It's not a good time to be a hockey fan of my generation. We've lost 3 Hall of Fame goaltenders in 16 days: Ken Dryden, Eddie Giacomin, now Bernie Parent.
Bernard Marcel Parent was born on April 3, 1945 in Montreal, and grew up in nearby Rosemont, since absorbed by the city as an eastern neighborhood. As a Québécois, he grew up speaking French, and his difficulty with English led to some early teammates laughing at his expense.
He was the goaltender for the Niagara Falls Flyers team that won the Memorial Cup, the championship of Canadian "major junior hockey," in 1965. Despite the "Flyers" name, they were a farm team of the Boston Bruins, and they called him up at the start of the 1965-66 season. But, committed to Gerry Cheevers in goal, they left Parent unprotected in the 1967 Expansion Draft, in which he was claimed by one of the new teams, the Philadelphia Flyers.
He was the Flyers' main backup goalie in 1967-68, and their main starting goalie after that, until January 31, 1971. Looking for more offense, they engineered a 3-way deal, acquiring Rick MacLeish from the Bruins and Mike Walton from the Toronto Maple Leafs. Parent went to the Leafs, where his hero, former Montreal Canadiens goalie Jacques Plante, was playing out the string, and taught him a lot.
Without a contract with the Leafs for the 1972–73 season, Parent signed a large one with the Miami Screaming Eagles of the new World Hockey Association, making him the 1st NHL player to jump to the new league. The Eagles did not materialize as planned, so Parent signed with the Philadelphia Blazers. After leaving the team over a contract dispute during the 1973 WHA playoffs, he sought a return to the NHL, but, knowing how nasty Leafs owner Harold Ballard could be, especially to a "rebel," did not want to go back to Toronto. They traded Parent's NHL rights back to the Flyers for Doug Favell and a 1st-round pick in that Summer's amateur draft.
Team owner Ed Snider, general manager Keith Allen, and head coach Fred Shero were building a championship team, built around their young Captain, Bobby Clarke. But Parent would be the key as the Flyers became the 1st of the '67 expansion teams to win the Stanley Cup, winning them back-to-back in 1974 and 1975.
after the 1st Cup win, May 19, 1974
Upon winning that 1st Cup, with a 2-1 win over the Bruins in Game 6 on May 19, 1974, together, Parent and Clarke carried the Cup around the ice -- as best they could, with fans at The Spectrum having stormed the ice. The occasion is immortalized in a statue outside the Flyers' arena, recently renamed the Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Parent and Clarke posing with the statue
Each time, 1974 and 1975, Parent was named the winner of the Vezina Trophy as the NHL's best goalie, and the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Most Valuable Player of the Playoffs. Parent, Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Patrick Roy and Sidney Crosby are the only players to have won the Smythe twice. (Roy won it 3 times.) He was also named to the All-Star Game both seasons, the 3rd and 4th of his 5th appearances.
It can be argued that Parent is the key figure in Flyers' history -- because they haven't won the Cup in 50 years. The effect began in the 1975-76 season, when, in their bid for a 3rd straight Cup -- their slogan was "Hat Trick in '76 -- he was limited to 11 games after surgery for a neck injury. The Flyers got back to the Finals, but were swept by the Canadiens in 4 straight.
On February 17, 1979, Parent suffered a career-ending eye injury in a game against the New York Rangers. An errant stick entered the right eye hole of his mask, causing permanent damage to his vision. He retired at age 34, an age considered to be "still in athletic prime" for goaltenders. This incident, as well as the ending of Gerry Desjardins' career when a puck struck his eye in 1977, led many NHL goalies to switch from fibreglass facemasks toward the cage and helmet style.
On October 11, 1979, the Flyers retired his Number 1. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1984. In 1998, The Hockey News listed him at Number 63 on their list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players, 9th among goalies, behind Terry Sawchuk, Jacques Plante, Glenn Hall, Patrick Roy, Ken Dryden, Bill Durnan, George Hainsworth and Turk Broda. Had he the benefit of a full career, he could have been ranked higher.
And the Flyers would also have been better. With Pete Peeters in goal, they reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 1980. With Pelle Lindbergh, they reached the Finals in 1985, but, early the next season, Lindbergh drove drunk, crashed his car, and died. With Ron Hextall, they made the Finals in 1987 and 1997. With Brian Boucher, the made the Finals in 2010. They lost every time, going 0-6 in Finals since 1975.
The early end to his career drove him to drink, and he eventually joined Alcoholics Anonymous. The Flyers appointed him goaltender coach and later a club "ambassador." On December 31, 2011, as a prelude to the next day's 2012 NHL Winter Classic at Citizens Bank Park, he played in the Alumni Game, at age 66, stopping 5 shots and allowing no goals in 5 minutes. In 2017, he was named to the NHL's 100th Anniversary 100 Greatest Players.
At first, he lived in the Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill, Camden County, New Jersey, then moved down the Shore to Wildwood Crest, Cape May County, where he had a house and a yacht he named The French Connection. He died today, September 21, 2025, in Wildwood Crest, at the age of 80. He was survived by his wife, Gini, his son Jacques (named for Plante), and his daughter Carol.
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