Favell appreciates special place in Flyers history 55 years later

Nowhere on
Doug Favell
's commemorative plaque is there mention of "probably the worst game ever played in the NHL."

Favell jokes about the Oct. 19, 1967 game at the Spectrum between his Philadelphia Flyers and the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins, expansion teams that played in what was less than an epic struggle.
After 60 minutes of eye-glazing hockey,
the home team had ground out a 1-0 victory
, the Flyers' first shutout coming in its first game in Philadelphia.
This past summer, at a charity golf tournament north of Guelph, Ontario, Favell renewed his friendship with
Les Binkley
, the Penguins' first No. 1 goaltender who stood 180 feet from him on Spectrum ice 55 years ago this Oct. 19.

Philadelphia Flyers rookie Doug Favell in action during a 1967-68 game at Maple Leaf Gardens.
Favell is 77, 11 years younger than Binkley.
"Whenever I see 'Bink,' I always kid him about that game," Favell said with a laugh. "He looks great. We had lots of fun this summer, golfing together, telling stories about that. My memory isn't gone yet, even if it's on life support."
Indeed, Favell's recollection of a game played 55 years ago is impressively sharp.
"I told Bink, 'I think there were 7,000 people at the Spectrum and it had to be probably the worst game ever played in the NHL,'" Favell said from his home in St. Catharines, Ontario. "He laughed about that. I think the shots on goal were like 16-14. Both of us being expansion teams, we were a little short on scorers. A lot of our games were pretty defensive."

Bill Sutherland (left) scored the only goal in the Philadelphia Flyers' inaugural home opener, Oct. 19, 1967; Pittsburgh Penguins goalie Les Binkley moves to smother a puck against the Toronto Maple Leafs' Dave Keon at Maple Leaf Gardens during late 1960s action. Getty Images; Graphic Artists/Hockey Hall of Fame.
Official statistics have the Flyers outshooting the Penguins 22-17 for a Thursday night crowd of 7,812, and a total of 24 penalty minutes, 12 to each team, called by referee Vern Buffey.
Those assembled in the sparkling new $12 million Spectrum were witnessing the first NHL game played in Philadelphia since March 21, 1931, that one a 4-4 overtime tie for the Philadelphia Quakers against the Montreal Canadiens. After a single historically bad season that saw the Quakers go 4-36-4, the franchise mercifully folded.
Thirty-six years later, in a "Philadelphia revival," according to one newspaper headline,
Bill Sutherland
scored the first home-ice goal in Flyers history, his third of the season, coming 2:59 into the third period when he cashed the rebound of a shot by
Leon Rochefort
.
Sutherland, 32 at the time, had scored 40 goals the previous season, his fifth with the Quebec Aces of the American Hockey League. He became Flyers property when the incoming NHL team bought the minor-pro club.
"I told Bink, 'I think I had maybe two tough shots all night. You obviously had one more than I had,'" Favell said, laughing again.

Old friends and long-ago teammates Doug Favell and Bernie Parent renew their friendship at the Philadelphia Flyers' 50th anniversary in 2017. Courtesy Doug Favell
Then 22, Favell was playing his third of seven consecutive games with the Flyers. He was a teammate of his old Niagara Falls buddy
Bernie Parent
, an odd couple who together won the 1965 Memorial Cup championship as Canada's best junior hockey team.
"We kind of were friends without being real close," Favell said of Parent. "He was in tough [not speaking English to start] and I respected that. We made each other better. We knew if we didn't play well, we weren't going to play. We respected each other, and our friendship grew from that."
Plucked from the Boston Bruins, Parent would be the Flyers' first pick in the June 6, 1967, expansion draft that stocked the six new NHL teams, No. 2 overall behind the Los Angeles Kings selection of goalie Terry Sawchuk. Favell was chosen in the second round with the No. 9 pick.
The Flyers opened their maiden season with three games on the road, Parent in goal for a 5-1 curtain-raising loss to the Oakland Seals on Oct. 11. Coach Keith Allen went with Favell in Los Angeles three nights later, the Kings icing a 4-2 win with an empty-net goal.

