The 2026-27 campaign marks the 60th season of Philadelphia Flyers hockey. Throughout the season, on every non-game Friday, PhiladelphiaFlyers.com will feature a memorable moment from team history.
The exhibition match the Philadelphia Flyers played at the Spectrum against the Boston Bruins on October 6, 1977, was unlike any other in team history or NHL league history for that matter.
Most of the hockey world knows it as "the George Plimpton Game". Flyers fans, however, recall it as the birth of the "Holmgren/Cashman Gate".
Through Sports Illustrated, famous "participatory journalist" Plimpton arranged a training camp goaltending tryout with the Bruins. Fifty years old at the time, Plimpton eventually turned his experiences into a book entitled "Open Net".
As the capstone of his tryout, Plimpton had the opportunity to play five minutes in goal against the Flyers. Through agreement with the NHL, the Flyers and the Bruins, the five-minute segment actually took place before the start of the "official" exhibition game: call it a "pre-preseason" appearance.
Plimpton, a self-described mediocre skater, yielded one goal to rugged Flyers winger Paul Holmgren. The Spectrum partisans, rooting for the Flyers to make Plimpton regret stepping on the ice against their beloved Broad St. Bullies, rejoiced.
He also faced a penalty shot from deadly Flyers sniper Reggie Leach. Before Leach shot, regular Bruins goaltender Gerry Cheevers pleaded with Leach not to embarrass Plimpton by deking him and then tucking home the puck or potentially injure him with one of his "Riverton Rifle" slapshot blasts.
Cheevers and Plimpton had nothing to worry about. The affable Leach simply moved in a straight line and gently flipped the puck very softly to the guest goaltender.
When the actual preseason game got underway, however, things weren't so lighthearted. A massive line brawl broke out at the end of the first period. The fight, which took 15 minutes afterwards to restore calm, resumed as the players left the ice with an enraged Holmgren going after Bruins forward Wayne Cashman in the hallway between the home and visitor locker rooms.
In the aftermath of the hallway battle, the Spectrum installed a heavy iron gate that segregated the two locker rooms. It became known as the "Holmgren Gate" (or the "Holmgren/Cashman Gate".
The gate remained in place for the rest of the Spectrum's lifespan. It was preserved after the legendary arena was demolished. Today, it lives within the Xfinity Mobile Arena complex for historical commemoration.
