Did Someone At The Bell Centre Try To Sabotage The Flyers Yesterday?

Now whether or not this was just an accident or an actual case of sabotage on the part of someone from the Canadiens organization, Bell Centre staff, or Habs fan(s) will likely never be known. But an interesting there was a rather interesting discovery in the walkway leading from the Flyers locker room to the ice at Bell Centre. Littered across said walkway was sand or a sand-like substance. Now for those not sure what impact this has to do with anything, sand can dull skate blades, and its impact on the Flyers win in Game 4 was very noticeable. Several Flyers needed to head to the locker room to get their skates sharpened (Mike Richards led the most times sharpened with 5). From myFoxPhilly.

Broadcasters at NBC first pointed out during Game 4 on Saturday that the Flyers' key players kept disappearing to get their skates sharpened during the game, which the Flyers won 3-0.

In fact, Mike Richards and Claude Giroux missed stretches of game time, with Richards having to get his skates sharpened five times.

At one point, Richards was spotted standing in his socks. He missed about 3 minutes of game time, because he had to wait for teammate Kimmo Timonen, who was also having his skates sharpened.

The possible culprit: a large amount of a sand-like substance found on the access area to the Flyers' bench, which the Philadelphians had to walk through to get to the ice.

The sand may have put large nicks in the Flyers' skates until the team put towels over the walkway.

In Montreal, there is no mention of the tampering in the Montreal Gazette. The NHL had no comment to the AP about the incident. Some Flyers coaches and players downplayed the incident.

But in other parts of Canada and in the U.S., the incident has raised a lot of questions of how the sand got near the Flyers bench during such a critical time.

In the Toronto Sun, one writer questioned if it was the lackluster Habs who were stuck in a sandstorm.

"The Montreal Canadiens looked like they were skating in sand in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals," said Chris Stevenson.

Frank Seravelli from the Philadelphia Daily News brought up an obvious question: How did sand get into the Bell Center when the nearest beach is 180 miles away?

He says at least five Flyers players had to leave the game at one point due to skate issues.

Adding to the mystery are comments made by Richards, who said Flyers assistant equipment manager Harry Bricker believed the substance on the floor was “a little too big for being sand pellets.”

Flyers coach Peter Laviolette didn't point any fingers at Montreal for the sand problem and said he wasn't aware of any issues. He would only acknowledge that some Flyers players had "skate issues."

Off the record, two Flyers told Anthony Sanfilippo of the Journal Register that someone may have been up to no good in Montreal.

“I don’t know where it came from,” one Flyer told Sanfilippo. “But it was definitely getting in our skates. To have that many skate problems in one game is rare, no, more than rare, it’s unheard of.”

It is important to note that sand does not show up out of nowhere. Montreal is not Atlantic City. The Bell Centre is not Boardwalk Hall. I am not going to point any fingers to anyone, but I am going to bring up the question of how a foreign substance resembling sand finds its way to the Flyers walkway (and only the Flyers walkway) inside the Bell Centre, especially when the closest beach is over 2 hours away from the arena. Is it possible that there is an explanation that this is some sort of freak accident? Yeah, it is possible, though knowing Montreal and some of the shit they have tried to pull in this series alone, it would not wholly surprise me if someone from the organization, close to the organization, or even an unruly fan decided it would be a good idea to blatantly sabotage the Flyers. The good news that comes out of this: if it was sabotage, the plan clearly backfired as even though they had skate problems, the Flyers still went on to win the game 3-0.