RL - 52 years later, the Richard Riot is still brought up and discussed. Below, Buffalo sports writer and NFL expert Larry Felsner (Pro Football Hall Of Fame writer) tackles the fateful day in Habs lore and gets it half right. You can tell his colors right off from the opening sentence - he ain't too well versed in hockey history to be touching on most of this. Still the story is always a compassionate read, despite the inconsistancies with truth and myth. I've tried to clear up most of Felsner's boob's with comments in brackets. Beyond Felsner's account, there is a second one sprinkled with videos of the events and pictures added. Enjoy!
From Larry Felsner,
HOF Magazine:
Hockey has always been a niche sport, considered a superb game by those of us who love it, but largely ignored by hordes of other sports fans who reside south of the Canadian border.
The niche has never been smaller than the ‘50s, when the National Hockey League consisted of a mere six teams – the Chicago Black Hawks, New York Rangers, Detroit Red Wings and Boston Bruins in the U.S. plus the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leads in Canada. Occasionally a few of the American owners might urge that the league be expanded, but most of the moguls were satisfied with what they considered a cozy setup. (RL - The expansion of 1967 was pioneered and executed mostly by Hab's GM Sam Pollock's insistance.)
Their feeder system, which supplied all but a tiny percentage of talent ( RL - It supplied all of it! ) to the NHL six, consisted of junior teams spread coast to coast across Canada, all of which were controlled – and sometimes wholly owned – by the major league clubs. The major league's control often reached down into the pee-wee leagues, so if a talented young player began serious competitive play for an affiliate of the Bruins, Maple Leafs or one of the others, he would remain the property ( RL - C-Form deafting.) of that organization until they traded or released him. With so much talent stockpiled in so few farm systems, the pay scales could be easily controlled, too.
It wasn't quite cradle-to-grave ownership, but it was close. Nowhere was the stamp of the parent team more traditional than in the Province of Quebec, where boys of French-Canadian heritage yearned to be happy serfs of the Canadiens.
By 1955 (RL - Try 1930!), the Montreal team, referred to as "the Flying Frenchmen" in newspaper sports sections all over North America, was established as the model of the NHL system. Montreal had a few outstanding Anglo players such as Doug Harvey, the all-star defenseman, and Dickie Moore, the reliable winger. But the core of the team was Gallic: Bernie "Boom-Boom" Geoffrion, the first to perfect the slap shot; Jacques Plante, the first goalkeeper to wear a mask; the regal center-man, Jean Belliveau; prize rookie Henri Richard and, most prominently, right wing Maurice Richard, the face and symbol not only of a hockey team, but of an entire province, Le Belle Quebec, in all its pride.
Eventually Maurice Richard was christened "the Rocket," (and later his kid brother Henri "the Pocket Rocket") yet the elder Richard did not barge into the NHL in the manner of Wayne Gretzky, and more recently, Sidney Crosby. As a junior he was considered injury prone (RL - Rocket was considered a top rank prospect, then suffered two key injuries.), and when he finally reported to the Canadiens as a rookie, he was rehabilitating from a broken leg. At first management feared that he would never be fast enough to fly with the other French stars, and the Montreal front office considered releasing him.
Instead, they gave him a second chance (RL - I'd suggest he earned it with 11 points in 16 games!), placing him on a line with two experienced veterans, left wing Hector "Toe" Blake and center Elmer Lach. The youngster, who had been the last man to make his junior team, flourished. The media nicknamed the trio "the Lamplighter Line," for the frequency for which the right goal light flashed for them. When Richard scored an unprecedented 50 goals in 50 games during the 1945-46 (RL - 2 seasons later.) season, the name "Rocket" was attached to him forever.
The names his opponents called him were far less printable. His will to win knew few bounds, literally.
There is a life-size sculpture of Richard in full skate outside a museum in Montreal's Olympic Park, but no sculptor, no matter how skilled, could capture his physical hallmark, his eyes. As Belliveau used to say, "He prefers to express himself on the ice. I would tell our younger players to watch the fire emanating from his eyes."
An opponent's view of Richard's relentlessness could be harrowing. "When he came flying toward you, "said Hall of Fame goalie Glenn Hall, "his eyes were all lit up, flashing and gleaming like a pinball machine." Wally Stanowski, a former Toronto player, went further. "He had that fiery look all the time," said Stanowski, "I once heard it described as having the look of an escaped mental patient. I thought that was a good description."
