Broad Street Bully: Spirit of the Flyers was alive at this wedding
I'M BROAD STREET Bully, inviting all orange-blooded diehards to keep our Stanley Cup spirit going strong by e-mailing your Flyered-up family stories/photos to:
I'M BROAD STREET Bully, inviting all orange-blooded diehards to keep our Stanley Cup spirit going strong by e-mailing your Flyered-up family stories/photos to:
Lifelong diehards Lorraine and Al Eschert, both 44, of Harrowgate, did such a great job passing on their Flyers love to sons Albert, 24, and Christopher, 22, that Albert's recent wedding in the Philadelphia Protestant Home chapel was totally Flyered up.
At the rehearsal, all the groomsmen wore Flyers jerseys - Albert wore his personalized Eschert No. 8 - and outfitted the minister in an orange Bullies shirt.
For the May 8 nuptials, Albert and his Flyered-up bride, Amy, chose orange roses for their wedding cake, which was topped with figurines of the couple standing before a miniature 2010 Stanley Cup - the smiling groom in a Flyers jersey with one arm around his bride and the other cradling a hockey stick.
Kid brother Christopher's fiancee, Amber Price, gave the bride a custom-made garter with a hockey skate and crossed sticks. The groom's cake depicted a rink: Flyers vs. Rangers - seconds after a Flyers "Scooore!"
FIRED-UP FANS: When they aren't visiting their dads, Philadelphia firefighters Eddie Mulholland and Gil Newton, at Engine 7 Ladder 10 (Kensington and Castor avenues), Gilbert Newton, 8, of Fishtown, and his cousins, the Mulholland brothers, Kieran, 5, and Aidan, 8, of Somerton,"live and breathe hockey," Mulholland told Bully. "They never miss a Flyers game."
The kids played Mites on Ice hockey at the Wachovia Center during a break in the first-round playoffs against the Devils, which, Mulholland said, "Kieran believes is the reason behind the Flyers' success this year."
BUDDY LOVES HARTNELL: Michele Marandola, 18, of Pedricktown, N.J., sent Bully a photo of her cocker spaniel, Buddy, 8, looking mean enough to battle the Blackhawks for the Stanley Cup, with an unruly wig that coordinated beautifully with his long, hairy ears.
"Buddy is really Flyered up," Marandola wrote. "He just wanted the chance to have some hair like [left winger] Scott Hartnell."
A WINNING STREAK: Mike Vasaturo, 44, of Milmont Park, Delaware County, grew up in Overbrook Park listening to Gene Hart broadcast Flyers games on the radio, and celebrated the '75 Stanley Cup victory by riding around his neighborhood "honking horns, lighting firecrackers and banging pots."
On parade day, Vasaturo, 9 at the time, was packed into JFK Stadium for the Flyers' speeches when suddenly "the crowd cheered as a totally naked man came out of nowhere and was streaking around the track which circled the grass infield," he said.
"That was the funniest thing I ever saw. My mother tried to cover my eyes. The police quickly grabbed the man and threw a sheet around him. I will never forget the days of The Streak!"