Bernie Parent, member of the Hockey Fame Temple, who guided the Philadelphia flyers at their Lone Stanley Cup championships in the franchise history, died on Sunday. He was 80 years old.
No cause of death has been given.
The legendary goalkeeper helped to win the two titles with bleaching in the last match in each series, marking the Boston Bruins in 1974 and the Buffalo sabers the following year.
Recipient of Conn Smythe (MVP in the playoffs) and the best goalkeeper in the NHL) in 1974 and 1975, Parent played 10 of his 13 seasons in the NHL with the flyers. He also spent a season at the World Hockey Association with the Philadelphia Blazers.
A popular figure of Philadelphia, bumper stickers were created with the sentence: “Only the Lord saves more than Bernie Parent.”
“Bernie Parent’s white mask was the last view you wanted to see if you were an opposing shooter with a big online match,” said the NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, in a statement. “The smiling and welcoming face that the mask protected was the first you wanted to see when you entered a room. To its best unbeatable and imperturbable on the ice when the stakes were the highest, Bernie was a warm gregarious bear of a man off the ice that was venerated in Philadelphia and adored in everyone of hockey.”
Originally from Montreal, the parent made his NHL debut with the Bruins at the age of 20 before joining the expansion flyers in 1967. He would have left an arena in tears when he learned that he had been exchanged from Philadelphia to the Toronto Maple Leafs in February 1971, but he would have returned to the city of Love Brother Wha Blazer (1972-73) 1972.
He then proceeded to the publication of what Bettman called “two of the most beautiful consecutive seasons by a caretaker in the NHL history”.
The parent had a record of 271-198 with 119 links, 54 whitening, an average of 2.55 goals and a safeguard percentage of 0.915 in 608 regular career games with the Bruins, the leafs, the Maple Leafs.
The parents’ career ended prematurely while a wandering stick entered the right eye of his mask during a match against the New York Rangers on February 17, 1979. He suffered permanent damage to his vision and retired at 34.
The Flyers withdrew his n ° 1 in 1979, he was inducted into the temple of renowned hockey in 1984 and was appointed on the list of the 100 biggest NHL players in 2017.
– field level media
