The Hon. Joseph Henri Maurice "Rocket" Richard PC OC OQ (August 4, 1921 – May 27, 2000) was a professional ice hockey player who played for the Montreal Canadiens from 1942 to 1960. The "Rocket" was the most prolific goal-scorer of his era, the first to achieve the feat of 50 goals in 50 games. He lived most of his life in Ahuntsic, Montreal.^[1]

Maurice Richard was the first to score 50 goals in one season (the 1944-45 NHL season), doing so in 50 games, and the first to score 500 goals in a career. He finished his career with 544 goals in the regular season, with 82 in the playoffs which included a record six overtime winners (surpassed only by Joe Sakic who has eight), and led the league in goals five times. He also amassed 421 assists for a total of 965 points in 978 games.

Richard played on eight Stanley Cup teams in Montreal, was captain of 5 straight from 1956-60, won the Hart Trophy in 1947, and was elected eight times to the first all-star team and six times to the second all-star team, and played in every National Hockey League All-Star Game from 1947 to 1959. Teamed with Elmer Lach as centre and Hector 'Toe' Blake playing left-wing, they formed the "Punch Line".

He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1961, the customary three-year waiting period being waived in his honour.

Playing career

Maurice originally played wearing the jersey number "15" but changed it to "9" in honour of his first child — Huguette — who weighed nine pounds at birth. His number has been retired by the Montreal Canadiens.

Richard was the quintessential Québécois hero. He pulled off a five-goal game after a day spent moving to a house — including the piano — in 1944, and scored the series-winning goal of the 1952 Stanley Cup semifinals as blood dripped down his face from an earlier injury. Richard's role as a Québécois icon was epitomized in the short story Le chandail de hockey ("The Hockey Sweater") by Roch Carrier and in the motion picture Maurice Richard ("The Rocket") by Charles Binamé.

Richard was turned down a total of three times by the military, twice for combat and once as a machinist. The first time was in 1939 at the beginning of World War II when he was 18 and the second time the following year. X-rays showed that his ankle and femur as well as his wrists had broken and had not healed properly during Junior hockey and he was therefore unfit for military action.

In 1940, Richard inquired about a position as a machinist in the military, but was again refused citing his lack of a high school diploma or technical trade certificate. Richard tried to explain that he had dropped out of school to help his family and had been working as a machinist at a local factory since he was 16. They still refused, and he was told he needed a machinist certificate. Upon hearing this he decided to train as a machinist at the Montreal Technical School the following year and therefore fulfill his desire to help in the war effort.

The war was over before Richard received his certificate, which took four years. He was disappointed that the Canadian military had not given him the opportunity to participate in some capacity.

Although Richard was often perceived as a pre-Quiet Revolution hero excelling in an Anglophone world, he always insisted that he was an apolitical man playing hockey for the love of the sport.

Richard's career began and ended before the beginning of huge salaries. The largest yearly salary he ever made was $25,000. His jersey # 9 was retired on October 6, 1960 by the Canadiens, less than a month after he announced his retirement. His brother Henri "The Pocket Rocket" Richard joined him with the Canadiens in 1955 and would go on to win 11 Stanley Cups with the team, an NHL record.

On 23 March 1944, Richard scored all five goals for the Canadiens in a 5?1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs in the playoffs en route to a Stanley Cup victory and was awarded all three stars for his efforts.^[2]

The Richard Riot

On March 13, 1955, Richard was given a match penalty for engaging in a fight with Hal Laycoe in a game against the Boston Bruins. He flattened Linesman Cliff Thompson in the resulting melee, and as that was his second attack on an official that season alone, a hearing was held: Richard was suspended for the balance of that season and the playoffs, which was at the time, the longest suspension for an on-ice incident in NHL history. Public outrage from Montreal soon poured in, but NHL President Clarence Campbell did not budge, and announced that he would be attending the Canadiens' next home game against the Detroit Red Wings in four days.

Midway into the first period, Campbell arrived with his fiancee. Outraged Canadiens fans immediately began pelting them with eggs, vegetables, and various debris, with more being thrown at him each time the Red Wings scored as they built up a 4-1 lead. The continuous pelting of various objects stopped when a tear gas bomb was set off inside the Forum not far from where Campbell was sitting. The Forum was ordered evacuated and Campbell ruled the game forfeited to the Red Wings. A riot ensued outside the Forum, causing $500,000 in damage to the neighbourhood and the Forum itself. Hundreds of stores were looted and vandalized within a 15-block radius of the Forum. Twelve police and 25 civilians were injured, and scores of people were arrested. The riot was over at 3 a.m., and left Montreal's Ste-Catherine Street a mess.

When Richard's teammate Bernie Geoffrion passed him in points on the last day of the regular season, he was booed by the Montreal faithful. The Canadiens would lose the Cup final to the Red Wings in seven games, but would win the Cup in each of the next five seasons, defeating the Red Wings in 1956. Richard retired in 1960 after the Canadiens' fifth straight Stanley Cup, a record that stands as of 2008.

Honours

The monument to Richard outside Jacques Cartier Park in Gatineau, Quebec.

