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.


Fred Shero: The Statue
Custom created and built by Chad Fisher of Fisher Sculpture located in Moorestown, New Jersey, the statue was hand-crafted completely by Fisher himself. The process, which took six months from start to finish, began from scratch using fine artistic clays based on photos of Shero. After the model was completed and approved, a silicone mold was constructed followed by highly skilled bronze foundry work to finish the eight-foot tall, 1,300-pound monument.

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.


Fred Shero with the Stanley Cup in 1974
It was a thrill to be sitting on an old Spectrum folding chair at the ceremony yesterday with so many other folks who were there as well in 1974 as Fred’s statue was unveiled just two months shy of four decades later. It was especially nice to visit again with Fred's son, Ray Shero, now the GM of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who I first met in 1971 when he was a nine-year old kid running around in the bowels of the Spectrum. Ray, whose Penguins met the Flyers at the Wells Fargo Center right after the ceremony, was there to represent the Shero family along with his own 18-year old son, Chris, Fred's grandson. I have tried to memorialize this wonderful event with a gallery of photographs I took yesterday of the new statue and my many old friends some 40 years after they first carried the Cup around the ice in the Spectrum that once stood just a few hundred feet away.

And now here are my pictures of the dedication ...


Draped in "Orange" prior to the ceremony


Sculptor Chad Fisher


The always gracious Bernie Parent autographing
a jersey for a fan prior to the ceremony


Joe Watson, Gary Dornhoefer, Chris Shero (grandson), Ray Shero (son),
Mrs. Ed Snider, Ed Snider, Bernie Parent, Bill Barber


Dave Schultz, Bob Kelly, Rick MacLeish


Larry Goodenough, Lou Scheinfeld (who named the Spectrum), Paul Holmgren,
Jimmy Watson, Dave Schultz, Bill Clement


Bernie Parent welcomes the crowd


The crane operators waiting to lift the shroud


Dave Schultz reading a note Fred Shero wrote to Rick MacLeish
after they won the Cup


Fred's son Ray Shero, GM of the Pittsburgh Penguins, represented the Shero family


The shroud is lifted ...


... and the statue ...


... is revealed!


Joe Kadlec, Bill Barber, Paul Holmgren (hidden), Dave Schultz, Bill Clement (hidden),
Rick MacLeish, Bob Kelly, Chris Shero, Ray Shero, Ed Snider, Joe Watson, Bernie Parent,
Marcel Pelletier, Gary Dornhoefer, Larry Goodenough (hidden), Jimmy Watson


Rick MacLeish, Marcel Pelletier, and Jimmy Watson


Ed Snider presenting a miniature of the statue to Ray Shero and his son, Chris


The miniature statue presented to Ray Shero


The miniature in profile


"Freddie and Me" ... forty years later


The ceremony ends and everybody heads to the Flyers/Penguins game!!