Her late husband coined the ‘Only the Lord saves more than Bernie Parent’ bumper sticker in 1974. It still resonates.

In 1974, Linda Mitchell noticed something peculiar. It was an orange and black bumper sticker with a catchphrase fit for an eccentric (and beloved) man.

She didn’t know much about hockey, and wouldn’t have remembered it, but she started to see the sticker again. And again. And again.

Before long, it seemed like every Philadelphian had “Only the Lord saves more than Bernie Parent” plastered onto the back of their car.

The slogan became synonymous with the longtime Flyers goalie and key member of the Broad Street Bullies, who died at the age of 80 on Sunday.

» READ MORE: Rangers great Mike Richter on his idol in goal, Bernie Parent: ‘I followed his every move’

Years later, Mitchell, 75, learned that it was her late husband, Bob, who coined it.

“I wasn’t surprised,” she said. “Everybody from our neighborhood knew that he made it up.”

Parent, a native of Rosemont, Quebec, began his NHL career in Boston in 1965.

The Bruins didn’t protect the goalie in the 1967 expansion draft, and he was selected by the Flyers. He played there for 3½ seasons. The Flyers traded him to the Maple Leafs in 1971, a move that disappointed Parent but ended up being career-altering.

In Toronto, Parent trained alongside his childhood idol, Hall of Fame goalie Jacques Plante, who took the 25-year-old under his wing.

By the time Parent was traded back to the Flyers in 1973, he was, by his own admission, a completely different goalie. He led the league in goals-against average in 1973-74 (1.89) and 1974-75 (2.04) and had a .926 save percentage over that span when the Flyers won back-to-back Stanley Cups.

He elevated his game in the playoffs, posting a combined .929 save percentage over those two years. Both of the Flyers’ Stanley Cup-clinching games were shutouts.

So in 1974, Bob Mitchell decided to get creative. He’d worked for the team in ticket sales since 1969 and had recently been promoted to a senior box office assistant at the Spectrum.

One night, at approximately 3:45 a.m., the phrase that one day would define a Hall of Famer popped into his head. Mitchell knew it would resonate, and he reached out to Parent’s lawyer, Howard Casper, to get permission to use the goalie’s name.

Casper and Parent signed off, and the bumper sticker was born. Mitchell sank $500 into printing costs and sold the stickers for 50 cents (plus 10 cents for shipping).

He advertised the decal in local newspapers. His mother, Mildred, shipped them out from a Clifton Heights post office.

» READ MORE: Mike Sielski: Bernie Parent was the best of the Flyers and the best of Philadelphia. RIP.

The stickers were such a hit that fans began seeking Mitchell out while he was at work (or watching a game in Section 38) at the Spectrum.

“That was what he was known for,” Linda said. “You’d see the bumper stickers everywhere. Even in 1980, I would go to the games, and I would still see cars with them on there. Everybody had one.

“He and his brother were probably just getting home from drinking when he came up with it. I’m positive of that.”

Linda and Bob grew up in Southwest Philadelphia. They were from the same parish, Most Blessed Sacrament. Bob often visited Linda’s house because her mother, Flo Herpel, was the den mother for his Cub Scout pack.

Linda attended West Philadelphia Catholic High School for Girls, and Bob attended West Philadelphia Catholic High School for Boys a few blocks away. After that, they lost touch.

Bob, a huge Flyers fan, had his sights set on working for the team. Linda went to college at Arizona State. She returned home two years later. They reconnected at a bar in the Poconos and wed in 1980.

Being married to Bob was not boring. He and Linda went to the Spectrum every week. During his time with the Flyers, he’d gotten to know the players, who often met the couple for drinks after games.

“The Watson brothers were there,” Linda said. “Rick MacLeish. Bill Barber. They were all very nice guys.”

For decades, Bob held multiple jobs. He left the Spectrum in the late 1970s to sell tickets for Electric Factory Concerts.

Over the summer, he would DJ at Jack’s Place in Avalon, N.J. — another Flyers haunt — under the pseudonym “DJ Bulge.”

» READ MORE: Numbers don’t lie: Bernie Parent’s Flyers career was one for the ages

He made a bumper sticker for that, too.

“Dance your [expletive] off with DJ Bulge,” Linda said. “He was a clever guy. He just thinks of these things, you know?”

The nickname “Bulge” was given to Bob by one of the Christian Brothers at West Catholic. Like Mitchell’s catchphrase for Parent, it always stuck.

“Everybody knew him as Bulge,” Linda said. “It was because he was fat. [The brothers] didn’t hold back.

“Nobody was politically correct in the 1950s and 1960s, trust me. Everybody had nicknames.”

Despite the jokes about his weight, Linda would encourage her husband to eat healthier, to no avail. He continued consuming “cheesesteaks and Tastykakes” and was diagnosed with diabetes in the 1990s.

His symptoms were severe. Mitchell lost weight (prompting his friends to nickname him “Bulge Light”) and often was fatigued. He went into diabetic shock multiple times.

Linda, a store manager for Acme in the 1990s, transferred to a supermarket close to their Drexel Hill home so she could easily check in on him during the day.

“I got so used to him going into diabetic shock,” she said. “If I hadn’t heard from him by 10 o’clock, I would just leave work and come home. Just to make sure he wasn’t in shock. It was hard.”

Even while he was sick, Bob Mitchell still worked for Electric Factory Concerts, and often would give friends tickets to shows. He died of heart failure in December 2008 at age 58.

The ticket salesman left behind hundreds of bumper stickers, sitting in a drawer in the couple’s guest bedroom.

Linda wasn’t sure what to do with them. So, in 2022, when she heard Parent would be at a card shop in Havertown, she decided to pay him a visit.

» READ MORE: ‘My first sports hero’: The hockey community shares tributes to Bernie Parent

She introduced herself, handed him some bumper stickers, and explained the whole backstory.

“I showed him a picture of Bob, and he went, ‘I remember him,’” Linda said. “‘He was always in the locker room.’

“And then he goes, ‘Oh, and thank you for the stickers!’”

It’s been 50 years since the Flyers hoisted a Stanley Cup, but that team is still beloved.

And so is the bumper sticker, which was as ubiquitous as Parent himself.

“Bernie was just a great guy,” Linda said. “He did a lot for charity. He was accessible. He just loved to talk. And so did my husband.”