PHILADELPHIA — Paul Holmgren showed up at the Wells Fargo Center Tuesday night with one thought, the same one he’d been lugging to work since 1976.
He would be there in his capacity as senior club advisor, hoping whatever advice he could lend would matter in the Flyers’ game against the Calgary Flames. If he was, he would show up Thursday, when the Lightning would visit. If he was helpful there, he’d come back Saturday.
“One game,” Holmgren was saying, upstairs in building’s Hall of Fame room. “That’s all I was thinking then, and I’ve carried it throughout my career. Back then, as a player, you always thought, ‘Someone is going to take my job.’ So I worked. At that time, it was like a one-game reprieve. And I was happy to be here and just play in one game.
“It ended up being 40-plus years with this city and this franchise.”
He worked that night in his NHL debut, contributing a shot on goal and two penalty minutes to a 4-1 victory over the New York Rangers. He was 20 and would be on the fringes of a team that would play for the Stanley Cup. The following year, he would play 59 games, then regularly thorough 1984, helping the Flyers into the Cup Final in 1980 and establishing a reputation as a hard hitter, clutch scorer and team-first value.
The Flyers formally recognized that Tuesday, introducing Holmgren and Rick Tocchet as the newest members of their franchise Hall of Fame. In that, he would join some fighters, some scorers, a coach, some executives and, mostly, players who understood that playing for the Flyers was something of a lifetime commitment.
He was perfect for the honor, because he was just about all of the above. While no record is unbreakable, the breadth of his achievements with the Flyers likely will never be matched. Player. Scorer. Fighter. Assistant coach. Head coach. Scout. Assistant general manager. GM. Team president. Adviser. Legend.
All from one game?
“I don’t have any favorite memories, except as a player,” Holmgren said, with a smile. “But my best memory was that first game. I played in the Stanley Cup finals in 1980, and that was obviously a big memory. We had a record unbeaten streak that still exists. But that first game? I remember it like it was yesterday.”
While Holmgren did attack every shift like it might be his last, his longevity was not as unexpected as he will make it sound, 45 years later. He was 6-3, 210, and had already played 51 games for the Minnesota Fighting Saints of the major-league WHA. When the Saints folded, he was targeted by the Flyers, who had made him the 108th overall pick in the 1975 draft. They weren’t about to limit his audition to one game in March.
So he played and played well, scoring 30 goals for that 1980 team, then added 10 goals and as many assists in the playoffs. In his eight years, he would amass 1,600 penalty minutes, a record for a franchise that once romanticized a trip to the penalty box. That stood until it was broken by, yes, Tocchet. And while it was not enough to avoid a late-career trade to the Minnesota North Stars, it was plenty to have at least one influential voice insist he never be permitted to stray too far from the southeast side of Broad and Pattison.
“Clarkie,” Holmgren said. “He was probably the guy who always pushed to bring me back. And when I retired as a player, Mike Keenan took a chance on me as an assistant coach, and I thank Mike for that. But Clarkie was always the guy behind the scenes pushing for me.
“But it’s easy to come back to an organization like the Flyers.”
He went from assistant coach to head coach, leading the Flyers into the 1989 Final Four before being eliminated by the eventual-champion Canadiens. Coaching being that way, he eventually was replaced, and later spent a few years coaching and later general-managing the Hartford Whalers. But by 1996, he was back with the Flyers as a scout, then as a personnel director, then as an assistant to Clarkie, Bob Clarke, the general manager.
Not every pro athlete would continue to circle back to an organization that once traded him away and later bounced him as the head coach. But the Flyers, the native of St. Paul, Minn., had found, were home.
“It’s a first-class organization,” Holmgren said. “They do everything first class, so it’s a family atmosphere. And it is a great, passionate city with an unbelievable fan base that lives and dies with our team.
“So what’s not to like?”
Paul Holmgren was 65 as he walked along the carpet to center ice Tuesday, accepting his induction into the franchise Hall of Fame in, as usual, a first-class ceremony.
He felt like he was 20.
It was a game night.
Contact Jack McCaffery at jmccaffery@21st-centurymedia.com.
