Spectrum Follies: It can't be a memory if you never let go

by Bob Herpen
Phanatic Hockey Editor

cue Medieval-sounding lute solos in the background

...and yea, it came to pass under a pewter sky on the penultimate day before the Giving of Thanks, that the domicile of many an athletic competition and electric traveling troubador show did fall, cracked thusly by the crown of ye olde wrecking ball...

...in the days that followed, men wept at the dismantling of the hallowed edifice. A misty drizzle fell constantly. Children were born with antlers and hooves, and a great cry arose from the populace, in dire need of a hero to save them from this sorry state of impending wretchedness.

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In reality, Tuesday afternoon on Pattison Avenue, it was merely Day 253 of the ongoing end-of-the-Spectrum saga. A wrecking ball hung limply against the brown sardine can for hours, and television viewers were subjected to endless cut-ins until the moment finally...FINALLY arrived when what looked like the top of a turkey baster was raised and crashed through that monument to speed building, if there ever was such a sport.

Famously having taken less than a year to build, apparently it'll be almost two years before the grieving stops.

Though a gaping hole now exists, it will take many, many months to see the walls come tumbling down. And until that day when the very last piece of detritus is removed, we in the Delaware Valley will be subject to continued endless rumination, remembrance and hand-wringing over the Spectrum's way past timely end.

It doesn't matter if Ed Snider was pressured into seeing his "baby" demolished
to make way for the newest wave of glitzy, centralized entertainment. The endless parade of "lasts" to celebrate the once-venerated venue is getting out of control.

We had the last Phantoms game. The last Flyers game. The last Sixers game. The last NCAA basketball game. The final Bruce, Billy Joel and what's left of the Grateful Dead concerts. The banner lowering after the Cup-era Flyers took one last skate. The final bazillion Pearl Jam shows. Everything but the last mass grope in the cheap seats during "Stairway to Heaven."

And still the process lingers on. One friend who attended the "ceremony" today quipped on Twitter that Doctor J was holding the crowd hostage with his prepared statements.

One more offered that The Doctor was getting the Meryl Streep treatment and
that if it were anyone else, music to cut an acceptance speech short at the Oscars would have played. Yet another wrote that the wrecking ball was so tired, it paused to rest a while on the steps.

They dragged Bernie Parent up there, Bobby Clarke, too. Lou Nolan came back and gave his famous intonations, including Fred Shero's immortal quote from before Game 6 of the 1974 Finals. What's next? A Pelle Lindbergh marionette?

I get the feeling that if grave-robbing weren't taboo, Kate Smith would have been the subject of voodoo revival rites so she could belt out "God Bless America" for the last (first?) time.

If you're constantly awash in nostalgia, you can't move on. It can't be a memory if you don't let go.

Wolfgang Peterson should be in line for some royalties here, because Comcast-Spectacor is straight-up swiping his idea for The Neverending Story -- plucking it straight from Fantasia planting it into Flyersixerdom.

Adam Sandler could get some points on the front end, because this lingering insanity is just the stadium version of his old "Denise Show" skit from Saturday Night Live.

It's not like legions of Philadelphians can't dip back into the memory well thanks to VHS, and DVD and website comment sections. But just in case, Channels 3, 6, 10, 17, 29 and the irrepressible Channel X will have every Top 10 list of best Spectrum moments in existence on an endless, maddening loop.

There's the book too, if you didn't know already. The cover is white and banded in the same colors that make up the visible spectrum (get it? huh? yeah? right?).

Snider said he didn't want to look when the hammer was brought down on the weathered brick. Well, maybe we don't want to see anymore either. Enough already. Bring the sucker down, and let's not have a media circus beating it into the ground.