Before Sunday’s Celebrate 68 festivities, only two players from the 57-year history of the Penguins had jerseys retired: Mario Lemieux and Michel Briere.
Briere’s son Martin traveled to Pittsburgh from Montreal in 2001 to see his late father’s No. 21 raised to the rafters, a number that hadn’t been worn in over three decades after Michel died from injuries sustained in a car crash following a promising rookie season.
The Penguins invited Martin back to town this weekend to be part of Jaromir Jagr’s ceremony, a gesture that meant so much, especially because he was able to bring his three boys – Arnaud, Emile and Loic – to gain some perspective on what their grandfather meant to this franchise.
“It was very, very important to us, even if we’re living far from Pittsburgh,” Martin said. “It was important that my sons would come here and see what it is to see a jersey retirement, especially because they were not there when they retired the jersey of my father.
“So, it was very appreciated when (Penguins director of community/alumni relations Cindy Himes) invited me. I always felt the Pittsburgh organization was a very good organization. It's a big family. We feel that we are family, even if my father played 53 years ago.”
And family is so incredibly important to the Brieres, having lost an important member of theirs at such a young age, with Michel passing away at the age of 21.
“When you live your life, you realize how important is your father, your mother, all of this,” Martin said. “For our family, our father, we have the bad luck and the chance. The bad luck he was not there, but the chance also that he had a short career, but it looks like he was very good.”
The Penguins had drafted Michel Briere in the third round of the 1969 NHL Draft after an impressive junior hockey career with the Shawinigan Bruins. He turned pro that season, and scored 12 goals and 44 points in 76 regular-season games with Pittsburgh.
Briere’s star began to shine white-hot once the postseason began, recording the overtime winner in Game 4 to sweep the Oakland Seals in the team’s first-ever playoff appearance. He carried his incredible play into the second round, scoring in four of six games before the St. Louis Blues eliminated Pittsburgh.
Overall, Briere picked up five goals – including three game-winners – and eight points in 10 postseason games. He was named the Penguins rookie of the year, with that award presented in his memory to this day. P.O Joseph was last season’s winner of the Michel Briere Memorial Trophy.
The accident came a couple of weeks after Briere returned home for the offseason ahead of his wedding to Martin’s mother, Michèle Beaudoin. Martin was only a year old when his father was rushed to the hospital, where he remained in a coma for 11 months before his death on April 13, 1971.
He’s had to rely on videos and conversations with his relatives for memories of Michel, “but the memory that I have is building year after year because I met (reporters), I met people in Pittsburgh, I met people in Shawinigan, because he's important there, too.”
Sunday night was a reminder that Michel's memory will live on forever here in Pittsburgh.
“It's always very special to see his jersey in this arena here, just beside Mario Lemieux and now Jagr, that’s crazy,” said Martin, who wore a jersey with Michel’s No. 21, as did two of his boys - with the third wearing No. 68.
