What is the “New Era of Orange”? Per Dan Hilferty and Keith Jones, it’s about reconnecting with fans, and reinvigorating Flyers culture

New Comcast Spectacor CEO and chairman Dan Hilferty was fully aware on NHL draft day that the annual Broad Street Hockey draft party was looming at Live! Casino, just a hop, skip and jump away from the team’s home arena.

Hilferty had been alerted by VP of public relations Joe Siville and SVP of public affairs Sean Coit, and the organization had pledged its full support for the event, helping to publicize it, providing memorabilia, and even arranging for current and former Flyers to attend and show support via videos.

But Hilferty and his team wanted to do more. It was Coit, he recalled, who suggested that maybe the fans who had arrived to see who the Flyers would take with the seventh overall pick might be a little thirsty.

“And (he) said offer…. first, it was the first round (of drinks). And then we were like, how many people?” Hilferty laughed.

One phone call later, and the Flyers’ organization was spontaneously paying for the first $1,000 of the partygoers’ drinks.

“It’s really all about connecting with the fanbase,” Hilferty noted.

Replacing Dave Scott at the top of Comcast Spectacor, Hilferty was immediately tasked with remaking the Flyers’ organization. Chuck Fletcher — who had held both the general manager and president of hockey operations titles — had been relieved of his duties by Scott in one of his last major actions as chairman, leaving two key roles open. So when Hilferty made the call to hire Daniel Briere as GM and Keith Jones as president — two well-known former Flyers who were already closely affiliated with the organization — it wasn’t difficult for outsiders to come away with one clear takeaway from the reshuffle: meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

After all, the Flyers have long been one of the NHL’s most insular organizations. In the wake of the summer’s internal restructuring, no team has more former alumni in paying positions in their front office — 15 in total, per the club’s website. It might be a “New Era of Orange,” as the team’s marketing department chose to present the rebrand. But wasn’t hiring former players to run the show as “business as usual” as it gets for the Flyers? Would a Hilferty-run show really be different than the one that slowly ran a proud organization into the ground over the preceding decade, to the point where for the first time in their history, they were forced to publicly accept the necessity of a full-fledged rebuild?

Hilferty’s gesture on draft day — combined with the big-swing selection of hotshot Russian star Matvei Michkov at No. 7 — hinted that just maybe, the new boss may not be the same as the old boss. And in turn, the new organization may not be the same as the old.

“I just think that’s awesome,” Jones said with a beaming smile on his face, when told of Hilferty’s donation. “It gives me chills even thinking about it.”

The Flyers are different now than they have been in recent years. But the remaining ties to the past aren’t an accident, either. The team’s “new era” isn’t a full turning of the page, at least how Hilferty and Jones envision it. It’s a re-imagining, an attempt to thread the needle between staying true to past Flyers history while building a club capable of embarking on the kind of sustained run of success that makes their past worth celebrating in the first place.

Only in that way, they believe, can the Philadelphia Flyers truly come back.

Understanding the hires

When Hilferty officially took the reigns atop Comcast Spectacor in April, he had a unique opportunity to completely and totally restructure the Flyers’ organization, moving it in whatever direction he deemed proper.

Comcast Corporation CEO Brian Roberts had handpicked him for the job. Scott and Fletcher — the two men most associated with the Flyers’ fall first into mediocrity and then deterioration — were gone. The fanbase was as restless as it had ever been, and they were open to a comprehensive house cleaning.

Hilferty could fired every single employee in the building on Day 1 of his tenure. He could have hired a hotshot up-and-coming GM without a single tie to Philadelphia. He could have launched into a summer-long reconstruction of the organization from the ground-up. Lots of fed-up fans wouldn’t have been horrified; they would have cheered the cathartic purge.

Things had gotten that bad.

Instead, Hilferty took a different tack. He hired a former Flyer who had served as special assistant to the reviled Fletcher as his GM. He brought in a president of hockey operations who not only was another former Flyer, but was the team’s color commentator on local broadcasts. Given the opportunity to try something completely new, Hilferty went the opposite route.

Why? To understand that, it helps to understand Hilferty himself.

Hilferty isn’t a transplant. He’s a local product, raised in Ocean City, New Jersey and a Philly sports fan all of his life. And despite his extensive career in the business world — most notably a decade-long tenure as CEO of healthcare company Independence Blue Cross — his passion for the local clubs never waned. So when head coach John Tortorella forcefully defended the decision to hire former Flyers during the press conference introducing Briere and Jones, the part of Hilferty that grew up rooting for Bobby Clarke and Rick MacLeish and Bernie Parent, who attended the 1975 Stanley Cup parade with his classmates from St. Joseph’s University, couldn’t help but cheer.

“I would say that the fan in me — the fan in me — was really excited when Coach Tortorella said that,” Hilferty acknowledged. “Because part of me, going back to my role in the business, definitely was influenced by who I am, that I’m a hometown guy, and that’s how I’ve always been.”

But even if that hometown bias may have played a minor, subconscious role in his thinking, Hilferty contended that the Briere and Jones hires were not driven by an intentional desire to limit the search to the local, Flyers-centric well. Before taking the job, he didn’t know them personally, and had no specific loyalty to either.