Late in his career, the Rocket suffered an Achilles tendon injury which kept him inactive for a long time, and there was some fear that his career might be ended. When he came back to play it was in the lair of Montreal's arch-enemy, Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Richard didn't start the game, but played with the second line. When he jumped over the boards to come on the ice for the first time, there was a puck loose near the Leafs' blue line. He pounced upon it, like a lion on a young zebra. He launched his shot immediately, and it flew past Johnny Bower, another Hall of Fame goalie.
The Toronto fans, most of whom hated him, exploded in a rueful salute.
In a game on March 15 against New York (Boston) near the end of the 1955 season, Richard's competitive fury, which he managed to channel most of the time, became completely un-channeled. It started when the high stick of Ranger (Bruins) defenseman Hal Laycoe cut him and it drew blood. Laycoe was a former teammate of the Rocket's, but that didn't stop Richard from attacking him in revenge, hitting him across the shoulders and face with his stick. (RL - Richard also used his fists, after an initial stick blow.)
Finally, as the fight seemed to subside, lineman Cliff Thompson moved in to separate the combatants and return order to the game, which is part of a linesman's job. Richard did not wish to be soothed, and when Thompson tried to move him away from Laycoe, he punched the linesman twice in the face, knocking him unconscious. (RL - Actually Thompson approached and withheld Richard from behind as Laycoe decked him! Just a small, minute detail.)
As soon as the game ended, the referee filed a report to the NHL commissioner, Clarence Campbell, since attacking an official in hockey is just as serious as it is in any other sport. After digesting the report and pondering his options (RL - Apparently discussing it with the owners of the 5 other NHL teams! ) for two days, Campbell issued his decision: Richard would be suspended, not just for the last three games of the regular season, but for the entire Stanley Cup playoffs.
The people of the city of Montreal and the province of Quebec itself were thunderstruck. The Canadiens and Detroit were tied for first place in the league and were to meet that night in the Montreal Forum. The fan reaction was so immediate and furious in the city that the police commissioner warned Campbell, whose office and that of the league were located in Montreal, that it would be inadvisable for him to attend the game as was his usual custom. Public attitudes were so poisonous that his staff begged him not to even think about entering the Forum.
Hours before the opening face-off, crowds, most of whom did not have tickets, gathered on St. Catharines St. and adjoining streets around the Forum, and they were in a surly mood. At the Montreal Gazette, the editor, sensing that the usual number of reporters staffing a Canadiens game would not be sufficient to cover what might happen, assigned a young sports writer named Red Fisher (Fisher worked for the Montreal Star in 1955, not the Gazette.) to rush to the Forum, not to cover any aspect of the game, but to handle whatever other newsworthy event might occur.
Fisher, who was to become a journalistic legend in Montreal, had never before covered anything at the Forum, but as soon as he arrived he sensed that what was growing among the crowds, both inside and outside the building, was a possible riot. He was correct.
This was 12 years before Gen. Charles DeGaulle, the greatest Frenchman of the 20th Century, visited French Canada and finished his emotional speech with the words "Long Live Free Quebec!" Among those listening intently to DeGaulle was Rene Levesque, who would found the Quebec Separatist Movement that same year.
But the bitter feeling between Anglo Canada and Gallic Canada had been simmering for years, and it seemed to begin to boil over as a result of Campbell's suspension of Maurice Richard. After all, Rocket was a man of the Montreal streets who had grown up across the street from a prison. Early in his career, he spent a day moving his family out of their old house and into a new one, carrying heavy furniture up and down stairs. Then he went to work at the Forum, scored two goals and assisted on another (RL - Point of fact, it was a mere 5 goals and 3 assists in a crushing 9-1 win over Detroit!) in a Canadiens' victory. The people of Quebec saw themselves in him, and what they saw as an insult to him was also an insult to them and French Canada.
Clarence Campbell was a tall, dignified and austere man, a lawyer who had been a judge for Canada in the Nazi war criminal trials in Germany after World War II. He brushed aside warnings about showing up at the Forum, walking quickly to his seats, which were in the stands amid ordinary fans. With him was his secretary who later would become his wife. Their appearance amounted to a red flag in the face of bulls.
Some schmuck to take Souray's place?
