Bernie Parent, a Hall of Fame goalie for the Philadelphia Flyers whose deft work inside the net led his brawling team, known as the Broad Street Bullies, to Stanley Cup championships in 1974 and 1975, has died at his home in Avalon, N.J. He was 80.
Kim Parent, his daughter, said he died in his sleep either late Saturday night or early Sunday. She said she did not know the cause.
Parent is the third Hockey Hall of Fame goalie to die in the last few weeks, following Ken Dryden of the Montreal Canadiens and Ed Giacomin of the New York Rangers.
Parent was beloved in Philadelphia — a French Canadian known for his upbeat personality, broad smile, thick mustache and the white fiberglass mask he wore to protect his face. A bumper sticker seen on fenders around Philadelphia paid tribute to his goaltending skills: “Only the Lord saves more than Bernie Parent.”
Parent played with the Flyers for 10 seasons — four in his first stint, which began with the 1967-68 season, and six in his second, beginning in 1973-74. The Flyers, who were known for their frequent fights on the ice and for protecting Parent, were a rising power in the National Hockey League who had lost to the Montreal Canadiens in the Stanley Cup semifinals at the end of the 1972-73 season.
They had stars like the Hall of Famer Bobby Clarke; Rick MacLeish; Dave Schultz, an enforcer nicknamed the Hammer, who led the league in penalty minutes for three consecutive seasons; and an innovative coach, Fred Shero.
In the 1973-74 season, Parent won 47 games, a single-season N.H.L. record that stood for 33 years. He also led the league with a 1.89 goals-against average and 12 shutouts, which earned him the Vezina Trophy, for the league’s top goalie.
“Bernie gave us great confidence,” Clarke told Sports Illustrated in 1974. “We never had to worry whether he was on or off. He was on all the time.”
In the 1974 playoffs, which concluded with Parent shutting out the Boston Bruins, 1-0, in Game 6 to win the Stanley Cup finals, his 2.02 goals-against average brought him the Conn Smythe Trophy, for the most valuable player in the postseason.
The 1974-75 season ended in much the same way. Parent won 44 games during the regular season, and in the concluding Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals, he shut out the Buffalo Sabres, 2-0. Again he was awarded the Conn Smythe, for his 10 wins and 1.89 goals-against average during the playoffs.
Parent said he was fortunate in Game 6. One shot that ricocheted off his chest came to rest a few inches from the goal. Another shot hit the goal post. He didn’t see the rebounds off a couple of his saves.
“It was one of those nights,” he said, “where every move you make is the right one.”
Bernard Marcel Parent was born on April 3, 1945, in Montreal, one of seven children of Claude and Emilie Parent. His father was a machine operator for a concrete company. His mother managed the home and was also a seamstress.
As a boy, Bernie watched “Hockey Night in Canada,” a television staple on Saturdays — his once-a-week bath night — and started playing organized hockey when he was around 12. One day his coach timed how long he and his teammates took to skate around the rink to determine which position each would play.
“And then he’d say, ‘forward’ or ‘defenseman’ depending on how fast we were,” he wrote in his autobiography, “Unmasked: Bernie Parent and the Broad Street Bullies” (2012, with Stan Hochman). “The average time was 14 seconds. I took 21 seconds to get around. He said, ‘Goalie.’ I gave up 21 goals the first game I played. He said, ‘Gone!’”
But when his replacement was hurt, Bernie was back in goal and later played in a junior hockey league before the Boston Bruins signed him in 1963 and sent him to a minor league team. After two partial seasons with the Bruins, he was claimed by the Flyers in the 1967 expansion draft that stocked Philadelphia and five other new franchises.
He played well on losing Flyer teams but was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs during the 1970-71 season.
Parent cried when he left the Flyers, he said, but he found a reason to accept being in Toronto: He played with the goalie Jacques Plante, who was 41 and whom Parent had idolized as a boy. One of the all-time greats, Plante taught Parent about angles, balance and game preparation.
Parent left the Maple Leafs after the 1971-72 season to sign a lucrative contract with the Miami Screaming Eagles (who became the Philadelphia Blazers) of the new World Hockey Association. But he left the Blazers — the franchise then moved to Vancouver — and rejoined the Flyers in 1973, in time for their Stanley Cup run.
He remained a top goalie until February 1979, when an errant stick struck his right eye during a game against the New York Rangers. The injury blinded him for about a week and led him to retire a few months later; his peripheral vision would not return for years.
At a news conference, he said, “It’s very difficult for me to be in this position, because I wanted to go for at least five more years and help the team win another Stanley Cup.”
Parent was unprepared for life after hockey. He fell into a depression. He drank too much and got help through Alcoholics Anonymous to become sober. He coached another Flyers goalie, Pelle Lindbergh, who won the Vezina Trophy in 1985. (Later that year, Lindbergh, 26, died of injuries from a car accident.)
“When death defeats greatness, we all mourn,” Parent said at a memorial service for Lindbergh at the Spectrum, the Flyers’ home arena at the time. “And when death defeats youth, we mourn even more.”
Parent worked for many years as a team ambassador for the Flyers, as a spokesman for an insurance company and as a motivational speaker. He also helped other recovering alcoholics.
He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1984. Four years later, Hockey News ranked him 63rd on its list of the 100 greatest N.H.L. players.
And about a quarter-century after his career abruptly ended, surgery restored the peripheral vision to his right eye, Kim Parent said.
In addition to his daughter, Parent is survived by his sons, Bernard Jr. and Chuck, all from his marriage to Carol Wilson, which ended in divorce; his wife, Gini (Gramaglia) Parent; his sisters, Louise and Therese; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
After Game 1 of the 1975 Stanley Cup, in which the Flyers defeated the Sabres, 4-1, Stan Hochman, then a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, compared Parent’s turning away shots to a boxer fending off punches.
“Pow, Gil Perreault from the left,” he wrote. “Crunch, Jocelyn Guevremont from the right. Wham, Perreault again from the left. Bam, René Robert from the middle. Whoosh, Perreault once more with a haymaker.”
Richard Sandomir, an obituaries reporter, has been writing for The Times for more than three decades.
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