Gary Dornhoefer

Lore & Background

Dornhoefer played junior hockey with the Niagara Falls Flyers of the Ontario Hockey Association. He made his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins in the 1964 season, playing 32 games with 12 goals and 10 assists. After a poor start the next season, he spent most of the next three seasons in the minor leagues, principally with the Hershey Bears. He was left unprotected in the 1967 NHL Expansion Draft and was selected 13th overall by the Philadelphia Flyers, with whom he played the rest of his career. In his first year with Philadelphia, he scored 13 goals and 43 points with 134 penalty minutes, gaining a reputation as a hard-hitting, grinding left winger. He reached the 20-goal plateau for the first time two seasons later and achieved it five times. His best season was 1973, with 30 goals and 49 assists for 79 points, and he was named to the All-Star Game. The most famous play of his career was an overtime goal against the Minnesota North Stars in the 1973 Stanley Cup playoffs on a solo rush, memorialized on a statue at the Spectrum (demolished 2010–11) now outside Stateside Live! in the South Philadelphia Sports Complex. He was named to the All-Star Game again in 1977 and finished that season with a +47 plus/minus. He retired after the 1978 playoffs. He played 787 games over 14 seasons, scoring 214 goals and 328 assists for 542 points, with 1291 penalty minutes. At retirement, he was second only to Bobby Clarke as the team's all-time leading scorer and still ranks tenth. His eleven seasons with Philadelphia are surpassed only by Clarke, Bill Barber, and Rick MacLeish, and he is eighth in franchise penalty minutes.

In Their Own Story

On June 6, 1967, inside the ballroom of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, the fate of Gary Dornhoefer was decided. As NHL President Clarence Campbell drew names from a capsule within the Stanley Cup bowl, the draft order was established. The Philadelphia Flyers, picking after the North Stars and before the Penguins, secured the rights to Dornhoefer from the Boston Bruins. This selection occurred during a phase where expansion teams were required to select twenty players each: two goaltenders and eighteen forwards or defencemen. The atmosphere of the event was described by some commentators as resembling a 'rummage sale,' with Original Six clubs losing players they deemed unnecessary. Dornhoefer's move from Boston to Philadelphia was part of this massive roster reshuffle that defined the 1967–68 season.

Reader's Guide

After retiring following the 1977–1978 season, Dornhoefer moved to broadcasting. He worked a short time in Philadelphia, then moved to Ontario, Canada to work on Hockey Night In Canada as a color commentator from 1978 to 1987. After a six-year hiatus, he moved back to Philadelphia in 1992 and joined the Flyers broadcast team, originally working with Gene Hart. He served as a Flyers' color analyst through the 2005–06 NHL season. He became a U.S. citizen on March 16, 2016.

Did You Know?

• Dornhoefer was selected by the Philadelphia Flyers with the 13th overall pick in the 1967 NHL Expansion Draft.
• He scored a famous overtime goal against the Minnesota North Stars in the 1973 Stanley Cup playoffs on a solo rush.
• At the time of his retirement, he was second only to Bobby Clarke as the Flyers' all-time leading scorer.
• He became a United States citizen on March 16, 2016.