Holmgren is a resident of the Somerset section of Franklin Township, Somerset County, New Jersey and of the Jersey Shore community of Avalon.\n', '

Paul Holmgren began skating as early as age two thanks to his dad who flooded the empty lot next to their house in St. Paul, Minnesota. He and his older brother Mark began playing organized hockey at age six. He skated for St. Paul Harding High School and played in the legendary Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament. When his schoolboy days were over, he played a year of junior hockey with the St. Paul Vulcans of the Midwest Junior Hockey League in 1973-74 and was then selected to be part of the US junior national team to compete in the 1974 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in Leningrad.\n', '

Holmgren was selected by the Edmonton Oilers 67th overall in the 1974 WHA Amateur Draft. He never played for Edmonton as his WHA rights were traded to the Minnesota Fighting Saints. A year later he was selected by the Philadelphia Flyers 108th overall in the 1975 NHL Amateur Draft. He began his professional career with the Fighting Saints in 1975–76, but left the team on February 28, 1976, three days before it folded because of financial problems. He signed with the Flyers shortly after and made his NHL debut a month later where he got a chance to play with his childhood role model Gary Dornhoefer. Holmgren\'s hectic first professional season nearly ended in tragic fashion. While playing for the Richmond Robins, the Flyers AHL affiliate at the time, he suffered a scratched cornea. He was rushed to surgery in a Boston hospital and an allergic reaction to the anesthetic nearly cost him his life.\n', '

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