In the case of Briere, he became more and more impressed as he watched him work with the interim tag, coming to the conclusion that the 45-year old fits the bill as part of the new breed of team builders — detail-oriented and forward-thinking.

“I watched how carefully he used a balance between analytics — he has a grid, Joe (Siville) can attest, he has a grid with so much data on it, it would make Andy Reid blush,” Hilferty noted. “And it really gets to everything from financial considerations to track record of the player. I like that.”

As for the man known locally as Jonesy? His knowledge of the Philadelphia market, Hilferty conceded, did play a role — but only after he came away stunned by the depth of Jones’ hockey knowledge and the extent of his leaguewide connections.

“The fact that he had Philadelphia pedigree to me was — I use the term icing on the cake,” Hilferty said.

Yet there was a local element to the Jonesy hire, a reason why he ultimately stood out to Hilferty as the best possible hire for the role, as the third person in a three-man “triumvirate of leadership” with Tortorella and Briere.

“I knew we wanted someone — I wanted someone — who could be that external-facing, loved-by-the-fanbase, respected-in-the-NHL (hire),” Hilferty explained.

In other words — yes, Jones’ preexisting connection with Philadelphia was certainly a selling point for Hilferty. But not just because he was a former Flyer. Because Jones, Hilferty believed, was uniquely qualified — both due to his gregarious personality and his long years of experience speaking directly to fans via their television screens — to achieve one of his biggest underlying goals for the organization in the coming years: to reconnect the Flyers with its fans.

Mending the organization/fanbase fence

Flyers fans, at one time, were so unflagging loyal that hosts on local sports radio derisively referred to them as “Stepford fans,” so in lockstep they were with the narratives being peddled by the organization at large.

Those days are long gone.

It’s not just the glaringly obvious rows and aisles of empty seats at the Wells Fargo Center over the past two seasons; three consecutive playoff-less campaigns will do that to almost any hockey club.

It was the fact that, to many fans, the very essence of the organization was in the midst of disintegrating.

Was this partially hyperbole, driven by the fact that founder Ed Snider’s passing in 2016 lined up perfectly with the first extended period of mediocrity for the organization since the early 1990s, driving fans to create a cause/effect relationship between the two in their heads? Sure. After all, it was Snider who approved former GM Ron Hextall’s plan to hit the pause button on the team’s “win-now” mentality and instead build through the draft, despite knowing that he was unlikely to live long enough to see the plan bear fruit. And it’s also true that the Flyers did appear poised to break out of their cycle of mediocrity in 2019-20, before a global pandemic put a halt to the team’s best season in years, and an absolutely ridiculous run of organizational misfortune in its wake helped to halt the team’s upward trajectory just as it began to really get off the ground.

But when a team struggles to the degree that the Flyers have in recent years, fans are no longer going to give it the benefit of the doubt. They’re going to notice when certain perks granted to season ticket holders cease to exist. They might decide that the goofy mascot is not a way to connect with younger fans, but instead intended solely as a distraction from the poor on-ice product. They’ll gripe about cosmetic changes like the style of the Flyers logo at center ice, and join online crusades like the one that emerged in early 2022 when the team didn’t recognize Snider’s 89th birthday during their game that day. It’s even easier for fans to pile on when Snider’s own family is publicly noting that they felt snubbed.

The Flyers know that they’ll need to put a winning product on the ice to truly win back all of their fans. But that’s not going to happen overnight, especially now, with the team embracing a patient rebuild mentality. In the interim, they decided that they needed to do a better job both of avoiding unforced public relations errors, and doing active outreach to exasperated fans.

Which plays into why they ultimately chose familiar faces to run the show.

“I would say that I couldn’t disagree more,” Hilferty responded, when presented with the criticism that they had unnecessarily limited the hiring pool for GM and president to people they already knew. “I would say to you that I knew what I wanted, what we wanted, to make it work, to really reconnect with the fans, take the longer view.”

That appears to be the missing link here, the reason why Jones in particular was so attractive to Hilferty as a president of hockey operations hire, why the “new” era includes so many old names. The Flyers believe that reconnecting with the fanbase is an essential part of truly fixing things, and that it will be easier to do it with familiar faces — people who understand the area, the fans, and the history of the organization — at the top.

Getting the fans truly back on board is a top priority for Hilferty and Co.

“I’d say the main thing I’ve learned was, I underestimated the depth of how the fans feel about the Flyers,” Hilferty admitted. “How they can’t sleep nights when we go three or four games — or three or four seasons — without being successful as they’re used to, or they’d like to see. These fans are hungering because they care. And they care even more than I even thought.”

“I played here against the Flyers at the Spectrum,” Jones added. “And I had felt that animosity from the fans, and just that environment that made you want to either play an incredibly aggressive game, or run. And that’s kind of what was involved in the original thoughts that entered your mind when you arrived here.”

