the 20 years from 1972 until 1992 and fighting had become ingrained in the fabric of the game. Fighting was not going to go away, and as long as it was still only a 5 minute penalty, the rule basically called for the services of group of specialists who would serve as willing combatants on all occasions. And luckily enough the market for pure enforcers was just heating up.

In the seasons following the implementation of the rule the number fights dropped by almost half compared to where they had been in the late ‘80’s. But the number of fights that the leading enforcers in the league had themselves were not dropping at all. Rob Ray, Stu Grimson, and Donald Brashear were all putting up over 30 fights a year. There became a demand for players would could be semi-responsible defensively but were expected to contribute nothing offensively. And as a result of this right now there are positions on NHL squads for players like Riley Cote, Colton Orr, Eric Godard, Derick Boogard, and a dozen other guys simply because teams need players that are ready and willing.


For the longest time fighting in the NHL was a rarity. In the 40’s and 50’s, among the Original 6, there was about 1 fight every 10 or so games. By 1966-67, the year before the Great Expansion, that number had increased to 1 fight every 4 games. The year before the Bullies were born there was a fight every other game. There’s no denying that the trend towards fisticuffs was increasing on its own for whatever reason before the Expansion and probably do to increased competition afterwards. But in 1972-73 the Philadelphia Flyers changed the way the sport would be played forever. Rule changes and fines have served to curb this increase at times when the higher powers begin to worry that maybe fighting is adversely affecting their bottom line. But the truth is that the effect the Bullies had on the NHL in the ‘80’s, and then the effect that generation had on the NHL in the ‘90’s is permanent – regardless what can be done save completely banning fighting. After the most recent lock-out the number of fights per game dropped to a level that hadn’t been seen since the ‘60’s. So much emphasis was put on speed and skill that enforcers were seeing less ice in the NHL, or possibly more in the AHL. When they were on the ice almost everything was a minor penalty so it’s not surprising that there were less fights. But every year since then the number of fights in the league has increased steadily to the tune of 58% over the past 4 years. The equilibrium for the league was set by a group of 20 guys playing out of Philadelphia in the early 70’s, and regardless of minor rule changes things will always settle there.

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It’s as if the Flyers are trying to regain that Bully form. Although Dave Schultz led the way during those years he had a veritable army of willing replacements behind him. That was the idea behind the Bullies – the team toughness. The acquisition of Ian Laperriere, Chris Pronger, Daniel Carcillo, and even Ray Emery to compliment Scott Hartnell, Arron Asham, Mike Richards, and possibly Riley Cote does hearken back to the days of the Bullies. The comparisons are fair when made correctly. But the thing that bloggers, columnists, and commenters need to understand is that Broad Street Bullies nickname has nothing to do with penalty minutes statistics, suspensions, or supposedly dirty play. Taking a word that implies some sort of danger or physical harm and using it as an actual fact when trying to make a point, just because it's the team’s nickname, is ludicrous. The Broad Street Bullies were about going up against a force, an actual team. A game against them was something that opposing players didn’t look forward to. If you’ve got an opponent feeling uncomfortable before the game even begins you're going to see reflections of that on the scoreboard when the final whistle blows. And that’s what the league is facing this upcoming season. Their response will be worth watching.