Members of Flyers organization to claim city honors

Courtesy of the Philadelphia Flyers

Philadelphia Flyers right winger Claude Giroux, who emerged as one of the elite players in the National Hockey League (NHL) this season, will receive the 2012 John Wanamaker Athletic Award on June 5 at the Wanamaker Building’s Crystal Tea Room.  

The Philadelphia Sports Congress (PSC), a division of the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau, presents the award each year in conjunction with Amerimar/Behringer Harvard.

This season, Giroux tallied 28 goals and 65 assists for 93 points. He also led the NHL in scoring during the first round of the playoffs. This is the third time a Flyers player has been recognized with the award, but the first since goalie Bernie Parent in 1975. Giroux also joins Bobby Clarke and the Flyers Stanley Cup Champion team from 1974, coach Fred Shero in 1976, and the 1980 squad which reached the Cup Finals. 

Since 1961, the Wanamaker Award has been presented to the athlete, team or organization that has done the most to reflect credit upon Philadelphia and to the team or sport in which they excel. 

In addition, a Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Comcast-Spectacor Chairman Ed Snider.  Snider brought an NHL franchise to Philadelphia when he founded the Flyers in 1967, and was the driving force behind the construction of the Spectrum.  A member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, he created the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation in recent years to bring the “the greatest game ever invented” to children who otherwise might never have the opportunity to play. 

“This year’s recipients are wonderful representatives of the caliber of individuals in the Philadelphia sports community,” said David Montgomery, chairman, Philadelphia Sports Congress. “Claude Giroux is not only an outstanding player, but he also has emerged as a true leader for the Flyers. Ed Snider has done so much for Philadelphia throughout his entire career."

Snider to enter U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame

by Bob Herpen
Phanatic Hockey Editor

The Philadelphia Flyers announced on Monday afternoon that chairman Ed Snider is an inductee for the 2011 class of the United States Hockey Hall of Fame.

In a sense, the selection of the man intent on protecting his singular legacy as the person who made the Flyers what they are today was inevitable, but it was still a shockingly long time in coming. Snider was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder way back in 1988, while he still held considerable sway over Flyers business and also that of the NHL's Board of Governors.

Snider, who has been the face of the franchise since its 1967 inception, will be the first member of the Flyers organization to earn HOF honors for American hockey -- since Bob Clarke, Bill Barber and Bernie Parent, all previous members of the Hockey Hall of Fame, are Canadian-born and trained.

The 78-year-old native of Washington, D.C. was a football-trained businessman who got involved in professional hockey in Philadelphia through his position as part-owner of the Philadelphia Eagles in the mid 1960s. Through his vision, the Spectrum took shape and was built in less than a year, the Flyers took seven years from their first NHL game to their first Stanley Cup, and the franchise rose from an expansion afterthought to one of the most successful in league history.

From the USHOF:

Ed Snider's contribution to the success of hockey in Philadelphia and the Atlantic region of the United States is immeasurable. In 1966, the founder and current owner of the Philadelphia Flyers made a successful bid for the team when the NHL made its first expansion, and has since turned the organization into one of the most successful franchises in the league.


His commitment to advancing the game at the amateur level is evidenced in many ways, including in 2005 when he founded the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation to provide unprivileged children in the Philadelphia area with an opportunity to learn to play hockey at local rinks. In 2008, the Snider Hockey Foundation rescued three of the five Philadelphia inner-city ice-skating rinks that had been targeted for closure by funding and operating them for the city.


The Foundation now funds and administers programming in all five city rinks. Snider was inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame in 1985. He is the current chairman of Comcast Spectacor.

Snider will be joined by Mike "Doc" Emrick, late of New Jersey Devils broadcasts, 22-year NHL veteran Chris Chelios, Former Calder Trophy winner Gary Suter and the recently-retired 500-goal scorer Keith Tkachuk.

Located in Buffalo with a museum at Eveleth, Minnesota, the U.S. HOF inducted Art Berglund, Jeremy Roenick, Derian/Kevin Hatcher and Doc Nagobads of the Miracle on Ice Olympic squad in 2010.