Philadelphia Flyers fans are die-hard fans. Which is a good thing, since this team almost always fails in their quest of bringing the Stanley Cup home to Philly. Here are just five struggles that Flyers fans know all too well.

1. 40 Years of Waiting

The last time the Flyers won the Stanley Cup was in 1975. They've come tantalizingly close. But each time they fall just short. It's not like there haven't been great players. There have been plenty. Lindros. Leclair. Gagne. Forsberg. Giroux. Those guys have just been the ones who have played in the past two decades. None of them won a Cup with the Flyers. (Disclaimer: Gagne won with the L.A. Kings in 2012, and Forsberg won twice with Colorado.) But by far the most agonizing part of being a Flyers fan, and a young Flyers fan in particular, is that the last time the team won a Cup, Gerald Ford was President. The frustration is something that very few fan bases can relate to.

2. Watching the Penguins Win Cups

The worst part about waiting 40 years? Watching the Pittsburgh Penguins win three Stanley Cups. Three! In the 40 years that the Flyers have won zero Stanley Cups, the Penguins have won three. Have you noticed how many Cups that is that the Penguins won? It's three. No, I'm not bitter. Why would I be? It's just that the most hated rival of my beloved hockey team has gotten to have three championship parades, while I've been watching videos of the 1974 and 1975 parades on YouTube for the past several years. I may have been wrong earlier. The worst part of being a Flyers fan isn't the wait. It's the wait AND knowing that the Penguins have won multiple championships. They're the worst.

3. The Losing Streaks

As longtime Flyers fans know, when the Flyers are bad, they are BAD. There is no mediocre with this team. They are either making the Cup Finals or losing every game they play. There is no in-between. It can even fluctuate from year to year. In 2009 they were one of the league's worst teams. In 2010 they were two wins away from winning the Stanley Cup. In 2011, they lost in the second round of the playoffs, and in 2012 they missed the playoffs entirely. It's maddening to watch the Flyers get so close, and then almost immediately become irrelevant again.

4. The False Hope

Every time the team has a losing season, there is always an offseason where some new recently signed free agent is supposed to be the answer to all the team's problems. The memory of Ilya Bryzgalov is burned deep into the subconscious of Flyers fans everywhere. "Bryz" was signed to be the Flyers' saving grace in goal. The team signed him for nine years, $52 million. He played two seasons, and was so bad that the team is still paying him to not play for them. This same kind of story, although usually not with such outrageous contracts, plays out almost every year the Flyers hit a rough patch. Fans know this. And yet we still get our hopes up that this time will be different. It never is.

5. The Goalie Carousel

In the history of the Flyers, there are only three goalies that all fans can agree were good: Bernie Parent, Ron Hextall, and Pelle Lindbergh. In almost 50 years of the Flyers existing, there have been exactly three good goalies. Growing up, I got used to seeing the Flyers start a different goaltender every year. While Marty Brodeur was having a Hall of Fame career in 23 seasons with the New Jersey Devils, the Flyers started 20 different goaltenders. Sure, there is a lot of instability at other positions, but goaltender has been an historically bad position for the Flyers for years. Fans are hoping that the ship has finally been righted with Steve Mason in goal for the past two seasons, but we can never know. Management works in mysterious ways.

Despite all the heartache, Flyers fans still enthusiastically root for their team. Even in bad seasons, Flyers fans are there yelling their hearts out. That's what makes Flyers fans the best fans in hockey, regardless of the fact that the team itself is rarely one of the best teams in hockey. Flyers fans are always passionate in their support of the Flyers. Or, at the very least, they are passionate in their hatred of the Penguins. If the Flyers aren't going to win a Cup, that's fine. We're used to it. As long as the Penguins don't win. Go Flyers.