Ed Snider's passion his best net asset

THE OFFICIAL tribute to Ed Snider before Monday night's Flyers-Caps first-round playoff series Game 3 was brief and understated, qualities that were rarely ascribed to the man himself.

As the scenes from years gone by flickered past on the center-ice scoreboard, it was unsettling to reflect on how many of the people pictured along with the late Flyers owner also are alive only in memory now: Pat Quinn. Gene Hart. Joe Scott. Keith Allen.

Gene's daughter Lauren Hart, sporting a "Snider 67" jersey that connoted the year the team was founded, did the God Bless America duet with Kate Smith, and the team wearing the "EMS" patches came out with more jump than it had shown in losing the first two…