Gary Dornhoefer | |||
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Born |
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada |
February 2, 1943 ||
Height | 6 ft 1 in (185 cm) | ||
Weight | 175 lb (79 kg; 12 st 7 lb) | ||
Position | Right Wing | ||
Shot | Right | ||
Played for |
Boston Bruins Philadelphia Flyers |
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Playing career | 1963–1978 |
Gerhardt Otto Dornhofer (born February 2, 1943), better known as Gary Dornhoefer, is a Canadian former professional ice hockey right winger who played 14 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers. He was a member of the Flyers' back-to-back Stanley Cup championship teams in 1974 and 1975.
After playing his junior hockey with the Niagara Falls Flyers of the Ontario Hockey Association, Dornhoefer made his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins in the 1964 season, playing in 32 games, scoring twelve goals and ten assists. After that promising start, he played poorly to start the next season and was little used by Boston thereafter, spending most of the next three seasons in the minor leagues, principally with the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League.
Dornhoefer was left unprotected in the 1967 NHL Expansion Draft. The Philadelphia Flyers selected him with the 13th pick overall, and he would never play with another team.
In that first year with Philadelphia, Dornhoefer scored 13 goals and 43 points while accumulating 134 penalty minutes and gaining a reputation as a hard hitting, grinding left winger with a touch for scoring. Two seasons later he reached the 20-goal plateau for the first time, a mark he would achieve in five seasons. In 1973 he had his best season, scoring 30 goals and 49 assists for 79 points and being named to play in the All-Star Game. The most famous play of his career came in the 1973 Stanley Cup playoffs when he scored a crucial overtime goal against the Minnesota North Stars on a solo rush. The goal was memorialized on a statue at the Spectrum, which was demolished in 2010-11. Plans are for the Spectrum statues to be installed in a new retail, restaurant and entertainment complex to be built on a nearby site.