Former Flyers captain and Broad Street Bully Ed Van Impe dies at 84

Just a few weeks away from celebrating the 50th anniversary of their 1975 Stanley Cup winning team, the Flyers lost another member Tuesday night, as ailing defenseman Ed Van Impe died in British Columbia surrounded by family members. He was 84.

“My dad sent his love to his friends and teammates,” Greg Van Impe wrote the Flyers Alumni by email. “We walk together forever!”

The Flyers said in a statement Thursday that the organization “mourn[s] the loss of a leader and original Philadelphia Flyer in Ed Van Impe. ... He will always hold a special place in the hearts of the Flyers organization. We offer our deepest condolences to his teammates, who had the privilege to play beside him, and his family and friends who were close to him during this difficult time.”

Plucked from the Chicago Blackhawks in the 1967 expansion draft, Mr. Van Impe blossomed into one of the league’s top defensemen across nine seasons with the Flyers. The native of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, was named the second captain in franchise history in 1968 and went on to play a key role on the Broad Street Bullies teams that won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975.

» READ MORE: Where are the Stanley Cup-winning Broad Street Bullies now?

Jim Watson, who was Mr. Van Impe’s defensive partner and road roommate with the Flyers, said the team “probably wouldn’t have won the Stanley Cup without Eddie.”

“He was a big, big part of what we did, our success,” he said Thursday. “We were a blend of a lot of veterans and a lot of young players, and Eddie was a real anchor for us on the blue line and also gave the young players encouragement and courage.”

Mr. Van Impe, who was known primarily for his toughness, physicality, and no-nonsense approach to playing defense, earned All-Star nods in 1969, 1974, and 1975 and was inducted into the Flyers’ Hall of Fame in 1993.

 He was known as a stalwart defensive blueliner, and his impact rarely was defined by the score sheet, as he was a selfless shot-blocker who relished clearing the space in front of goaltender Bernie Parent.

“As a defenseman, he played with a lot of determination and grit. He cleared the front of the net so Bernie could see every shot coming at him,” fellow original Flyer Gary Dornhoefer told The Inquirer.

“That’s what I did when I played,” said the right winger. “I got to the front of the net, and I would have hated to play against Ed Van Impe because I would have been black and blue.

“You know he was the type of individual who knew what his role was, and he played it so effectively. He had the respect of every single guy on our hockey club [with] the way he played. Speed? [He] didn’t have any. But it didn’t matter. He was so good defensively.”

Teammate Bill Clement experienced that “black and blue” firsthand on his back after some crosschecks in training camp. He characterized Mr. Van Impe as almost two different people depending on whether he had skates on or not.

“He was a gladiator. But he treated me like he was a gentleman, and it was easy to become his friend because he was such a classy guy,” Clement said. “He had limited ability, but, boy, did he play hard and mean. I don’t believe he lived his life like that off the ice, but that’s the only way he could succeed on the ice.”

Several of Mr. Van Impe’s teammates raved about examples of his toughness and ability to play through injuries.

“His pain threshold was off the charts,” said Flyers teammate Orest Kindrachuk. “I think there was a game where he blocked a shot with his face and he got like 50 stitches, and came back and played in the third period. Imagine that, players doing that today?”

“He was a warrior,” teammate Bill Barber said last summer.

Outside of his success with the Flyers, Mr. Van Impe probably is best remembered for his devastating hit against the Soviet Union’s Valeri Kharlamov in the Super Series ’76.

 On Jan. 11, Mr. Van Impe caught the unsuspecting Soviet forward with a blindside hit in the middle of the Flyers’ zone, knocking Kharlamov unconscious. Mr. Van Impe was not penalized on the play, leading the Soviets to temporarily leave the ice at the Spectrum in protest. The Soviets returned eventually, but the Flyers won the exhibition game, 4-1.

After winning back-to-back Stanley Cup championships with the Flyers, Mr. Van Impe, at age 35, was traded midway through the 1975-76 season to Pittsburgh, where he played a total of 22 games over two seasons before retiring.

Mr. Van Impe was born May 27, 1940, in Saskatoon. Before reaching the NHL in the 1966-67 season with Chicago, he played in the minor leagues for one season with the Calgary Stampeders and five with the Buffalo Bisons.

Over 11 NHL seasons, Mr. Van Impe finished his career with 27 goals, 126 assists, and 1,024 penalty minutes in 703 games.

Mr. Van Impe ranks 14th in franchise history with 891 penalty minutes; his plus-68 rating ranks 38th with the team.

» READ MORE: Remembering the night the Broad Street Bullies ran Soviet Red Army out of the Spectrum

Following his playing career, Mr. Van Impe worked for the Flyers as a broadcaster in the ’80s before returning to Canada and transitioning into a career in insurance.

 His health declined in recent years, which prevented him from attending last summer’s reunion of the 1974 Stanley Cup team. Kindrachuk visited Mr. Van Impe earlier this year in British Columbia as part of the Flyers Alumni’s new House Calls program.

“Very quiet, but funny. Oh, God, that dry sense of humor. Absolutely, very dry, yes, absolutely,” Kindrachuk said. “When I went and saw him in Nanaimo, man, we had a lot of good laughs and hugs and tears and just reminiscing with [his wife] Diane. It’s a big loss for the hockey world.”

Mr. Van Impe is the fifth member of the Flyers’ first Stanley Cup team to die, after Barry Ashbee, Rick MacLeish, Ross Lonsberry, and Bill Flett.

“When I talk about Eddie, I just start to laugh and smile, because that’s the way he would want us [to be],” Watson said. “We’re sad, but we’re also happy because we had a chance to live with Eddie and be around Eddie and experience all these wonderful things with Eddie and his lovely wife, Diane, and just, you know, smiles come to our face when we look back on that time.”

Inquirer staff writer Jackie Spiegel contributed to this article.