Photo Credits: FNG’s Rob Windfelder
This Sunday May 19th 2024 will mark the 50th anniversary of the fateful afternoon that the Philadelphia Flyers won their first Stanley Cup. The Flyers shutout the Boston Bruins in game six at the Spectrum and the roof blew off the entire city. The celebration the following day was epic. Two million people lined the parade route to welcome the Stanley Cup to Philly and the Broad Street Bullies ruled the City of Brotherly Love.
Those events went from something so exciting and new, to being something your parents remembered, to becoming something that grandpa talks about. The Flyers won The Cup again the following year and it started to seem like this amazing achievement would become something that you could look forward to. And it was, unfortunately it still is.
A Half Century
Fifty years is a very long time, every Flyers Fan is well aware of that. It was a different world altogether. On May 19th 1974 Richard Nixon was President of the United States, Frank Rizzo was the Mayor, and you could get a pound of bacon for just under a buck. The Ford Mustang was the “Car of the Year” and a brand new one would set you back thirty-five hundred dollars.
Philadelphia was in need of a champion and Rocky Balboa was still two years away. The Eagles had just gone 5-8-1 that season and missed the playoffs for the 13th year in a row. The Phillies finished sixth at 71-91. And the 76ers went 25-57. That May all eyes were on the Spectrum and not just because Elvis Presley would be performing there the following month. This Flyers team was running the only bandwagon in town.
The Flyers were a team of destiny that season. They went 50-16-12 during the regular season. The Flyers swept Bryan Hextall (Ron’s Father) and the Atlanta Flames in the quarter finals. They won the final game of that series in overtime after three lopsided contests. The Rangers proved to be much more of a challenge in the semi-final round. The “Broad Street vs Broadway” series went to seven games. The upstart Philadelphia Flyers went on to face the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup final. For the Flyers it was their first trip to the final round, for the Bruins it was their third trip in four years. The Bruins finished with only two more wins than the Flyers during the regular season but in this series the Flyers were clearly the underdog.
Boston
The “Big Bad Bruins” featured Hart Trophy winner Phil Esposito 145 points +51, Bobby Orr 122 points +84, and Ken Hodge 105 points +40. Compare that to the Flyers top players, Bobby Clarke 87 points +35, Rick MacLeish 77 points +21, and Bill Barber 69 points +33. Bobby Clarke was a driving force on that Flyers Stanley Cup Team. His tenacity was irreplaceable. That being said Clarke had 35 goals that season Esposito had 68. If Clarke had been a Bruin in 1974 he would have been their 5th highest scorer.
The Bruins also had home ice advantage in the series. Since joining the league in 1967 the Flyers had won a grand total of two games in the Boston Garden and those two wins were almost six and a half years apart. The Flyers all-time record against the Bruins going in was 4-20-4. To top it off, Boston had just won The Stanley Cup in 1970 and 1972.
We’re number one
The Flyers stunned the hockey world winning the series in six games. The final game was won at home and the entire town erupted as the final seconds ticked off the clock. Flyers announcer Gene Hart excitedly boasted “the Flyers win The Stanley Cup” over and over again as a mob of fans rushed onto the ice. People were running into the building. The surface was so packed with fans that the Flyers could barely make their way around the ice with the coveted trophy. Outside the building and across the city the streets exploded in celebration. In just seven years this hockey club had transformed the city and surrounding areas into “Flyers Country”. The party went on for days and street hockey nets became part of the city’s regular traffic pattern for years to come. “Game on”.
The number one song in the country in May of 74 was a one-hit-wonder called “The Streak”. It was a novelty song by Ray Stevens from his album entitled “Boogity Boogity”, it was the 1970’s a lot of weird stuff happened. Streaking had become a bit of a national phenomenon which may help explain why so many fans celebrating the Flyers victory were not wearing their Orange and Black, to put it mildly.
Bernie, Bernie, Bernie
Flyers goaltender Bernie Parent won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the post season. Fifty years later Bernie Parent is still one of the area’s most beloved sports personalities. Parent continues to be a great ambassador of the team, the city, and the sport of ice hockey. His performance in the final round frustrated the heck out of Boston’s powerful offense. Phil Esposito lamented to a teammate during the final game “we are not going to score on him today”. And they didn’t.
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With just under three minutes left in regulation Parent made a clutch kick save on a Ken Hodge slapshot to preserve the shutout victory that brought The Stanley Cup to Philadelphia. So Bernie gets the final word on this 50th anniversary of May 19th 1974. “My mom was born on May 19th. My mom passed away on May 19th, and we won The Stanley Cup on May 19th, isn’t that powerful? I’m sure it wasn’t me that made that save, it was my mom”.
