The Flyers Are Retiring Eric Lindros' Number, The League Should Be Next
This is more of a formality than anything from the Philadelphia Flyers. Regardless of if Lindros’ number is in the rafters or not, nobody who puts on a Flyers sweater would ever wear the number 88 again. I’d march down to the Wells Fargo Center and kick their ass if they even thought about it. But it’s a nice gesture nonetheless.
I’ve written about how much I love this man countless times on this website before. [See: here and here for example]. So I’ll spare you my thoughts on what this means for arguably one of the most forceful players to ever step on a sheet of ice. The Flyers were going to retire #88 at some point, it was just a matter of when. January 18th will be that night. But now that that’s out of the way, it’s time to start thinking bigger. It’s time for 88 to go right up there with 99 as being retired league-wide.
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Here’s the thing. With everything that’s going on in this country with the statues and monuments and shit like that, it’s more important than ever that we preserve history. Which makes retiring #88 across the league a necessity. Because I don’t want to live in a world where years from now you’re talking about how great 88 was and then some snot-nosed kid interrupts you and asks “which 88 are you talking about, Kane or Pastrnak?”. Hopefully I’m dead way before that day comes but for the sake of hockey fans of every generation, we can’t have that shit happening. 99 is Gretzky. 66 is Lemieux. 77 is Coffey. 88 is Lindros and it will forever be Lindros. I know that Patrick Kane has the Stanley Cups. I know that he has an Art Ross. I know that he and Lindros both have 1 Hart Trophy. But you put them on the ice 1v1 and Kane gets put through the glass before he even has a chance to sexually assault Lindros out there. So that is my plea to the league. Retire #88 before this starts to get out of hand and any ol’ Johnny Jerkoff who gets drafted decides to wear the double 8’s.
And congratulations, Dad. Nobody deserves this more than you.
