While everyone looked ahead to tonight's American Hockey League Outdoor Classic, Dan “Beaker” Stuck took a few minutes Thursday morning to reflect back in time.

Stuck, the Hershey Bears’ athletic trainer since 1985-86, was walking through the team’s Giant Center dressing room when he was asked this question: What are your most vivid memories of the Bears’ rivalry with the Philadelphia Phantoms?

Without a moment’s hesitation, they fell from his lips as if they had happened last week.

“Neil Little spinning his mask on the ice after fighting Wally,” Stuck said. “That was a crazy one. Boyd Kane coming out of the penalty box too soon and scoring a goal against us. All of Frank Bialowas’ fights. The night our Martin Lamarche stunned him, too. Remember that? And the playoff win there that sent us on to play Kentucky the next night of what I think was Easter weekend.

“If I can rattle those off, those are always going to be memories for me, but just like the Spectrum is gone, that rivalry is gone – and that’s too bad.”

Phantoms now in different division

The Hershey-Adirondack rivalry doesn’t have the same spirit as its Hershey-Philadelphia predecessor did, especially with the teams in different divisions.

“We don’t play them as many times a year,” Kane said. “They haven’t had as good a teams, either, since they left Philly, and I think that’s a big part of it. When you have two good teams that battle every year and are that close and you play that often, that rivalry is going to be there. I think that’s kind of went away the last little bit.”

It didn’t use to be that way, going back to the very beginning of the rivalry.

The Phantoms were born in December 1996, when Philadelphia Flyers owner Ed Snider announced that his National Hockey League club had been granted an AHL expansion franchise. The Flyers would move their minor-league affiliate from Hershey to Philadelphia for the 1996-97 season.

During a 13-year run at the Spectrum, the Phantoms won Calder Cup titles in 1998 and 2005. The Bears won AHL championships in 1997, 2006 and 2009.

The Flyers sold the franchise to Rob and Jim Brooks in 2009, and the Phantoms relocated to Glens Falls, N.Y., where the Adirondack Phantoms began play with the 2009-10 season.