Bernie Parent
Position: Goaltender
Jersey Number: 1 (retired)
Born: April 3, 1945 Montreal, Quebec
Height: 5’10″
Weight: 180
Inducted into the NHL Hall Of Fame 1984
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Bernie is best known for being the clutch netminder on the Philadelphia Flyers’ championship teams. He grew up in Montreal in the early 1950s. Remarkably, Parent didn’t learn to skate until he was 11.
By 1965 Parent had moved his way up to the Bruins’ farm system. He played a few games with the Bruins but he was stuck behind Gerry Cheevers and Eddie Johnston. In 1967 Parent was claimed by the Flyers in the Draft and it was there that he started to establish his reputation as a top goalie.
In 1971 Parent was traded to Toronto in a very controversial deal. The Flyers had another young goalie, Doug Favell, and thought that Bernie would be better trade bait. In the end, the trade was good for Parent because it was in Toronto that he became a teammate of his hero, Jacques Plante.
Parent left the Leafs with great acrimony in 1972 when he became the first Leaf to defect from the NHL ranks to the World Hockey Association. He signed with the Miami Screaming Eagles but he ended up with the Philadelphia Blazers in the WHA instead. Parent quit the team during the 1973 playoffs in a pay dispute and forced the Leafs to trade him back to the Flyers.
Returning to the Flyers, Parent became a sports hero in the City of Brotherly Love. One local bumper sticker read, “Only the Lord Saves More than Bernie Parent.” Now part of the Flyers’ Broad Street Bullies, Parent and his teammates won the Stanley Cup twice in a row in 1974 and 1975. In both seasons, Parent won the Vezina Trophy as best goalie and the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. Sadly, Parent’s remarkable career was short-lived. In a freak accident, a stick hit him in his right eye when he was 34, causing permanent damage to his depth perception and his ability to focus. Parent was forced to retire from hockey in 1979. He was inducted into the NHL Hall Of Fame in 1984.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
DEAN SMITH BUSINESS MANGER @ 856-988-0001 OR DS@BERNIEPARENT.NET