Doug Favell with his mask a Flyers and pumpkin orange for an Oct. 29, 1970 Halloween-season game, and the starburst design paint job that would follow it. Getty Images
Allen came back with Favell in St. Louis on Oct. 18, which would be a franchise-first 2-1 win for Philadelphia, and again the next night, for the Flyers' inaugural home game.
"When you're winning, they like you," Favell said, chuckling. "I didn't even think I'd be with the Flyers to start the season; I thought I'd be in Quebec. But I had such a good camp, they had to keep me up."
That meant sending 38-year-old Al Millar, a veteran with a competitive history as long as a goalie stick, down to the AHL with his six games of NHL experience, having played briefly for the Bruins in 1957-58.
Favell played the rest of the four-game homestand, going 1-1 with one tie, Parent then drawing the assignment for back-to-back games against the Montreal Canadiens, earning a win and a tie against his hometown team.
Their workload through 1967-68 was remarkably similar. Favell went 16-15-6 with a 2.27 goals-against average, .931 save percentage and four shutouts in 37 games, facing 1,204 shots. Parent was 15-17-5, with a 2.49 GAA and .926 save percentage, also with four shutouts, facing 1,249 shots in 38 games.

Doug Favell defends the Toronto Maple Leafs net with defenseman Mike Pelyk, Boston Bruins forward Gregg Sheppard chasing the puck during an April 1974 game at Maple Leaf Gardens. Graphic Artists/Hockey Hall of Fame
"We had a very healthy rivalry," Favell said. "You don't root against a guy, but you want to play. We had such dramatic style differences, it was very easy to pick out who was playing. I was a flopper, an up-and-down guy, all over the place, where Bernie was basically a Jacques Plante-style of goalie. Where he played the angles, I was a reflex guy.
"But I can never remember being upset with Bernie. We picked each other up. We were successful, and making the team successful was our goal. That's what we were achieving that first year.
"I said back then when things were going well that there were nights the puck looked as big as a beach ball, but when things turned on me it looked like an aspirin."
The Flyers finished first in the West Division but lost to the Blues in a seven-game NHL quarterfinal series.
Favell would play six seasons with the Flyers, Parent playing four before he was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs in February 1971, where he would play alongside Plante, his idol and mentor, until he jumped to the World Hockey Association in 1972-73.

Doug Favell in action with the Colorado Rockies in the late 1970s. Hockey Hall of Fame Images
Parent's rights still were owned by the Maple Leafs when he expressed a desire to return to the NHL, so Toronto packaged him in a multiplayer trade on May 15, 1973, shipping him to the Flyers for Favell.
Favell already had made Philadelphia hockey headlines in late October 1971, appearing in net two nights before Halloween with his fiberglass mask painted orange, a playful salute to the 1966 animated television special, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."
It would morph into a starburst design for 1972-73, his Flyers versions painted by trainer Frank Lewis, then with a couple of different maple leaf motifs in Toronto and something fresh with the Colorado Rockies, those styled by legendary mask-maker and painter Greg Harrison.
From his arrival in the NHL through his final game 11-plus seasons later, from 1967-78 to seven games early in 1978-79, Favell played 215 games with the Flyers, 74 with the Maple Leafs and 84 with the Rockies. If there's still a fair bit of orange and black in his veins, so too does he fondly remember his days in Toronto and Denver.
"I'm a St. Catharines boy and I watched the Leafs growing up, so to play with that team and wear that sweater was really special," he said. "Then there I was with the Rockies, back with an expansion team (in 1976, relocated from Kansas City). But I loved it there and ended up staying nine years.
"I coached at Denver University the year after I retired and opened a business (in luxury auto brokerage). We'd come home in the summer, back to the lake, the best of both worlds."

Doug Favell during the 2014 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic alumni game against the Detroit Red Wings on Dec. 31, 2013 at Comerica Park in Detroit. Graig Abel/NHLI via Getty Images
To say that he was busy from 1987-91 would be to understate his schedule. Favell was coaching at Brock University in St. Catharines, running the bench of the area's Junior B Thorold Blackhawks and serving as goaltending coach for the Buffalo Sabres, the staff including current Flyers coach John Tortorella, then an assistant under Rick Dudley.
Today, dividing his time between St. Catharines and a winter home in Naples, Florida, Favell is happy with his place in Flyers history, their first win and first shutout records his forever.
And he still gets a kick out of relating a story about his friend Parent's 1971 trade from the Flyers to the Maple Leafs.
"A local reporter asked me why they kept me instead of Bernie," Favell said. "I replied, 'It's pretty obvious, the Flyers are going with a youth movement.' The guy didn't ask anything, he just wrote the story.
"Then he came back to me a couple of days later, cursing that I was just two days younger than Bernie."
Top photos: Doug Favell in 1967-68 action against the Toronto Maple Leafs. HHoF Images / At home in St. Catharines, Ontario, on Oct. 16, 2022, with his 20th anniversary Philadelphia Flyers first home game plaque and a replica of the mask he wore the first two seasons of his NHL career. Courtesy Lisette Marceau