Eric Lindros Rookie Card
And to finish off our day of Flyers related goodness, we bring you our card of the week feature with a look back at Eric Lindros with blonde highlights. The write up is by our sometimes guest poster and always guest of the world, Matt P.
Perhaps no player ever came to Philadelphia with higher expectations than Eric Lindros. The Flyers mortgaged the farm for him, and it seemed like a great deal at the time. During the early part of his career in Philadelphia, Lindros won a league MVP and terrorized opposing teams with a great scoring touch and huge hits. However, he was also the recipient of his fair share of hits, and injury after injury plagued his career. However, things went south after a few seasons, with a horrible feud between the player and GM/Philly Sports God Bobby Clarke. Lindros will unfortunately be remembered in this town as a baby with an eggshell for a skull, and also a captain who couldn't lead our team to a Stanley Cup win, despite the fact that the guys we traded for him (like, say, Peter Forsberg) won two in Colorado during his career. Oddly enough, when initially drafted by them, Lindros refused to play for the Quebec/Colorado franchise (on the advice of his mother).
The most insane moment in his time with the Flyers has to be when the team nearly killed him. Check out this passage from his wikipedia entry:
During an April 1, 1999 game against the Nashville Predators, Lindros suffered what was diagnosed as a rib injury. Later that night, the teammate he was sharing a hotel room with, Keith Jones, discovered Lindros lying in a tub, pale and cold. In a call to the Flyers, the trainer was told to put Lindros on a plane that was returning to Philadelphia with injured team mate Mark Recchi. But Jones insisted that Lindros be taken to a nearby hospital and it was discovered Lindros had a collapsed lung caused by internal bleeding of his chest wall. It was estimated he'd bled out more than half his body's total blood volume. Lindros's father wrote the Flyers a letter in which he stated that if the trainer had followed team orders, Eric would be dead (a statement supported by the doctors who treated him in Nashville).
Hopefully this trend doesn't continue in Philadelphia, with rumors (possibly completely false) that Donovan isn't happy with Eagles team trainer Rick Burkholder; also, we all know #5's parents are a little too involved for someone who plays a big-boy sport. Because of the misfortune experienced in Lindros's career, and his family's mishandling of pretty much everything, we will forget that the coming of Big E marked the renaissance of the Philadelphia Flyers, when the club went from a string of miserable seasons to being a perennial Cup contender, a team that would sell out virtually every home game in a beautiful new arena for a decade and never miss the playoffs. Until this season...
Eric Lindros' rocking golden tipped locks in his 1991 Score rookie card after the jump.
is that eric lindors or ivan drago?
Posted by: Poster Nutbag | Wednesday, January 24, 2007 at 03:39 PM
I want a hockey card of Scott Stevens laying him out, that was one of the best hits ever.
Posted by: gootman | Wednesday, January 24, 2007 at 03:47 PM
He looks like a young, slightly less gay Patrick Swayze.
What was Keith Jones doing peeking in on Lindros in the bathtub?
Posted by: walklett | Thursday, January 25, 2007 at 10:25 AM
that's not his rookie card
Posted by: john | Thursday, March 08, 2007 at 11:44 PM
how much is this card worth?....i have it in mint condition
Posted by: Dylan Kilbourne | Friday, December 07, 2007 at 03:31 PM
I want to know what Eric & KJ were doing in the tub together too. What were they, a couple a' faygs?
Posted by: Bobby Clarke | Monday, February 04, 2008 at 06:42 PM
The Scott Stevens was one of the biggest no-calls in the history of the league, right up there with the no-offsides call in the 1980 Finals. Nevertheless, Lindros is the biggest bust in Philadelphia sports history.
Posted by: Ed | Tuesday, February 05, 2008 at 12:37 AM
what would you have called on the Stevens hit? Charging? Interference?
Posted by: MPR529 | Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 01:38 PM
I think in the new NHL that would be a 25 game suspension, Stevens was a hell of a hitter, and sneaky as hell with the elbow
Posted by: JT | Friday, July 25, 2008 at 03:24 PM
That is not Lindros' Rookie Card!
This is:
http://spln.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/p723289dt.jpg
Posted by: Dominus | Tuesday, February 03, 2009 at 11:53 PM
i was at the game 7 eastern conference finals in 2000 and it was clearly an elbow
Posted by: kenzo | Tuesday, April 07, 2009 at 09:53 PM