CKNW Editorial
for May 22, 2000

Maurice Richard lies dying in a Montreal hospital. Maurice (Rocket) Richard was more than a great hockey player – a hell of a lot more. He was a symbol to Quebec and had, without doing a single political thing, more to do with Quebec’s Quiet Revolution than any other man with the exception of Premier Jean Lesage. The Rocket symbolized the Quebec which, in the fifties and sixties, emerged almost overnight from an agrarian, Catholic and largely submissive province to an outgoing, vibrant political maelstrom that suddenly, it seemed, found its political legs.

The Montreal Canadiens had had good teams before the arrival of Richard in the middle of the Second World War (the knock on him as a wartime hockey player was quickly dispelled when it ended) but he epitomized the truly great Hab teams that dominated hockey from the mid fifties until the seventies. He was the heart of the club and in a very real sense the heart of the Province.

When they closed the old Forum a few years back, they introduced many of the great players and all the Captains still living. Many like Jean Beliveau, Butch Bouchard and Henri Richard, the Rocket’s kid brother, got nice standing ovations but when the Rocket was called – an remember he had been 35 years away from the game – he got a sustained 12 minute standing ovation which brought tears to the eyes of all, even the tough old bird Maurice Richard. It was truly a great moment in sport.

The Rocket was the first to score 50 goals in a season and the first to hit the 500 career mark. These numbers don’t mean much in the watered down, 80 game a year league we have now but they were remarkable statistics when hockey was hockey. He was part of a power play – Beliveau, Geoffrion, Olmstead, Maurice Richard and Doug Harvey – that was so potent that the rule was changed so that after a goal the penalized player could return to the ice. I remember a game many years ago against Boston and when it came on the air the Canadiens were down 2-0. A Boston player was penalized and less than two minutes later it was 3-2 Montreal.

From the 50s onward the Montreal Canadiens were awesome, sparked by the Richard brothers, Jean Beliveau and later Guy Lafleur and the Roadrunner, Yvan Cornoyer and led by the old line mate of the Rocket’s, Toe Blake.

But where’s the political connection?

Well to start with, it wasn’t anything Richard himself intended. He was a non political man and certainly no separatist. And it’s important to note, as the story unfolds, that Richard, being such a prolific scorer and a man with a short fuse, was hooked, slashed, held and tripped like no one before or since. And he had a point when he said that there was one rule for Richard and another for everyone else. The great referee Bill Chadwick admitted as much in a magazine article of the day. But on St Patrick’s Day 1955 he started the outburst that was never ever to die down and hasn’t died down to this day.

A few days earlier, the fiery, to understate it, Richard had got into a stick swinging brawl with Hal Laycoe in Boston. The Rocket completely lost it and punched Cliff Armstrong, a linesman, for which Richard was suspended by League President Clarence Campbell for the balance of the season including the Stanley Cup costing Richard the scoring title and his team the cup – which they lost on a fluke goal in overtime in the 7^th game. The next game after the suspension the Canadiens played their rival Detroit Redwings at home and after the first period, the listless, and Richard-less Habs were down 4-1. Clarence Campbell, foolishly, attended the game and was hit with a barrage of boos, eggs and heads of lettuce. Somehow a smoke bomb went off – and the riot started. Campbell was escorted to safety by the police and the crowd exploded onto St Catherines Street where another mob was awaiting. The rampage lasted all night and millions of dollars damage was done. Richard himself pleaded for calm but to no avail.

The next morning I was at a Public International Law class at Law School and the UBC president, Norman Mackenzie was giving a guest lecture and I remember him saying, very wisely as it turned out, that this was the beginning of very much bigger things to come. The lid had been blown off the Quebec pressure cooker by the man they knew as the Rocket.

Judge him not only for his faults … though, he was, much like his province, a man with magnificent faults but even greater virtues. He became a member of the Privy Council and entitled to the title the Honourable and was a Companion of the Order of Canada. He was a man of immense courage with talent to match. And he was, through thick and thin, a great Quebecker … and a great Canadien. Both ien and ian … and in his best years he didn’t make more than $25,000 per year – perhaps $250,000 in today’s money.

Hockey … and Canada … will not soon see his like again.