Although Richard had a falling-out with the Canadiens not long after he retired in 1960, he eventually patched things up and returned to them, serving the club as an unofficial goodwill ambassador from 1991 — highlighted by the Habs' most recent (to date) Cup in 1993 — until he died. The Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy was donated by the Montreal Canadiens hockey club to the NHL in 1999, to be awarded annually to the goal-scoring leader during the regular season. Richard himself had led the league in goals five times.

In 1996 at the closing of the Montreal Forum, a tearful "Rocket" received the longest standing ovation in the city's history: Over 16 minutes of adulation poured over him, chanting his nickname over and over again. Richard, always the reluctant hero, looked around in surprise for the first few minutes. When he realized the crowd was not letting up and their love for him was real, he broke down in tears whilst waving and mouthing "thank you". He rarely showed this side of himself, as he always tried to remain humble. The last few minutes of adulation saw Richard closing his eyes, while the crowd chanted "GO HABS GO!" over and over again. Richard later stated that when he closed his eyes and heard the crowd, it brought him back to his younger days. He thought it was a very loving gesture by the fans. A Quebec Major Junior Hockey League team was also named after him, the Rocket de Montreal, playing out of the Maurice Richard Arena (in 2003 this team moved to Prince Edward Island becoming the P.E.I. Rocket). Their team logo prominently features Richard's number 9. On June 27, 2001, the Canadian government unveiled a monument in Jacques-Cartier Park, in Hull, Quebec, honouring Richard, and he was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.

Despite being long retired by the time of his death in 2000, an estimated 115,000 people of all ages paid their respects while his body lay in state at Montreal's Molson Centre. Following Richard's death, the Montreal Expos Major League baseball team wore Richard's number 9, in black, on their right sleeves for the duration of the 2000 season, and flags were lowered to half mast as Quebec's National Assembly was suspended for the day. Richard was given a provincial state funeral that was broadcast live across Canada,^[3] the first time such an honour was bestowed on an athlete. Among those who attended were Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, Lieutenant Governor of Quebec Lise Thibault, various politicians (including then Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chrétien, and then Premier of Quebec Lucien Bouchard), Gordie Howe, Jean Béliveau, and current Canadiens team captain Saku Koivu.^[4]

Depiction in popular media

• Richard's hockey career, and in particular the folk legend of his NHL game played after having moved, was featured in Heritage Minutes (1997). Richard was played by Roy Dupuis.
• Richard's life story was featured in a two-part, two-hour French-Canadian miniseries televised as part of the program Les Beaux Dimanches: Histoire d'un Canadien (Beautiful Sundays: Maurice Rocket Richard Story [Canada: English title]), in 1999, starring Roy Dupuis as Richard.
• The French version of a feature film, Maurice Richard was released in November 2005; the English-subtitled version entitled The Rocket: The Maurice Richard Story was released in April 2006. The film again stars Roy Dupuis in the title role and is directed by Charles Binamé.
• Admiration for Richard and the Montreal Canadiens was the main plot point of the popular heritage story "The Hockey Sweater," originally published in 1979 by native Quebecker and acclaimed author Roch Carrier.^[5]
• The Jane Siberry song "Hockey" contains the line "They rioted in the streets of Montreal/When they benched Rocket Richard".
• Was referenced in the Warren Zevon song "Hit Somebody": "His dad took the hose and froze the back yard/And little Buddy dreamed he was Rocket Richard"
• In the late 1980s, Maurice Richard starred in a commercial for Grecian Formula, a hair coloring product. In the commercial, he mentions that he leaves a touch of natural grey, because his wife likes it. At that point a ref calls out, "Hey Richard, two minutes for looking so good!" a line that has since become famous and is referenced in a song by the Canadian punk band Belvedere.^[6]
• The local media first nicknamed him The Comet. During an intra-squad practice, Ray Getliffe was so impressed by him, he compared him to a rocket.^[7]
• In an edition of The Book of Sports Lists, by Pepe and Hollander, Richard was described by a teammate "with his eyes flashing like a pinball machine." His eyes seemed to be the most memorable feature during his play; in the picture he is wide-eyed as he skates toward the goal.
• The ValueTales series of children's books featured Maurice Richard for "The Value of Tenacity," published in 1984.

Career statistics

* indicates a Stanley Cup-winning season

See also

• List of players with 5 or more goals in an NHL game

Footnotes

References

• Ramos, H., & Gosine, K. (2001). "'The Rocket': Newspaper coverage of the death of a Quebec cultural icon, a Canadian hockey player". Journal of Canadian Studies, 36(4), 9-31; 2002, JCS, 37(1), p. 250 (published erratum).
• Posen, I. Sheldon. 626 By 9: A Goal-by-goal Timeline of Maurice the Rocket Richard's Scoring Career in Pictures, Stats, and Stories. 2004 ISBN 066019255

External links

• The Canadian Museum of Civilization - "Rocket" Richard: The Legend ? The Legacy
• Biography at the ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online''
• Radio-Canada Archives - Maurice Richard: Le Rocket, héros d'un peuple (French)
• CBC Digital Archives - The Legendary #9: Maurice 'Rocket' Richard (English)
• History by the Minute: Historica Minutes (Heritage Minutes): Maurice "Rocket" Richard
• Order of Canada Citation: Maurice Richard

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