Marcel Pelletier

Remember the french Canadian goalie in Paul Newman's movie Slap Shot? He reminds me of Marcel Pelletier.

Marcel was a long time minor league goaltender who got two short shots at the NHL. He put up some really nice numbers at the minor league level but was down right awful in 8 NHL contests. Granted, awful was an improvement for the teams he was playing on - the 1950-51 Black Hawks and 1962-63 Rangers.

He replaced an injured Harry Lumley for 6 games in January 1951 in Chicago. He gave up 29 goals for a 4.83 GAA while sporting a 1 win and 5 defeat record.

Marcel was banished back to the bus riding days of minor league hockey for more than a decade before he had a chance to redeem himself in the NHL. The New York Rangers signed him as a roving goalie replacement for the 1962-63 season. That meant he played wherever the Rangers needed him to play, which of course was with their minor league teams. However Marcel did get into 2 games with the Blueshirts. He allowed 4 goals in 40 minutes of action.

Despite his less than impressive NHL stats, he was a pretty competent goalie in the minors. He bounced from one end of the continent to the other - Victoria BC to New Jersey - with a zillion stops in between. On the way he recorded 63 professional shutouts!

Marcel was quite a chatterbox, and with his french accent it made for an amusing time. Marcel became the Philadelphia Flyers long time goaltending scout and advisor after his playing career ended. The Flyers of course had several stellar goalies in that time, most notably Bernie Parent.