Flyers vs. Lightning briefly delayed, impacted by partial power outage at WFC originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
The Wells Fargo Center experienced a partial power outage Tuesday night during the Flyers-Lightning game.
Part of the arena’s electricity shut off with 13:39 minutes left in the first period. After a nine-minute delay, the game resumed with the arena still slightly dimmed and public address announcer Lou Nolan unable to call the action.
Phil Laws, the president of the Wells Fargo Center, said a transformer on the arena’s event level gave out. Nobody was injured.
The electrical crew then started restoring the systems. During the second period, power started to return to the arena.
“That was super weird,” Flyers center Morgan Frost said. “I feel like something like that has happened before, whether it’s here or at a different building and usually it comes back on in a couple of minutes. That was weird, but I think everyone was still down to play with the way it was; I think it was more asking the goalies if they were cool with it.”
The game was not further delayed. The Jumbotron, however, remained off.
The Flyers had a 1-0 lead when the first-period delay occurred. They went on to beat Tampa Bay, 6-2.
The officials consulted with Flyers head coach John Tortorella and Lightning head coach Jon Cooper before allowing the game to resume.
“They asked me if we wanted to play. I did and he did,” Tortorella said. “We both decided let’s ask the goalies.”
Samuel Ersson stopped 20 of 22 shots to help the Flyers win.
“It’s just weird because it’s different,” Ersson said of the dimmed lighting. “You see the puck well. It’s not a huge challenge for you to track the puck. You just get used to the difference.”
Tortorella was happy the goalies gave the coaches the OK.
“I really don’t give a s— what Ers thought at that time,” Tortorella joked. “We’re up 1-0, we’re going to play.”
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