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Flyers Fan Goes to Town Hall Meeting, Decides to Scold Brass About the Kate Smith Statue Removal
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The Flyers are holding these town hall meetings with season ticket holders, and Anthony SanFilippo has been doing a fantastic job transcribing the audio for Crossing Broad. He’s the only reporter with this content right now, so I recommended reading the previous Q/A stories he did focusing on hockey ops and business ops.
The questions have thus far been mostly straightforward, i.e., how are we going to fix this terrible on-ice product, but there are some random complaints, like the volume of the arena music and why giveaway items aren’t handed out until after the game.
However, when I was editing Ant’s second story, I couldn’t wrap my head around this exchange, with a season ticket holder deciding to use the time to scold Mike Shane and Val Camillo about the Kate Smith statue situation:
I want you to know that there are a lot of season ticket holders who have been here a long time, are really disgusted at the way the Flyers treated Kate Smith – and it really bothers us. And it really disconnected from something that was very important to us, who have been with this team since before a lot of you people were even born. I don’t know that there’s anything you can do, but I just wanted you to know there are a lot of us who are really disgusted with the way they treated Kate Smith.
MS: Let me address this and take a step back. Obviously, Kate Smith has a very important role in Flyers history, and we recognize that and we understand that. The other piece of that is there is a lot of commentary that when the songs were produced and when they were [performed] they didn’t mean the same thing. From our perspective, what’s important though is, what does it mean today and how is it going to be perceived today? And our job is to make the Wells Fargo Center a welcoming environment, not only for every fan in the city, but all of our employees as well. There are people who don’t feel comfortable because they feel we are making decisions that are negative to them. That’s not something we can do. So, any decisions about Kate Smith aren’t about her as a person, or the time, or the intention. It’s about making that decision today and it’s not something that we are going to revisit.
VC: I also want to say – thank you for saying it. We’ve had a number of people reach out to us and give feedback on both sides and we appreciate you guys being candid and telling us what you think. Again, it’s not something being revisited by the organization, but there’s no reason to apologize for saying it and we appreciate you guys telling us.
It’s inconceivable to me that this topic would be brought up at all. Imagine getting a chance to speak with Flyers brass, face-to-face, and you don’t even ask a question, but instead just tell them you’re disappointed about the Kate Smith thing.
Aren’t there 10,000 other things that are more important than the Flyers removing Kate Smith’s statue almost three years ago now? The team is horrendous. Attendance is dismal. The organization is losing prominence in Philadelphia. There are all kinds of pressing concerns that would have made for better topics in this setting.
The point of this column isn’t to rehash the statue controversy, but I think we all know it could have been handled so much better by the organ-eye-zation. They should have actually done their own investigation, instead of following the Yankees’ lead in covering the statue almost immediately, just because they were afraid the woke mob was going to come for them. All they had to do was issue a statement saying “we take these concerns seriously, and we’d like to exercise due diligence here and do the proper research before making a rash decision.” Instead, they borked the whole thing and pissed off half of the fan base in the process. Even if they had taken their time before ultimately choosing to remove the statue anyway, the decision would have more palatable because it would have at least showed they weren’t going to be pressured into a knee-jerk choice by outsiders.
That said, Kate Smith passed in 1986. If you’re a Flyers fan who is 35 years or younger, you were never alive at the same time Kate Smith was alive. You know about the God Bless America tradition, but it’s likely a small part of your overall fan experience. That portion of the fan base isn’t going to elevate this topic the way the old school fans do, and then non-hockey Philly sports folks come in to rehash the stereotype about Flyers fans “living in the past.”
Regardless of what happened with the statue, it’s hard to fathom that this is a pressing topic for a wider portion of the fan base in March of 2022. The statue was covered and removed in the spring of 2019. If you want to use Kate Smith as a macro-level pivot to speak on Comcast falling short in the “team history,” department, I understand that. But use your 1v1 town hall time to actually ask a relevant and more pointed question. Ask why nobody was in the seats when Rick Tocchet and Paul Holmgren were honored during alumni festivities. Ask how the non-hockey people running the show can do a better job to continue Ed Snider’s legacy. Ant and Russ and Bundy have been hammering this topic all year long, but it’s more nuanced and focused than scolding “you people” about a statue that was removed three years ago.
I just find it hard to believe that bringing up the Kate Smith topic is the best use of time in a rare forum where season ticket holders get to speak 1v1 with business operations.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com