Ed Snider Didn't Think Winning A Stanley Cup Would Be 'This Hard'
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – There are few, if any at all, that would question the Flyers desire to win the Stanley Cup. The team has spared no expense in their quest for a championship. Still, the team's last Cup series win was in 1975, and that isn't lost on the team's dedicated fans.
"I've been trying for a long, long time after we won in our seventh year of existence and then our eighth year of existence," Comcast Spectacor chairman Ed Snider told the 94WIP Morning Show on Wednesday. "I didn't think it would be this hard, but it's really difficult. Everything has to go right, you have to avoid injuries and everything else."
One of the things that didn't go right, for many reasons, was the signing of goalie Ilya Bryzgalov to a long-term contract. The team used their amnesty buyouts on Bryzgalov and Danny Briere this offseason to create cap space.
The team used the salary cap space on Vinceny Lacavalier, Mark Streit, and goaltender Ray Emery. Moves that Snider believes will get them closer to that elusive championship.
"Quite honestly, I haven't been this excited about a coming season for awhile," Snider said. "When you think in terms of the fact that we signed three top-notch players without giving up any of our own players, or any draft picks, we have our team from last year minus [Ilya] Bryzgalov and Danny Briere. Basically, I just think we have great things ahead of us."
"Basically, if I didn't have that drive [to win the Cup] I would get out of the game. I think everybody, for every team, has the drive and the desire to win the Cup. We try hard all the time, we've been in the finals, I think, more than any other team possibly than Montreal since the team was established. We're always in the hunt, last year we weren't, and we worked our butts off in the last few months to try and turn that around. So I'm really excited, quite frankly, going forward and I want to win another one."
