PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — When the Rangers scored against the Flyers Wednesday night, the arena roared in typical Madison Square Garden fashion.
Except, the game wasn’t at Madison Square Garden.
Many Rangers fans watched New York win 3-2 in overtime at the Wells Fargo Center in South Philadelphia.
After the game, when Flyers head coach John Tortorella was asked about the rather healthy amount of blue jerseys in the stands, he didn’t point fingers at Flyers fans.
“We make our own bed,” he said. “We need to get this in the right direction, where maybe someday those tickets are hard to get by.”
The Rangers are looking to make the playoffs, while the Flyers are one of the worst teams in the NHL — coming off a bad 7-0 loss to the Devils. They are admittedly going to be sellers before Friday’s trade deadline and will miss the playoffs for the third consecutive season — which hasn’t happened since the early ’90s.
“Don’t blame anybody else,” added Tortorella, who is in his first season as head coach. “Blame us. This is what we’ve made here. Hopefully along the way, we get this turned around. I’m not sure when but get it back to where that’s a tough ticket, and maybe the Rangers fans just aren’t allowed in the building because we have filled it with our people. Not there yet, obviously.
“It’s up to us [the organization] to get out of it.”
While the crowd was divided in the building, Flyers fans watching remotely were frustrated for another reason. Many Xfinity customers could not access the game, which was scheduled for a national telecast on TNT.
The game was mistakenly blacked out on linear TV, as well as the Xfinity Stream.
It did not appear that folks with other services, such as YouTube TV, were having the same issue. Xfinity customers were able to watch the game through the TNT app or online, if they plugged in their Xfinity credentials.
During the game, the Flyers tweeted, “We have been made aware that some fans are experiencing issues viewing tonight’s #NYRvsPHI TV broadcast. We are working with the league to resolve the issue immediately.”
KYW Newsradio reached out to the Flyers but did not immediately hear back. A response is pending from Comcast. The Flyers are owned by Comcast-Spectacor.
Related
