Gene Hart

"The Flyers win the Stanley Cup!" You may get to say those words again within the next two weeks. Gene Hart was the guy who said them first, on May 19, 1974, at the end of the nerve-racking, Cup-clinching 1-0 win over Boston at the Spectrum. Hart, 65, isn't the play-by-play voice of the Flyers anymore. He stepped down from that job in July 1995 after 28 years in which his trademark, high-pitched "Score!" became as much part of the area's vernacular as "Yo. " But Hart follows the club intently, more as a fan and hockey aficionado than as the team's broadcast consultant and senior adviser.

"I'm looking for Gene Hart," the caller said when the longtime Flyers announcer answered the phone in his South Jersey home. "Why?" Hart asked. "Is he lost?" Well, yes. At least to the airwaves, and to the thousands who, like Flyers owner Ed Snider, "still get goose bumps" when they think of his final- seconds call of the Flyers' first Stanley Cup in 1974. After 28 seasons and two Stanley Cups, the former high school teacher yesterday was reassigned to a community relations post by the Flyers' brass, who told the 64-year-old announcer that they wanted "to go in a different direction.

Holy puck, Flyers fans! Five years after being banished to radio, Gene "S-c-o-r-e!" Hart is returning to the tube. Hart, 62, beloved voice of the Flyers since their inception 26 years ago, signed a three-year deal to do play-by-play for Channel 17 as well as for Prism and SportsChannel Philadelphia. Former Flyers great Gary Dornhoefer, 50, will continue as color analyst. Five years ago, when the Flyers decided to stop simulcasting games on TV and radio, Hart and Bobby Taylor were unceremoniously demoted from their TV perch in favor of Mike Emrick and Bill Clement.

Gene Hart, the smooth-talking voice of the Philadelphia Flyers who for 28 years ended every radio and TV broadcast with "Good night and good hockey," died yesterday. Mr. Hart, 68, who lived in Cherry Hill, had been in the critical-care unit of Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center in Camden since Saturday. He was being treated for kidney and liver failure. With the exception of the late John Facenda, whose baritone voice became synonymous with NFL Films, Mr. Hart was probably Philadelphia's most recognized broadcast voice.

More than 2,000 Philadelphians gathered at the First Union Center yesterday to say goodbye to Gene Hart, the longtime voice of the Flyers who died on Wednesday from organ failure at 68. Joined by fans who watched from seating on the floor and in the arena's stands, Hart's friends and family paid tribute during a memorial service that lasted more than two hours. They spoke of his love for hockey and music, and, in several touching stories, of his love for family. An ensemble from the Philadelphia Orchestra, along with several members of the Opera Company of Philadelphia, performed throughout the service, and the mixture of storytelling and music made for an exceptional tribute that drew a standing ovation from the crowd at the end. There were arias, solo chorus performances, and instrumental accompaniments.

Score! If there's a word closest to the heart of Gene Hart, that's it. After all, the affable announcer has shouted it thousands of times since he first broadcast Flyers hockey games in 1967. So it's an apt title for his recently released book on Philadelphia's hockey darlings. In the book, Hart reminisces over his nearly quarter-century involvement with the team: from the giddy highs of the Stanley Cup years in the mid-'70s to the tragedy-scarred lows, marked by the premature deaths of Barry Ashbee and Pelle Lindbergh and, within the last few months, players wives' Kathy Kerr and Melanie Van Impe, and former coach Fred Shero.

Former Flyers broadcaster Gene Hart reentered Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center yesterday afternoon and is in the critical-care unit. Hart, a diabetic, has been on a kidney-transplant list for some time. Members of the Hart family could not be reached for comment and the Flyers had very little information. Several club staffers, however, described his condition as "serious. " "I talked to his wife [Sarah] and doctors on Friday and he wasn't doing very well," said Ron Ryan, the Flyers' chief operations officer, from Hilton Head Island last night where he was attending American Hockey League meetings.

For almost three decades, Gene Hart described the exploits of hockey legends such as Mario Lemieux on the radio. Last night, Hart officially became a legend himself when he was presented with a highly coveted Hockey Hall of Fame blazer during glitzy induction ceremonies here. He joined Lemieux, Islanders great Bryan Trottier, Oilers general manager Glen Sather and Hockey News cofounder Ken McKenzie as the latest men to be enshrined into the Hall. "This is such an honor," Hart said.

Don Earle, who teamed with Gene Hart on play-by-play during the Flyers' two Stanley Cup seasons in the 1970s, died Sunday at his home in Westfield, Mass. He was 64. The cause of death was not given. Before coming to the Flyers, Earle broadcast Boston Bruins games in the glory days of Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito and Derek Sanderson. After leaving the Flyers, he was a weekend sports announcer for CBS Radio network and was sports director of WGGB-TV in Springfield, Mass. He was a co-founder and past president of the NHL Broadcasters' Association.

