Bernie Parent last took the ice 46 years ago. For fans, he’s forever an inspiration.
A flock of Flyers fans descended upon Xfinity Mobile Arena on Friday to pay tribute to the legendary goaltender who guided the franchise to a pair of back-to-back Stanley Cup titles.
More than a thousand Flyers fans came to Xfinity Mobile Arena on Friday to pay tribute to Bernie Parent, the legendary goaltender who backstopped the Flyers’ only two Stanley Cup victories.
Diane Gobeil came armed with a copy of The Inquirer from 1974, after the first Stanley Cup victory. She was 14 when the Flyers won the 1974 Stanley Cup, and said she’d never seen her hometown in Delaware County so engaged and excited about anything before that team.
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“I never saw the city more excited than that time,” Gobeil said. “He deserved [for] us to come back and say goodbye to him.”
Fans clad in Parent jerseys lined up to look at the memorial display. Jon Levinson, 62, came down from North Jersey to celebrate Parent, his all-time favorite professional athlete, who won his entire family over to Flyers fandom.
He met Parent last December at a signing event in Philadelphia, and said it was the happiest moment of his life. When his friend pointed out he had two daughters, he just laughed. “My daughter’s a huge Flyers fan too, so it’s OK. She would understand.”
Levinson came down for the opening game this season to pay tribute to Parent, and is also attending Saturday’s tribute game against the Blues.
“You listen to all the speakers today, and for all the wonderful things they said, I don’t know if they even truly painted an accurate portrait of what Bernie meant to the city of Philadelphia, to the fan base, to Ed Snider youth hockey, to everybody,” Levinson said.
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The celebration was an important night for Snider Youth Hockey, the program founded by former Flyers owner Ed Snider and Parent was heavily involved in. Snider youth hockey players handed out programs, and a number came in Snider Hockey jerseys to pay tribute to him. Kenyatta Johnson donated $5,000 to the Ed Snider Foundation, which was doubled by Scott Tharp, president and CEO of Snider Youth Hockey and Education.
His work with Snider Youth Hockey was just one way Parent, who lived in Avalon, N.J., until his death, impacted the local community. To the fans, Parent was so much more than just a hockey player.
He inspired Marion Powell to run her first marathon after she met him in New Jersey a few years ago, and used his book, “Journey through Risk and Fear,” as a motivator when training got hard. She spoke to him again in August, and told him she was running her second marathon in October.
“Bernie has been my biggest motivator, my biggest inspiration,” Powell said. “My daughter told me, when I was training for the marathon, I was on like mile 18 on a run, and she told me Bernie passed away, and I just finished the marathon a month ago.
“When you have an inspiration, it keeps you going, no matter how hard it is.”