I MISS THE SPECTRUM ALREADY, even though it won't officially close until next September. I guess it was the Friday night tribute to 76er's championship teams of 1966-67 and 1982-83 marked by the Sixers playing their last game ever on the Spectrum hardwood, even those these NBA players had never played a game in that storied arena before. But there they were, stars from Sixers glory years past, Doc and Moses, Marc Iavaroni, Earl Cureton, and the Jones brothers, Bobby and Wali, on hand beneath championship banners hanging from the rafters.
Julius Erving, looking grayer and more elegant than Morgan Freeman, had described the difference between the two buildings that share space on the southeast corner of Broad and Pattison. The Spectrum, Dr. J told reporters earlier that day, is like flying coach while the Wachovia Center nearby is like flying first class.
Maybe that's why I could never warm up to the Wachovia Center. It always seemed pricier, icier, more distant and quieter than the crazed friendly confines of the Spectrum in full roar during Sixers or Flyers games in the past,or even Phantoms or Wings indoor lacrosse games today. I'm old enough to remember when the only ice hockey in Philadelphia was played by a teram called the Ramblers in a place called the Arena under the el on Market Street in West Philly.
The Sixers championship run in 1966 began on the dead bounce parquet floors of Convention Hall before moving to the brand new Spectrum in March 1967, exactly 40 years ago. The new building got off to a rocky start , what with the Spectrum roof flying off at regular intervals during those early weeks. This was back during the days when Philadelphians seemed to embrace embarrassment and were almost eager to describe our city as "a national laughingstock." If you think we're Negadelphia today, you can't imagine the self-loathing vibrations so common in the years after the Phillies infamous collapse in 1964.
Ironically it was a bunch of dentally-challenged Canadians that began to lift Philadelphia out of its civic funk with back to back Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975, and the Spectrum was at the heart of it. Then in 1976 there was that the epic showdown between the Flyers and the Soviet Army team. On national TV our Flyers out muscled and out hustled the Red Army, the reputed best ice hocky team in the world, and at the end the Spectrum scoreboard flashed the message, "Bring on Mars!" That same year Rocky made the cinema Spectrum a symbol of the spirit of a city and a people determined to go the distance.
Leave a comment