Parent was no Stooge in goal
Led Flyers to consecutive Stanley Cups First win came against the Habs at the Forum
Iknew my chat with Hall of Fame goaltender Bernie Parent would be golden when not only did we agree that Shemp was the best of the Three Stooges, but that of the 190 shorts the Stooges filmed for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959, we both ranked 1947’s classic Brideless Groom as our all-time favourite.
Moe was great, naturally. Larry? Sensational.
“And Curly was awesome,” Parent said last weekend, in Montreal for a signing at a sports collectibles show. “But I preferred Shemp. To me, he was the funniest of all.”
If you thought Parent’s 1970s Broad St. Bullies teammate Dave Schultz could throw bombs, The Hammer was just a pretender to the throne of Brideless Groom costar Christine McIntyre, the actress cast as Miss Hopkins who broke Shemp’s nose with a vicious right cross she didn’t quite pull when slugging the Stooge through a door.
That is Parent’s favourite scene in the short — one of a great many Stooge films the goalie saw during his playing days, a fact we’ll revisit shortly.
The 66-year-old native Montrealer with the quick wit and easy laugh was one of the goaltending greats of his or any generation, backstopping the Philadelphia Flyers to consecutive Stanley Cups in 1974 and ’75, in both seasons winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as most valuable player of the postseason and the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s outstanding netminder.
Parent’s career sadly was cut short at age 34 in 1979, a high stick clipping his right eye through his mask to permanently damage his depth perception.
Five years later, he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, and in the decades since he has fashioned himself into a highly sought motivational speaker, sharing a message of risk vs. reward to high schoolers and captains of industry alike.
“When there’s risk involved, fear comes in. And when fear comes in, most people back away,” Parent said. “That’s when people miss out on great opportunities in life. My philosophy is, if I assume it’s not going to work out, I take the first step anyway. If it doesn’t work out, learn from it and move on.”
Parent grew up in Montreal next door to the sister of Canadiens goaltending icon Jacques Plante, the man he worshipped. He would become a teammate of Plante in the early 1970s in Toronto, where he absorbed the steady flow of advice offered by his idol.
He has said he learned more from Plante in a season and a half than from anyone else over any period of time, schooled in Toronto on the finer points of challenging a shooter, playing and preventing rebounds, balance, working the angles and the mental aspect of playing nets.
Parent played 671 bigleague games over 14 seasons from 1965-79 — 608 with Boston, Toronto and most famously the Flyers in the National Hockey League, 63 more with the World Hockey Association’s Philadelphia Blazers in 1972-73.
If he doesn’t have richly detailed memories of his first game at the Montreal Forum — a 27-save, 3-1 victory for Boston over the Canadiens on Nov. 6, 1965 — he does remember his nerves and a win, his first in the NHL.
It was Parent’s third career league game, having earned a 2-2 tie at Chicago on Nov. 3 and been pasted 8-1 in Detroit the next night.
(Reminded that the Canadiens beat him 5-2 back in Boston on Nov. 7, Parent laughed and said, “No, if we lost, it must have been someone else in goal!”)
The Forum, he said, was a unique experience, if not always a pleasant one.
“I’m having such a great trip to Montreal and you have to destroy it by mentioning the Canadiens,” Parent said, laughing again. “In those years, the team Montreal had was incredible. It was a great game every time we played there. It wasn’t a scary situation, but let me put it this way: I never slept well the night before I played at the Forum.”
Parent recalls having gone to the shrine at Ste. Catherine St. and Atwater Ave. as a boy, his gaze seldom straying from Plante. Then on Nov. 6, 1965, he skated onto Forum ice at age 20 to face the Canadiens, a club stocked with nine future Hall of Famers.
“I was amazed by the crowd,” said Parent, who outshone Montreal goaler Charlie Hodge that night. “I’d gone to the Forum as a young fan and I’d watch the Canadiens on TV every Saturday night. And now I was a goaltender for Boston, performing on Forum ice. It was an incredible feeling.”
Parent shuffled to the expansion Flyers f rom the Bruins, claimed by Philly in the 1967 draft, then had his heart broken by being traded from his adopted home to Toronto in February 1971.
With a priceless education under Plante, Parent bolted to the WHA’s Blazers for the 1972-73 season, then wound up back with the Flyers in May 1973, Toronto trading Philadelphia his NHL rights.
Parent laughs at the claims of some that his routine the
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night before a game was to quaff a half-dozen beers then get eight hours’ sleep.
In reality, he would spend a couple hours studying his opponent, reviewing how he’d play 2-on-1s, 2-on-2s, left- or right-handed shooters, honing his entire system of play.
So with little worry the next day about the contest, he would awaken from his afternoon nap and watch the Three Stooges on videotape.
“I wanted a clear, happy mind that I needed to perform better in the game,” Parent said. “Watching the Three Stooges was part of it. It was better to be laughing.”
He was back in goal last New Year’s Eve for the Winter Classic alumni game against the New York Rangers, strapping on his old leather pads at age 66 for a six-save, 5:32 outdoor stint at Citizens Bank Park after being badgered to play by friends, fans and old teammates.
“The last time I left the ice (in 1979) was when I was hit by a stick,” Parent said. “I never had the chance to wave to the crowd. So there was a lesson in coming back: being a player instead of a spectator, in hockey as well as in life, is very important.
“Was it scary? Of course. But when you face fear, the results can be beautiful. We stepped on the ice in front of 45,000 people. The excitement was incredible. I only played five minutes, but that was my goal.
“I had people see me play and face a couple shots. I was able to come out on the ice and wave to the crowd one last time and what a feeling that was.”
A great goaltender was back, in every way.
It was only perfect that a dear old friend, Jimmy Petronglo, put the Three Stooges on the DVD a few hours before the game.
BridelessGroom,of course. And again that day, Parent laughed when Miss Hopkins connected with a stiff right to the generous beak of Shemp, the greatest Stooge of all.
dstubbs@ montrealgazette.com