Richard inspiring Canadiens, Quebec nearly 20 years after his death

MONTREAL -- It will be 20 years on May 27 since the death of Montreal Canadiens legend
Maurice Richard
, more than 60 years since the greatest goal-scorer of his generation played his final game, winning his eighth and final Stanley Cup championship.

Yet the mighty Rocket remains an important part of Quebec's fabric in many ways. He is still spoken of reverentially, his exploits still discussed, his influence and impact on both hockey and the political landscape of his native province still the subject of study.
Should Montreal's Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery be open to the public on Wednesday, like so much else having been closed by coronavirus health concerns, Maurice Richard Jr. will pay his traditional visit to the grave of his father, who died at age 78 on May 27, 2000, following a two-year battle with abdominal cancer.

With much wonder today, Richard Jr. considers the legacy of one of the NHL's greatest, most thrilling players of all time. He remembers the Rocket as a father and grandfather who loved his time on the ice, quiet hours with wife Lucille and the couple's seven children, and his tranquil fishing trips with friends and teammates in the bush north of Montreal.
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It has been two decades since Richard lay in state on May 30, 2000, at Montreal's Molson (now Bell) Centre, 115,000 mourners filing past his coffin to pay their last respects.
Nearly 20 years have passed since the Rocket's funeral the following day at Montreal's historic Notre-Dame Basilica, the service televised live across Canada.

Maurice Richard in the Canadiens dressing room in 1959-60, the final year of his career, with sons Normand (center) and Maurice Jr.
Richard Jr. has so many memories of his father, most everyone he meets wishing -- no, needing -- to share a story with him about the Rocket: a sighting, meeting, handshake, photo, a cherished autograph.
Of countless stories, Richard Jr. says, there might be one that best illustrates to him how his father was, and remains, larger than life.
"I have a friend who's a second- or third-grade teacher and she asked her students just a couple of years ago to write a composition about their idol," he said. "Almost half of the students chose the Rocket, my father. It's amazing."
Richard has forever transcended hockey in Montreal and Quebec, a French-Canadian superstar who was almost necessary to a people in the 1940s and 1950s.

Maurice Richard in the Canadiens' Montreal Forum dressing room in 1960 after what would be his final Stanley Cup victory, and a portrait with the Cup after his eighth and final championship.
He played 978 NHL games
, all with the Canadiens, from 1942 through his retirement in 1960, scoring 544 goals -- still atop the team's all-time list -- with 422 assists. Richard's 966 points rank fourth on the Canadiens, and he leads the franchise in 20-goal seasons (14), 30-goal seasons (nine) and hat tricks (26).
The Rocket's 82 career Stanley Cup Playoff goals, eighth all-time in the NHL, lead that Canadiens list, too, three better than the late
Jean Beliveau
, while his seven playoff hat tricks are second in the NHL, trailing only the 10 of
Wayne Gretzky
. He won the
Stanley Cup
eight times -- in
1944
,
1946
,
1953
and then, as captain, four times consecutively from 1956-60, and won the
Hart Trophy
in 1946-47, voted the most valuable player to his team.

While Richard never won an NHL scoring title, he was the first to score 50 goals in a single season, that coming in the 50-game 1944-45 schedule, and the first to score 500 career goals, reaching that milestone in 1957. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1961, the customary three-year waiting period waived to induct him immediately following his 18-year career.

Canadiens captain Maurice Richard accepts the 1960 Stanley Cup from NHL President Clarence Campbell on Maple Leaf Gardens ice on April 14, 1960. It would be the Rocket's final game.
"I didn't really know the Rocket, but learning about him through our history and our family, he was, and is, an inspiration to our whole province, and not just hockey fans," said Canadiens owner Geoff Molson, whose family's ownership roots with the team date back to 1957.
"Maurice is the definition of determination, a winner. He was in the hearts and souls of all Quebecers. The most amazing thing is that here we are, not just 20 years since his passing but 60 years since his last game, and everyone still knows about him. He still is an inspiration to the people in this province."
The Rocket's start was inauspicious; he broke an ankle and a wrist in consecutive senior hockey seasons, then fractured his other ankle the next season, his 1942-43 rookie year with the Canadiens. He was tagged with the label of fragile, thought by some to be too brittle to survive the NHL's trenches.

The Canadiens' explosive "Punch Line" of the 1940s. From left: Maurice Richard, right wing; Elmer Lach, center; Toe Blake, left wing.
But Richard would not just survive, he would dominate as the preeminent scoring machine of his generation. A left-handed shot playing right wing on the Canadiens' explosive 1940s "Punch Line," centered by
Elmer Lach
with
Toe Blake
on left side, Richard was an intense competitor with a fire in his belly to whom losing simply was not an option.
"As a player, no one could compare to the Rocket," said legendary NHL coach Scotty Bowman, who as a fan and junior player fell in love with hockey as a young Montrealer during the 1950s, Richard's prime. "He was such a great scorer. The big thing he had as a player was the unexpected way he could score goals. He had a terrific backhand and was such an impulsive player, that's how I regarded him."
Bowman would watch Canadiens practices in the Forum, the team coached by Dick Irvin, then Toe Blake, and he marveled at every part of Richard's game.