It’s reasonable to argue that if the Flyers start winning again, the building will naturally return to past levels. Any old-school fans who believe that even a resurgent Flyers have “lost their way” will be replaced by younger ones, and the Wells Fargo Center will be rocking like the old days.

But Hilferty and the Flyers don’t buy it. They don’t want to leave anyone behind as they work to return the organization to prominence. It’s part of the reason why senior advisors — and franchise legends — Bob Clarke, Paul Holmgren and Bill Barber are still in their positions to provide advice if asked, rather than being purged along with Fletcher and Scott.

“I was very upset about criticism of the old guard,” Hilferty reiterated. “So I felt a need to call it out for what I felt it was. That these were the foundational titans of our franchise. You needed to respect the past, celebrate the past, in order to move in a new direction.”

Essentially, the Flyers under Hilferty are attempting to find a middle ground — inject fresh blood with a new perspective into the organization in order to build a winner, but with the Flyers ties and knowledge of the local market that make it easier to keep the alumni feeling appreciated, and the longtime fans satisfied.

“I think it’s essential to respect that link, and treat those who carried this franchise on their backs with respect and dignity,” Hilferty continued. “I also believe that we needed a new group of people who have lived the game day in and day out and watched it transition.”

So this year, you’re going to get the Ed Snider Legacy Game on January 6. You’re getting the return of burnt orange as the primary color on the jersey. You’ll get the double logos — Snider’s preference — at center ice again at the Wells Fargo Center. Whether it’s “respecting the history” or outright pandering doesn’t really matter — they’re just easy-to-make changes that people will either cheer (mostly the older fans) or find immaterial (the younger ones) but will make no one mad. There’s no downside.

The Flyers don’t want to remake their long-standing culture, creating something completely new. They want to revitalize it. And doing that means going far beyond promotions and aesthetic changes. In their minds, it’s about a feeling more than anything else — and it’s the importance of recapturing that feeling, the thinking goes, that helps to explain why bringing in those familiar with The Flyers Before The Fall was such an easy sell internally.

“You entered the locker room, and got to understand what it was like and the amount of pride that the players that played here instilled in you. That’s the type of environment that you really wanted to be a part of,” Jones recalled realizing when he joined the Flyers via trade way back in 1998. “And I think that people that have been here and experienced all of that, kind of find a sense of family, and feel like they’re involved in something special. That’s something that I really want to create here.”

Flyers Hall of Famer John LeClair, hired this summer as a special advisor to aid primarily in player development, certainly believes that the Flyers have lost something in recent years that goes beyond wins and losses, and he’s not the only one in the organization to think it.

“It seems like it’s gone a little bit away from the culture that we had, that excitement in the building, just that family feel that we had, back when the Flyers were one of the top teams in the NHL,” he lamented. “That’s what we want to get back in a big way.”

Jones was more diplomatic, but it was obvious he concurred.

“Not sure what the guys experienced recently, but I want them to get back to feeling like you’re a Philadelphia Flyer — this means something. It means something that you want to make sure you pass on to other players that come through this organization, whether it’s for one game, or for a season or multi-seasons,” he explained.

Bringing it all together

It’s that specific feeling that Hilferty is aiming to bring back via his hires. And to do so, the Flyers want everybody onboard — no former players or members of the Snider family feeling like they’re being pushed out, no decades-long season ticket holders believing they’ve been neglected.

The Flyers may not be good right away on the ice. But in the interim, they’re aiming to be as good as they can off of it — starting at the top with Hilferty, who mingled with the crowd during the first weekend of training camp and plans to walk the concourse at the Wells Fargo Center during games.

“Whether it’s at the arena during a game, whether it’s at the practice rink, whether it’s out when they’re getting your groceries, I think we all have to do our part to stop and say hello,” Jones said. “I think our fans have been — not neglected, but just have not been recognized as much for who they are and how important they are to us.”

Roberts clearly believed Hilferty understood that, and gestures like the draft party donation hint that he does. Hilferty, for his part, is confident that Briere and Jones get it as well, and that they can find a way to keep everyone happy — the longtime members of the Flyers family who want not only to feel included but truly valued, the old-school fans who demand the team stay true to its roots, and the new-school ones who are pushing for a fresh, modern approach to team-building so that they can finally root for a winner like the older generation did.

It’s not going to be easy. Perhaps ten years down the line, the summer of 2023 will be viewed as a missed opportunity to usher in the kind of full-fledged organizational change necessary to return the Flyers to on-ice prominence. But the goal of the New Era of Orange, and the best explanation for why their restructuring went the way it did is simple: they want to bring everyone in the Flyers’ orbit back together.

And what might that look like if they succeed?

“Every night people are coming to the arena, (and it’s) a fan base that can feel engaged, respected, and part of this journey,” Hilferty said. “And a group of players who are so committed to the Flyer organization and so committed to this community, that we are a face in every neighborhood throughout this community. And that we are doing things through Snider Hockey Foundation, the amazing things they do, the Flyers Charities. And that the players are not only our voice in that, but they are part of the community.

“That for me will be success, and that will be about the time that I fade into the into the second level with my baseball cap on and watch the Flyers play hockey.”