How Snider wants to be remembered
BELIEVE IT or not, Ed Snider does worry about more than shortside goals and the number of cheap shots Claude Giroux endures.
BELIEVE IT or not, Ed Snider does worry about more than shortside goals and the number of cheap shots Claude Giroux endures.
The Flyers owner, a Washington, D.C., native, hates what some of the children in Philadelphia's toughest areas go through daily.
"I grew up in a rough neighborhood and we had to use our fists," Snider said. "Kids today are facing guns. I can't imagine how frightened I would have been each day to go to school. It's horrible. I just wanted to do what I could and doing it through hockey is the most appealing thing to me. We talk about the hockey aspect of it, but these kids have to get good grades. We help them with their homework. We teach them life skills. There's an educational component to this."
"This" is the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation, whose mission has been to reconstruct and rehabilitate the five city-owned rinks and turn them into hockey/elementary schools. The first fruits of a $13 million project - half of the money from Snider himself, the other half from the state of Pennsylvania - have ripened. A ceremony rededicating the rink at the Laura Sims Skate House (63rd & Walnut) will be held Tuesday at 4 p.m. Also reopening Tuesday are the Scanlon Rink in Kensington and the Simons Rink in West Oak Lane. Renovations are planned for Rizzo Rink in South Philly and Tarken Rink in Oxford Circle.
"I've never put my name on anything," Snider, 78, said, "but I put my name on this because I actually want this to be my legacy."
Gone South
Thanks to injuries and ineptitude, have you noticed who the four-plus starting QBs are now in the AFC South? Tennessee, at 5-4, is in the best shape with 36-year-old Matt Hasselbeck. Jacksonville is starting rookie Blaine Gabbert, which is a big reason they're 3-6. Indianapolis (0-10), a train wreck without Peyton Manning, is trying to decide whether starting Curtis Painter or Dan Orlovsky gives them a chance to lose by less. This week, the Texans (7-3) lost Matt Schaub and now have to turn to Matt Leinart. Matt Leinart! Yeah, bring on that 18-game schedule.