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Documentary Corner: Broad Street Bullies

A review by Brooks Rich

We like to sometimes learn new things here at Cinema Basement. In fact over there in the corner of said basement we have our corner for documentaries. There's something about a good documentary. Whether it tells it's story well, teaches you something you didn't know, or hits you in the gut due to it's subject matter, a good documentary can really impact you. There are some tough and hard hitting we will get to but today I want to explore one of the best companies at making documentaries, HBO Sports. In honor of the Stanley Cup Finals let's take a look at the 2010 film, Broad Street Bullies.

A good sports documentary should make you care about the story it's telling, whether or not you know the sport or like the team. I'm not into baseball all that much but the documentary Dem Bums, about the Brooklyn Dodgers, is fantastic. I'll get to that one day. I am big hockey fan though so I always watch the hockey documentaries. I'm not the worlds biggest Flyers fan but I find the story of their expansion into the league in 1967, evolution into the bullies of the league and eventually claiming of two back to back Stanley Cups I 1974 and 1975 to be fascinating. Think of the sports team you hate the most. Now imagine them cheating and fighting and bulldozing to two straight championships. Yeah that was the Flyers back then. They were like the old joke, I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.

Broad Street Bullies is a fun entertaining look at the Flyers history, especially the Broad Street Bullies years. These guys were the villains of the league. They even admit it. They started with one guy who will go out on the ice and fight others. Eventually the whole team decided to just throw their weight around. Yeah. They were nasty to play against. The film perfectly shows how much they were hated by the rest of the league. But they're the heroes in this film. It's free on youtube and I'm sure it's also available if you have HBO Go. It's a quick watch and it is entertaining, even if you don't like or know hockey.



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