Ed Snider

THE SPECTRUM home of the Broad Street Bullies, Dr. J and many other great athletes - may become just a memory. If its demise comes to fruition, it will be a sad occasion for many concert-goers and sports fans in the city of Philadelphia. But say it ain't so - will Ed Snider and his band of merry men really build a state-of-the-art complex for the people of the Delaware Valley with no public funding from the city of Philadelphia or commonwealth of Pennsylvania? The nerve of some people not wanting my tax dollars so they can become richer!

On the loyalty of Flyers fans:   "The basic thing is, people realize that it ain't easy to win. There's 30 teams trying. But they give you credit for trying hard and having a competitive team most of the time. For example, we didn't win last year. But it was probably just as exciting as if we had. Considering everything we accomplished last year. So therefore the fans got value for their buck and they feel like they were entertained and they had a great time. We want to win a championship.

What a motley man is Edward Malcolm Snider. Most people know him as a business tycoon and owner of the Philadelphia Flyers. The regulars at Frank Clements Bar know him as a hot pinball player and pretty good guy. His business associates know him as a fierce competitor and tough negotiator. His friends know him as a generous, earnest man who is rather sentimental when it comes to his wife, Martha, and a babbling idiot when it comes to their new baby, Sarena. And he loves to windsurf and play softball at the company picnic.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell writes a weekly sports column for the Daily News from a fan's perspective. His column appears Wednesdays. ED SNIDER might not be the easiest guy to love - he's too rich, too handsome, too self-assured, too stubborn, too Republican (although he has been a significant contributor to my campaigns) and too well-dressed (I usually hate guys like Ed who look so good in clothes, as I usually look like a mess). But virtually all Philadelphia sports fans, especially hockey stalwarts, should love him for what he has done.

Ed Snider, majority owner and founder of the Flyers, said last night that he and his son, Jay Snider, may have made a mistake in rushing Bob Clarke off the ice and into the general manager's job in 1984. "You know, Bob never had a chance to catch his breath, and, believe me, we're still looking at ourselves in the mirror about that," Snider said from his home in California. "But that's history now. " Clarke became general manager only one day after he ended his 15-year playing career.

From the start, they were an unlikely management team. The general manager grew up a miner's son in Flin Flon, playing hockey to get away from the mines. The team president grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs as the son of the wealthy owner of the Flyers, idolizing the miner's son, who was by then doing the things that would make him the greatest player in the team's history. Flyers founder and majority owner Ed Snider said yesterday that he didn't understand all the reasons for Bob Clarke's painful, awkward departure from the team Clarke came to symbolize.

Spectacor founder Ed Snider doesn't sound optimistic about the immediate prospects for Spectrum II, the new home for the Sixers and Flyers that is supposed to be built on the vacant lot formerly occupied by JFK Stadium. "We keep working diligently, at a snail's pace," said Snider, the Flyers' majority owner. Asked when construction might begin, Snider, sounding a trifle weary, said, "Someday. " On Nov. 9, Snider's son, Jay, the president of Spectacor, said that the long-delayed announcement that the building's financing was in place might be made "around Christmas or New Year's," and that ground should be broken in the spring or summer.

Assuming that e-mails, letters and voice-mail messages have some value, it's fair to surmise that Ed Snider isn't Mr. Popularity in these parts. If his dismissive ways don't turn you off, perhaps it's the way he saunters around, appearing as if he has all the answers - with absolutely no championship hardware since the days when his hair was still brown. But if these Flyers pull off the unthinkable, recapturing a Stanley Cup once given to Philadelphia in a double dose 35 years ago, the fans can feel free to scream "We did it" all summer long.

Confession time: I don't know a single thing about hockey. Never cared to, either. That should be enough to explain why the notion of Ed Snider loving these Philadelphia Flyers, futilely chasing Stanley Cups over the last 34 years - and counting - far surpassed nauseating quite some time ago. Especially when they appeared on the verge of getting swept nearly a week ago. Then last Friday happened. Then Monday. Then Wednesday. And finally Game 7 on Friday night, when Simon Gagne turned a power play and a once-lost season into an extended state of palpable euphoria by propelling the Flyers to the Eastern Conference finals - validating Snider's preference for ice in the process.

Outside are the bright Southern California sun and the sparkling Pacific Ocean. But on this recent afternoon, the action is inside, at the Loews Hotel in Santa Monica. Here, packs of well-moussed, silk-clad foreign film buyers prowl the hotel's carpeted suites, searching for American movies that will fill the theaters in Italy, Japan and Australia. Of all the Hollywood vendors at this glitzy cinema auction, few will do better than the fledgling Spectacor Films. Before the day is out, the company will have sold the overseas rights to its recently shot Wedlock, a sci-fi thriller starring Rutger Hauer, Mimi Rogers and Joan Chen.

