Color of Hockey: Bernie Parent Memorial Camp thrills young goalies

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog since 2012. Douglas joined NHL.com in 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today, he profiles the inaugural Bernie Parent Memorial Camp by Ed Snider Youth Hockey & Education and Flyers Charities at the Flyers Training Center to honor the legendary Philadelphia Flyers goalie who died on Sept. 21, 2025, at age 80.

VOORHEES, N.J. -- It was a beautiful thing that would have made Bernie Parent smile.

More than 35 young goalies of all shapes, sizes and backgrounds were on the ice at the Flyers Training Center last week honing their skills at the inaugural Bernie Parent Memorial Camp.

The camp and a goalie development program were established by Ed Snider Youth Hockey & Education and Flyers Charities to honor Parent, the Hockey Hall of Fame goalie and two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Philadelphia Flyers who died on Sept. 21, 2025, at age 80. 

“I’d like to think that he'd say, ‘It's a beautiful thing,’” Snider Hockey executive vice president and chief operating officer Jan Koziara said of Parent, borrowing the late goalie’s catchphrase. “He was a Snider Hockey ambassador who was so giving with his time, always had a smile on his face. He enjoyed being around the kids, enjoyed seeing them do great things, whether it was playing hockey or if he was introducing them to fishing in the summer.”

It was an exhilarating and exhausting three days from Aug. 17-19 for the Snider Hockey goalies, ages 7 to 17, who came from across the Philadelphia area and were bused into the Flyers practice facility in New Jersey for on-ice and off-ice training.

“It's more goalies than I've ever seen at a goalie camp before,” said Cole Boothman, a 17-year-old netminder who plays with Snider Hockey’s Under-18 AA team and Archbishop Ryan High School in Philadelphia. “But everybody's getting involved, so there's so many nets out there, and not many people are standing around. It's been good.”

When they weren’t practicing, the campers listened to guest speakers that included Parent’s wife, Gini; former Flyers forward-turned team radio analyst Todd Fedoruk; Robert Esche, a former Philadelphia goalie who is president of Utica of the American Hockey League; and Carson Bjarnason, a 21-year-old goalie who was selected by the Flyers in the second round (No. 51) of the 2023 NHL Draft and played 32 games with Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League last season.

“I thought the whole camp was great, with a lot of components to it,” said Esche, who played 186 games (170 starts) with the Phoenix Coyotes and Flyers from 1998-2007. “They were working on the technical components on the ice. In the talk that we had, we actually talked a lot about the mental side of the game, and the younger kids honestly had a lot of great questions, coupled with the older ones.”

Many of the campers knew about Parent’s legacy on the ice. He helped the Flyers become the first 1967-68 expansion team to win the Stanley Cup in 1974 and 1975 and won the Conn Smythe Trophy, voted most valuable player of the postseason, each time.

He won the Vezina Trophy, voted as the NHL’s top goalie in 1975 and shared the award with Chicago Blackhawks goalie Tony Esposito in 1974.   

Parent’s career ended abruptly on Feb. 17, 1979, when an errant stick entered the right eyehole of his mask during a game against the New York Rangers. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1984 and named one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players as part of the League's centennial in 2017.

But most of the Snider camp goalies knew about Parent mostly for his work off the ice, whether it was his enthusiastic presence at their events or sharing his love of fishing with them at the Bernie Parent Family Fishing Day, an annual fundraiser for Snider Hockey on the Jersey Shore.

“I met him on the fishing trip,” said Dylan Brown, a goalie with Snider Hockey’s Under-16 team. “I didn’t catch any fish, though. But Bernie was fun.”

The goalie camp was led by Ally Frantzick, who joined Snider Hockey as coordinator of the Bernie Parent Goalie Development Program after serving as lead instructor with MEGA Goaltending and as a mental health and performance coach.  

The Woodbury, Minnesota, native who played four seasons (2019-23) with NCAA Division III College of Saint Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota, said she was drawn to Snider Hockey because of the nonprofit organization’s mission of developing quality individuals beyond the rink.

Established by the late Flyers Chairman Ed Snider in 2005, Snider Hockey provides opportunity for under-resourced youth in the Philadelphia area on and off the ice.  It offers after-school educational assistance and provides student-athletes that graduate through the program free, four-year tuition at several local colleges and universities.

“They look at the whole person, not just hockey,” she said. “It's good to be involved with this group, and I felt so welcome since Day 1. I literally say it every day, it's been so fun.”

Frantzick’s fun is fused with hard work in building the Bernie Parent goalie development program that was launched in November with a $50,000 donation from Flyers Charities, matched by a donation from Snider’s children.

“The one area that we felt in our player development of Snider Hockey is we never really had a dedicated goalie development program,” Snider Hockey President and CEO Scott Tharp said. “It was on the back burner for maybe the past year or so and, with Bernie’s passing, it moved it to the front burner.”

The donation to recognize Parent was an easy decision for Flyers Charites.

“There is no better way to honor his legacy than by establishing a goalie-focused program with Ed Snider Youth Hockey & Education that builds a passion for the position, advances on-ice skills, supports academic growth, and strengthens the leadership abilities of young goalies,” said Blair Listino, board chair of Flyers Charities and Flyers alternate governor. “We enjoyed seeing the inaugural Bernie Parent Memorial Camp bring so much joy to the next generation of goaltenders. Seeing them all come together and learn from one another and connect with some of our alumni and their Snider coaches is, as Bernie would say, ‘A Beautiful Thing.’”

Snider Hockey joins a number of other youth hockey programs with ties to NHL teams that are taking a nurturing approach to young goalies.

“It's really great," Frantzick said, "especially for the older kids as they start to those aspirations to keep going, whether that's D1 or college club hockey, or even if they’re, like ‘I’m not going to play after high school.' A lot of what they learn in goaltending applies to their daily life outside of hockey, too.”

Tharp said he deeply misses Parent, especially the phone calls he would get from him every Sunday morning. He said naming the goalie development program after Parent helps keep his memory alive.

“He probably would have personally wanted to take part in it as much as he could,” Tharp said. “I think he would think it was the most fitting way that he's been honored.”