On one skate and with forward Parker MacDonald's stick jammed in his collarbone, Canadiens' Maurice Richard is about to score on Maple Leafs goalie Harry Lumley during a 1954-55 game in Toronto.
"The Rocket was so strong; average size (5-foot-10, 170 pounds) but not average strength," he said. "He could literally push players off him. He took an awful lot of abuse. Teams did everything they could to try to stop him. He had quite a temper, there was no doubt about that. He was provoked a lot into a lot of his mischievous times in the League.
"Richard was a different player than anyone else, just the style he had. When he was on one skate, he never seemed to lose his balance. Toe told me on many occasions in the 1970s that there were four players during his life, dating back to the 1930s, who could pull a fan out of their seats:
Howie Morenz
, the Rocket,
Bobby Hull
and
Guy Lafleur
. Toe said, 'If you're a fan at a game, you'd be taken by those four.' "
As if carrying opponents on his back to the net wasn't weight enough for the Rocket, he also had to shoulder an entire province. In a politically charged time in Quebec, French-Canadians tired of being held down and marginalized by the English, he was made a figurehead, even a pawn, against his wishes, forever claiming, "I'm just a hockey player."

Maurice Richard is tended to by Canadiens trainer Hec Dubois in Toronto after suffering an Achilles tendon injury during a 1957 game.
But to francophones who craved a standard-bearer, Richard was much more than that.
A population claimed him as their own, using him as a rallying cry during a time of sociopolitical need, the Rocket becoming far more just a gifted goal-scorer and the locomotive that pulled his team. As such, he also became a lightning rod, a target for foes both on and off the ice.
Richard's March 1955 suspension for the final three games of the regular season and the playoffs by NHL President Clarence Campbell after a violent game in Boston would ignite a powder keg, the so-called Richard Riot spilling out of the Forum that March 17 night to trash the city. The Rocket's disciples would be founding members of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, this cultural and linguistic shift forever reshaping provincial politics.

Henri Richard (left) is foiled by Toronto Maple Leafs goalie Johnny Bower, Maurice Richard at right during a late 1950s game at Maple Leaf Gardens. Toronto defenders are Tim Horton, Allan Stanley and Larry Regan.
He returned to lead the Canadiens to their historic five consecutive championships from 1956-60, now joined by his younger brother,
Henri
, who would go on to become captain of the Canadiens and win an NHL-record 11 Stanley Cup titles.
During his lifetime, and beyond, Maurice Richard became a cultural icon. Books, miniseries and documentaries have been written and produced about him.
Author Roch Carrier's charming story "The Hockey Sweater," its companion National Film Board short animated by Sheldon Cohen, and a critically acclaimed feature film, "The Rocket," arrived during and after his life.

"The Hockey Sweater" is a beloved story and animated short about a young Quebec boy's love of Maurice Richard.
Since 1999, the NHL's leading goal-scorer has been annually awarded the Maurice Richard Trophy. The Rocket is celebrated with statues throughout Quebec; in bronze, he strides, elbow up, in a plaza outside Montreal's Bell Centre alongside fellow Canadiens icons Morenz, Beliveau and Lafleur.
Arenas and streets have been named for him, and at least one hockey team carries his famous nickname -- the Canadiens' American Hockey League affiliate was renamed the Laval Rocket when it moved from St. John's, Newfoundland, to north of Montreal for the 2017-18 season.
In his 2009 book, "The Rocket: A Cultural History of Maurice Richard," author Benoit Melancon wrote, "A toddler of the 1950s wanted Maurice Richard overalls to wear, his mother would serve him Maurice Richard soup, his father would buy a Maurice Richard transistor radio; this same toddler, now grown into adulthood, could have a glass of Maurice Richard wine."
During his 1950s prime, Richard was featured in at least two remarkable magazine profiles, which captured his essence as a player.

Maurice Richard celebrates the Canadiens' 1956 Stanley Cup championship in the team's Montreal Forum dressing room.
Upon witnessing his first NHL game at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1955, the Canadiens against the Rangers, Nobel Prize-winning novelist William Faulkner wrote in Sports Illustrated that Richard had "something of the passionate glittering fatal alien quality of snakes."
And in a late 1950s profile for Maclean's magazine, Trent Frayne wrote thus of the Rocket on the rink: "Sometimes he scored them while lying flat on his back, with at least one defender clutching his stick, another hacking at his ankles and a third plucking thoughtfully at his sweater. … Modern hockey has produced many teams which stand out above their rivals but few individual players who stand out above the other individuals. For almost a decade, Richard has towered over them all, both as a goal-scorer and as a piece of property."
Rocket's death broke the heart of his province and brought forth an emotional outpouring of love and affection that to this day moves his son.

Maurice Richard with the puck he used to score his 324th NHL regular-season goal on Oct. 29, 1952, then tying him with Nels Stewart atop the NHL's all-time list.
"I think my father was very happy when he was on the ice," Richard Jr. said. "But the thing that he perhaps liked most was being out in the woods with his friends, fishing, being in nature. So at first, our family wanted to have a private funeral and celebration of his life. But I soon realized that for the people, for Quebecers, my father was some kind of an idol. To me, the population was like a big family.
"I told the Canadiens they could do something larger with the public viewing at the Molson Centre so they could say goodbye to my father once again. The scope of the attention surprised me. And what surprised me most was the immense respect that people had for my father. I saw people crying, saying prayers for him. I realized that there was something even bigger than what I had seen before."
On Wednesday, Richard Jr. will again consider a legend and a modest family man, as he says he does every day.
"I don't think my father ever fully realized how important he was to Quebecers," he said. "He was always surprised when he had a great round of applause or people were talking about him as if he were God. He wasn't expecting that. He certainly didn't play hockey to get that from the people. I've learned during my life that he had a very large family, one that was much bigger than just his children."

Maurice Richard in the 1960s, following his retirement.
Photos: HHoF Images; Montreal Canadiens; courtesy Sheldon Cohen