On May 19, 1974 coach Fred Shero and his Philadelphia Flyers defeated Bobby Orr and the vaunted Boston Bruins to become the first expansion team to capture hockey's "Holy Grail", the Stanley Cup and did so just seven years after playing its first NHL game in 1967. The event proved to be one of the truly seminal societal happenings in the long history of William Penn's then three century old "greene countrie towne" drawing over two million people out to the streets of Philadelphia to celebrate the victory. The following spring Shero's Flyers repeated the feat by defeating the Buffalo Sabres to capture the Cup again. To inspire his team Shero would always say that when you win the ultimate prize you will "walk together forever", and now four decades later that is exactly what many of those Flyer players did again in person on Saturday, March 15, as their late coach and 2013 Hockey Hall of Fame inductee was immortalized in bronze with the unveiling of a statue at the corner of 11th Street and Pattison Avenue in front of "The Spectrum Grill" at Xfinity Live on the site of the old now gone Spectrum in which they won that first Cup.
Shero was the head coach of the Flyers for seven seasons, 1971-72 through 1977-78 during which he compiled a regular season record of 308-151-95 and 48-35 during the playoffs. He remains the club’s all-time leader in seasons coached, games coached (554), coaching wins and coaching winning percentage (.642). In 1973-74, after Shero led the Flyers to a 50-16-12 regular season record, the team went on to become the first expansion franchise to win the Stanley Cup. Shero won the first Jack Adams Award as NHL Coach of the Year following that season during which the Flyers repeated as Stanley Cup Champions in 1975 and then went to the Finals for the third straight year in 1976, all under Shero’s watch. On July 9, 2013, Shero became the eighth member of the Flyers organization to be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame on joining Bernie Parent (1984), Bob Clarke (1987), Ed Snider (1988), Bill Barber (1990), the late Keith Allen (1992) and Mark Howe (2011), as well as late broadcaster Gene Hart, who was recognized for his contributions with the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award in 1997.
I was in the Spectrum on the afternoon of May 19, 1974 when Parent and Shero’s Flyers shut out the Boston Bruins by a score of 1-0 on a first period goal by Rick MacLeish, and although I was not a player or a coach but just a member of the media that day (that's me in the avatar above drinking from the Cup in the Flyers' lockerroom that day) I will never forget the event and feel that in a way I, the 17,000+ others in the Spectrum on the steamy Sunday afternoon, and the the literally millions who lined Broad Street for the parade a few days later will in a sense be "walking together forever" as well as Shero and his rag tag bunch of Canadian kids who brought the whole Delaware Valley together as one that day.
