October 17, 2023
Just over 24 hours before their home opener – and in a sports complex that was about to be all kinds of chaotic for the next 48 – the Flyers held an unveiling for the Wells Fargo Center's entirely redone event level, all marked by the club's newly constructed locker room.
Everything's on the cutting edge now.
Gone is the square locker room with the wooden benches that players had occupied for years – decades, in fact – to make way for a state-of-the-art circular one with individual stalls, a large touch screen to break down plays with on the far wall, and over it all, a massive illuminated Flyers logo hanging above.
The training room was expanded out to include hot tubs, cold tubs, and basically everything a player could need for recovery; the medical exam room got an overhaul too, including a Flyers-branded dental chair for whenever a puck or stick (or fist) flies a bit too high; the coaches' suite has monitors all over now, with all the in-game feeds available to process on the spot; while newly added players, coaches and execs, and family lounges have been added to give everyone in the organization a space to prep and then unwind on game days.
It's a lot, but it's the little things in between that ultimately stand out the most.
Throughout the halls are various nods to both the Flyers' and the Sixers' pasts – plaques for retired numbers, rows of previous team photos, and frames of Hall of Famers – the walls of the coaches and execs lounge are filled with pictures from the Spectrum's biggest moments, in the corner of the coaches' suite among the sea of screens is a mini statue of "The Fog" Fred Shero, and the hallway leading up to the Flyers' locker room retains the orange and black painted stripes running along the cinder block wall like it did at the Spectrum, though taking you up to giant, automatically parting metal doors now.
And it's what was put behind those doors that the Flyers want to serve as the main visual for what they want to get back to, and something they've even admitted to having strayed away from over the past several years.
Before turning the corner into the locker room once the doors part is a lit display of the Flyers' logo sitting in between two replica Stanley Cups, to denote the '74 and '75 championships, against a wall that features recreated Cup etchings from those back-to-back title teams.
And left of those are old photos of the team's founder and late owner Ed Snider through the years, in a tribute to everything he's meant to the organization and the city as the last thing players see before heading down the tunnel and to the ice.
It's a reminder at the ground floor of the type of standard the Flyers need to reach for again too, the one they're trying to re-establish as they work through this rebuild.
"It's obviously really important to all of us, especially those of us who have had the pleasure of playing for him," Flyers president of hockey ops Keith Jones said. "We wanted to make sure that there were lots of memories of him around the arena, and there was no better place to have a pretty fabulous display than right in front where the players walk into the locker room after every period.
"There was a certain level of accountability that came from playing for Mr. Snider, and we want to make sure our players feel that, and go out there and represent all of us and our city in a way that makes our fans proud."
"The truth of the matter is, unless you honor the past," Comcast Spectacor CEO and team governor Dan Hilferty added later. "Unless we honor an Ed Snider, unless we honor the foundational titans – a Bobby Clarke, a Paul Holmgren, a Bill Barber, whoever you name – honor that, respect that, listen to their thoughts, you can then build a future based on the leadership of a Keith Jones, a Danny Brière, a John Tortorella. So in honoring our past, we free ourselves to really think about an exciting and bright future."
Welcome to the brand-new and completely reimagined Event Level, featuring state-of-the-art locker rooms and player & performer facilities.
— Wells Fargo Center (@WellsFargoCtr) October 16, 2023
📰: https://t.co/d7lFuIFBVI pic.twitter.com/IhZrRkdDSL
The upgrades to the event level of the Wells Fargo Center were part of the final phases for the arena's years-long, $400 million "transformation" project.
The last stage, which Comcast Spectacor is aiming to have complete by early 2024, covers the exterior of the arena, which will add massive LED video boards and an advanced, controllable lighting system to the outside of the building in the coming months.
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