Maybe I also felt a similar sense of "brotherhood" because the Flyers played the Russian Red Army in 1976 and beat them (literally and figuratively). The score was 4-1 but the Bullies brand of demolition derby hockey made an impression during the Cold War. Ed Van Impe will never have to pay for a drink in Philadelphia. 
The Philadelphia fans - notoriously bad people, all of us - loved our Canadian players and the feeling was mutual. THAT is what's missing from sports (and a lot of other things) nowadays, a mutual kinship and love. We don't have to agree upon everything, but there must be a baseline level of connective tissue - call it culture, call it whatever. The left has severed that tissue across multiple dimensions, but has blamed the right for that moral crime and the MSM et al are willing accomplices in that cover-up.
Small wonder nobody GAF about the Olympics in 2021.