In the years after the National Hockey League expanded from its original six clubs (Montreal, Toronto, Boston, New York, Detroit, and Chicago) in 1967, two new franchises stood apart.

St. Louis' Blues and Philadelphia's Flyers drafted skilled young players and, coupled with veteran leadership, began to make inroads during the annual Stanley Cup scramble.

Philadelphia hired an enigmatic, innovative, and hardscrabble coach, Fred Shero, who'd honed his craft in the lesser North American professional leagues.

He's credited with pioneering film study and the morning skate, and was posthumously elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2013.

In Philadelphia, Shero put tough enforcers on the ice to protect his team's best skaters and a gifted young centerman named Bobby Clarke.

By the early 1970s, the Flyers were a high-scoring physical squad that caught the imagination of Philadelphia sports fans starved of winning teams.

Heralded hockey sportscaster Dan Kelly dubbed the Flyers the "Broad Street Bullies" in a reference to Philadelphia's home ice along the city's central thoroughfare.

When an important game was on the schedule, Shero took to asking Spectrum arena management to play Kate Smith's 1938 rendition of God Bless America in place of the traditional Star Spangled Banner.

It quickly became the Flyers' good luck charm.

Fans flocked to the Spectrum on the chance that Smith's recording would be played, and Philadelphia's crowds became the league's most raucous.

When a pivotal game six of the 1974 finals pitted the Flyers against the hated Boston Bruins, with a chance to win the Stanley Cup at home, Smith was asked to perform live as she did on only three other occasions (keen viewers will notice hockey royals Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito congratulate Smith): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pZ1brENIjw

Philadelphia won 1-0 to capture its first championship, May 19, 1974.

It insured a longstanding love affair between Philadelphians and the then 67-year old recording star. Fans sought out Smith for an autograph, and the hockey press warmly retold the tale of the sexagenarian singer and Philly's blue collar fans.

After Smith died in 1986, the Flyers dedicated a statue outside the Spectrum honoring her contribution to the franchise.

A plaque read, "Blessed with a voice and presence which led to stardom on Broadway, radio, and television, Miss Smith came to symbolize joyous, homespun American patriotism.

"Her stirring rendition of God Bless America on Armistice Day 1938 lifted the spirits of the nation after the Great Depression, and inspired us to persevere through the agony of World War II.

"When President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced Kate to the King and Queen of England he said, 'This is Kate Smith. This is America!'

"During World War II, Miss Smith raised more than $600 million in war bond sales, and in 1982, President Ronald Reagan presented her with the nation's highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom.

"Kate Smith had a special relationship with the Flyers and the City of Philadelphia. Her live performances of God Bless America helped inspire the Flyers to become Stanley Cup Champions for the first time in 1974.

"This statue, honoring one of America's greatest patriots, is a gift from the Philadelphia Flyers to the people of our great country."

In the years since, fans often arrived to games early to pose alongside Smith's likeness.

Suddenly it appears that tradition has ended.

One of New York's social justice journalists complained to Yankees management earlier this month, who on occasion played Smith's Star Spangled Banner during baseball's seventh inning stretch, that the singer once recorded Pickaninny Heaven, too.

Black Americans must be honored in 2019, don't you know, and the Yankees discontinued playing Smith's recording.

It all could have ended right there, but it didn't.

2019 Philadelphia has its own cadre of social justice warrior writers, and they insisted that the statue of Smith outside the Flyers home had to go, too.

Comcast NBC owns the Flyers now, and CEO Brian Roberts sent word down from on high to shroud Smith's likeness.

It's sure to be trucked away soon, and the Flyers will be praised by Philadelphia's media and its large academic community. America can't progress, they'll say, until blacks are elevated to the highest rungs of society, and celebrating an offending World War-era star mustn't continue.

Fred Shero is likely gazing upon at the snafu with bewilderment.

He'd likely call the decision short-sighted and foolish, and reserve a few choice phrases for the personalities who demanded Kate's ouster.

He'd call Roberts a coward, too, for Shero could say whatever he wanted in Philadelphia. In 1999 he was selected as the city's greatest sports coach ahead of Connie Mack and Dick Vermeil.

More famously, he enlisted a famed singer from yesteryear to inspire hockey's Broad Street Bullies.

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