Last summer, the Flyers Hall of Fame brother duo of Joe and Jim Watson surprised diehard Flyers fan Mike Roman to help Mr. Roman celebrate his 90th birthday. The visit was arranged by Mr. Roman's son, Michael, and his daughter-in-law Nicole.
"My dad is a very special man, which is why we gifted my Pop this very special gift from Joe and Jimmy Watson. We would have paid $10,000 to make this summer's Watson brothers visit happen. We feel like we made out. Pops is still smiling! He said it's the best birthday he has ever had," said Michael Roman.
On January 6, when the Flyers celebrated the legacy of organization co-founder and longtime chairman Ed Snider, Mr. Roman and members of his family will be special guests of Joe Watson. They sat in the Flyers Alumni Association's suite to take in the Flyers game against the Calgary Flames.
“I say this a lot, but we — the Flyers, the NHL, and the players — would be nothing without our loyal fans. It’s always great to hear their stories and memories,” Joe Watson said. “It makes us happy to see how much happiness our team and our sport has brought to them. It’s a great feeling.”
Added Nicole, "My father-in-law lights up when he speaks about the games and his memories. He loves rehashing the games with my husband and son. He knows every detail."
Mike Roman did not grow up playing hockey. Soccer was his sport. In fact, as an All-American collegiate player at West Chester University, he reluctantly passed up an opportunity to represent Team USA in the Olympics. Instead, the Girard College alum continued his studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He was later a championship-winning soccer coach and an inductee in the Girard College Hall of Fame.
Although he did not come from a hockey background himself, Mr. Roman developed a passion for the sport. Mike and his wife Diana were charter season ticket holders at the Spectrum, first purchasing their two-ticket plan for the inaugural 1967-68 campaign.
Throughout the years of being season ticket holders, Mike would bring Diana and/or their two children or a friend to the games. His son, Michael, fondly remembers how his mom loved a good fight on the ice just as much as the men did in the family.
"My dad grew up watching the Flyers games with my Pop-Pop throughout my dad's elementary, middle school, high school, college and PCOM medical school years. Growing up, Dad and Pop-Pop never missed a game at home together. I used to ride my bike or walk over to my grandfather's house to watch games," Michael Jr. said.
Mike Roman instilled the same passion for the Flyers in his son Michael and grandson Michael Jr. that the family patriarch himself possesses. The "three Mikes" say that the Flyers come up as part of nearly every conversation they have.
At the Spectrum, the Roman family's season tickets were in the ninth row from the ice. When pucks flew into the stands, Mike Roman would yell out 'Heads Up!' Everyone would instinctively duck for self-protection except for Michael himself.
"My dad collected about a dozen home game pucks. He has passed them all down to me. Each puck has Dad's writing on it with the date of the game, who the Flyers played and the final score," Michael recounts.
Love of the Flyers was infused in the entire Roman family.
"Going to the games on the weekends was a family affair. We'd come together from Norristown. One of the really nice things was how we became friends with the other people in our section, which was on the side the Flyers defended in the first and third periods. Everyone became friends," recalls Mike Roman's daughter, Maribeth.
Whenever the Flyers would play the Detroit Red Wings, Mike's son Michael especially wanted to attend and he did. Why the Red Wings?
"When the Flyers played Detroit, it was almost a guarantee there'd be a great brawl,: Michael recalled with a chuckle. "The Broad Street Bullies era Flyers were tough and they let it all out on the ice."
The entire Roman family were also ardent supporters of the Flyers' yearly charity-fundraising Carnival; so much so that Mike himself organized a miniature version in his own community. When Mike's children were in their early elementary years, The Flyers Wives Fight for Lives Carnival, now known as The Flyers Charities Carnival, was long dedicated to the memory of Flyers Hall of Fame defenseman and assistant coach Barry Ashbee. Funds raised went toward leukemia research and treatment at Hahnemann Hospital. To support the cause, Mike Roman held a localized version in the Westover Woods Community in Norristown, where his family lived. All the neighborhood families and neighborhood children got involved.
In the early years of the Flyers Wives Carnival, the pie-the-face station was one of the yearly signature attractions.Mike Roman was a fixture in the community version. His charitable half hour in the hot seat had the neighborhood kids lined up to take a shot at him with whipped-cream pies.
"No one could take a pie in the kisser like Mike Roman did, all for the best cause," Michael recalls. "Wham, right in the mug! We all felt like we were part of the Flyers' Family. Actually, our entire community did. The Flyers would mail us yearly certificates of thanks and appreciation. Dad would frame and display them with incredible pride."
As with an entire generation of youngsters who grew up in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs in the 1970s and 1980s, Michael Roman grew up playing street hockey in his Norristown neighborhood. In childhood, he and his friends would assume the identities of their favorite Flyers' players. His father got involved, too.
"My dad would put on a referee shirt and wear a whistle around his neck," he recalls with a hearty laugh. "I guess he was [longtime NHL referee] Dave Newell, because he kept tossing me out of games for mouthing off to him about his refereeing work, just like Dave Schultz and the Broad Street Bullies might do. Kidding aside, when I bump into childhood friends nowadays, they inevitably tell me that our street hockey games are some of the best memories of childhood. Fun and competitive. That's what the Flyers helped to inspire."
Each year, the Romans planned a family vacation around the Flyers' west coast road trip. The timing ensured that Mike and his family never missed a home game.
"Even when we were on vacation, my dad would pace around the pool or hotel grounds with an AM/FM transistor radio, trying to find reception to listen to Gene Hart's broadcast of the Flyers games. He'd be outside at 10 p.m., 11 p.m., midnight, even 1 in the morning. Once he found a reception spot that wasn't mostly static, there was no moving him! It was winter time, freezing outside. Ice, rain, whatever. It didn't matter. He'd wrap himself in a blanket and catch any snippet of the game he could," Michael Roman said.
Mr. Roman never personally met Ed Snider, who passed away on April 11, 2016. Nonetheless, Mr. Snider was an inspirational figure for the family. Mike Roman appreciated not only the team's on-ice success but the close-knit unit unity and "once a Flyer, always a Flyer" culture of the Flyers extended family.
"My father has always admired Ed Snider as the ultimate team owner, and he thinks Fred Shero was the most brilliant NHL coach who ever lived," said Michael. "The Watson brothers got a big kick out of my father when they met him last year. And, for Dad, talking with Joe and Jimmy was almost like being down the locker room back in the Broad Street Bullies' days."