Not so long ago, John Tortorella was the hockey version of Jon Gruden, hijacking a Philadelphia-bound championship on behalf of Tampa Bay. It was Torts' Lightning that beat Ken Hitchcock's Flyers in a seven-game Eastern Conference Final in 2004, then went on to win the Stanley Cup. Painful as this might be for Flyers fans, Tortorella has the best team in the East again. This time, just to rub a little extra salt in, that team is the rival New York Rangers. Philadelphia eyes have been on Pittsburgh, for obvious reasons.

THE REVELATION came a day earlier, when Flyers goalie Ilya Bryzgalov announced he wasn't starting in the Winter Classic and coach Peter Laviolette chose Sergei Bobrovsky. Ordinarily, such a decision would not become headline news. But yesterday's 3-2 loss to the Rangers was the marquee game of the NHL's regular season, exposing the Flyers to a national audience of casual fans. And the Flyers played it without Bryzgalov, their $51 million goalie who is the highest-paid player at his position in the league.

Veteran right winger Jaromir Jagr reaggravated a leg injury and sat out most of the last two periods of the Flyers' 3-2 loss to the New York Rangers on Monday at Citizens Bank Park. Jagr played two shifts in the second period and none in the third. He played just 7 minutes, 9 seconds as the Flyers lost for the fifth time in their last seven games. According to Jagr, he was speared by a Penguins player on his left calf on Thursday; he reaggravated the injury on Monday and the leg started to swell.

IT WILL BE 50 degrees and rainy today in Philadelphia. In 10 days, a hockey game will be played outdoors in Citizens Bank Park. The temperature right now is unseasonably warm, although this is the risk the NHL was willing to take when it agreed to play the annual Winter Classic in Philadelphia, the southern-most city that has hosted the event. This will be the fifth incarnation of the Winter Classic, with the first four being played in Buffalo, Chicago, Boston and Pittsburgh. The NHL has experienced different weather patterns for the event, and the game needed to be moved to the evening in Pittsburgh last season, when it was rainy and in the low 50s during the afternoon.

Eric Lindros stood on the sidewalk in front of a popular Philadelphia restaurant earlier this month, woolen cap pulled tightly over his head, a Canadian winter coat, collar pulled up, covering his massive shoulders. On the street, people walked past without giving a second glance. He was just another guy. It had been 10 years since Lindros was last in Philly, 10 long years of persona non grata for a man who had been one of the most dynamic athletes in city history. The Flyers had expunged him like the Soviet Union did Stalin, eliminating his photos and video highlights and records as if he were an NCAA violator.

CHICAGO - As he was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday night, Flyers owner Ed Snider took time to reflect on some of his favorite moments in running the franchise since 1966. Of course, the two Stanley Cup championships in the 1970s stood out. "When the Flyers won the Stanley Cup in [1974] my seventh year of existence, that was my greatest thrill," Snider, 78, said. "Then we had two million people at the parade the next day. That was probably my No. 1 experience.

CHICAGO - As he was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame Monday night, Flyers owner Ed Snider took time to reflect on some of his favorite moments in running the franchise since 1966. Of course, the two Stanley Cup championships in the 1970s stood out. "When the Flyers won the Stanley Cup in [1974] my seventh year of existence, that was my greatest thrill," Snider, 78, said. "Then we had two million people at the parade the next day. That was probably my No. 1 experience.

Flyers Notes More than four decades ago, Ed Snider introduced the region to another sport. Little did anyone know at the time that Philadelphia would become one of the nation's best hockey cities. For his role in bringing the Flyers to Philadelphia - and for giving thousands of inner-city youths a chance to play hockey - Snider will be inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday in Chicago. Snider, chairman of the Flyers' parent company, Comcast-Spectacor, said in a phone conversation earlier this week that he is "deeply honored.

Most of the Flyers had a wait-and-see attitude about the NHL's realignment that will take place next season. But club chairman Ed Snider, in a phone conversation from California on Tuesday, said there will be more positives than negatives in the format. On Monday, the NHL's board of governors voted, 26-4, in favor of the new setup; the Flyers were one of the 26, Snider said. The Flyers will be in a still-to-be-named seven-team conference with Pittsburgh, the Islanders, the Rangers, Washington, New Jersey, and Carolina.