If it weren't for the fact that the Flyers were missing a half-dozen of their best players, fans would have to be a little concerned about the team's lackluster matinee performance Saturday at the First Union Center in their preseason home opener against Detroit. The Red Wings used their speed and won handily over the Flyers, 5-2, dropping Roger Neilson's club to 0-2 in exhibition play. Sergei Fedorov and Brendan Shanahan played for Detroit, as did a handful of rookie defensemen.

In the season's first two months, the Flyers' power play has been either off-the-charts good or hard-to-fathom bad. It needs to develop some consistency or the regular season is going to be another roller-coaster ride. Or, as the late, great Gene Hart was fond of saying during a game's final minutes: "Fasten your seat belts, folks. " It may sound simplistic, but as the power play goes, so go the Flyers. The numbers, heading into Saturday, don't lie: In their 15 wins, the Flyers' power play was 17 for 70, a 24.3 percent success rate.

IN THE END, the ice was littered with the sticks and gloves of the celebrating Chicago Blackhawks, but littered also with the Flyers' dreams. They were entitled to those dreams, too. They had earned them through 8 thrilling weeks of hell. But there they were, those dreams, ready to be swept up with the trash. And Chris Pronger said, "I don't think this will set in for a while. " Thirty-five years. It is hard to believe sometimes that it has been that long since the Flyers hoisted the Stanley Cup. They just pushed us all to the brink with a playoff run that none of us will soon forget.

  The Pennsylvania Plan The Flyers are following the script written last year by their hated rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins. They hope it has the same ending. The Penguins made an in-season coaching change last year and had to huff and puff to make the playoffs. Sound familiar? Yep, the same path taken by this year's Flyers. There are more similarities. Like Penguins captain Sidney Crosby last year, Flyers captain Mike Richards scoffed at a superstition by touching the Prince of Wales Trophy, awarded to the East champs.

A record 20,291 people heard "God Bless America" performed before Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals on Wednesday night. Lauren Hart wasn't one of them. The angel-voiced singer had to look up to the big screen and read Kate Smith's lips in order to keep their otherworldly duet in sync. That's how loud the crowd's roar was when Hart joined with the video image of the late great Kate for the finale of the Flyers' lucky song. "It has never been this loud," Hart said Thursday afternoon.

AT NEARLY every home game for at least a decade, Lauren Hart has given the Flyers and their fans exactly what her father, legendary sportscaster Gene Hart, gave them for nearly 30 years - her voice. But tonight, Hart, who will sing the national anthem for the first time at a Stanley Cup Finals game, is also looking forward to being just one voice in a swelling sea of many. "I can't imagine what it will feel like in that building," she said. "I know our fans and we won't do anything less than blow the roof off that stadium.

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...

There is a palpable rhythm to a baseball game, a leisurely, languorous, measured pace that builds to a peak, then subsides, then repeats, like the slow certainty of the tides. Its narrative is best served up by a rich, burnished baritone, a voice that evokes Moroccan leather, say, or polished mahogany, a voice that understands this is a game for the long run, not one to be force-fed to the audience but rather allowed to develop on its own, a voice attuned to a sedate unfolding, a voice that understands when to get out of the way and when to step center stage.

"Win today and we'll walk together forever. " - Written on a blackboard by Flyers coach Fred Shero before the 1974 Stanley Cup final. They walked together onto the Spectrum ice - site of their dramatic Stanley Cup championship 34 years ago - for one last time last night. Bernie, Clarkie and Moose. Big Bird, Hound and Hammer. Dorny, Reggie the Rifle and Little "O. " And many, many others. This was the house where a blue-collar, pugnacious group of shaggy-haired players - the Broad Street Bullies, the Bulletin's Jack Chevalier labeled them - triggered parades that drew more than 2 million people in 1974 and again in 1975 after they won Cups and became a part of the city's sports lore.

Chris Therien is in as the Flyers' color analyst on radio broadcasts. Brian Propp is out. Therien, a defenseman who played 11 seasons in two stints with the Flyers, has served as a hockey analyst on Comcast SportsNet's Post Game Live. He also was a part-timer on WIP-AM (610) and has done work for TSN and the NHL Network. "I'm thrilled to be part of the Flyers' family again," said Therien, after being hired by the team to join play-by-play announcer Tim Saunders for all games broadcast on WIP. "I want to make the fan know what the players are thinking and what the coach is saying in different situations.

Sportscaster Stu Nahan, who along with the late Gene Hart helped teach Philadelphians the art of ice hockey, died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. Nahan, whose background also included a role as a sports announcer in the "Rocky" movies, was 81 and suffered from cancer. Nahan was the first Flyers play-by-play announcer in the late '60s, when the city didn't know ice hockey from ballet dancing. "Baseball, football, basketball, everybody understood that," said Ray Didinger, a senior producer at NFL Films and former Daily News sports columnist.