Maurice Richard
Maurice "Rocket" Richard was a celebrated Canadian hockey player born on August 4, 1921, in Montreal, Quebec. He was the eldest of eight children in a French-Canadian family, growing up in an environment steeped in the French language and culture. From an early age, Richard displayed a natural athleticism, excelling in various sports, but he found his true passion in hockey, learning to skate at just four years old. His remarkable talent led him to play for several junior teams, culminating in his debut with the NHL's Montreal Canadiens in the early 1940s.
Richard quickly became known for his explosive skating style and scoring prowess, breaking multiple records during his career, including an impressive 50 goals in a 50-game season. Despite facing injuries and a controversial suspension in 1955 that incited public unrest, he remained a dominant force in the sport. Over his eighteen-season career with the Canadiens, Richard scored 544 goals and earned a significant legacy, becoming an icon for the French-Canadian community. His induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame just months after his retirement in 1960 solidified his status as one of hockey's greatest players, with a lasting impact that continues to resonate in the sport today.
Maurice Richard
Hockey Player
- Born: August 4, 1921
- Birthplace: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
- Died: May 27, 2000
- Place of death: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Sport: Ice hockey
Early Life
Maurice “Rocket” Richard (pronounced ree-shar) was born August 4, 1921, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was the oldest of eight children of French-Canadian parents who spoke only French in the home and sent their children to French schools. As a result, Maurice heard little English until he became a major-league hockey player.
Young Maurice was a natural athlete—an excellent boxer, wrestler, and baseball and softball outfielder—but almost from the moment he learned to skate, hockey was his passion. Maurice got his first skates when he was four and learned to skate and play hockey in the winters on the frozen Rivière des Prairies north and west of Montreal. Skating on the broad expanses of river ice and to and from school, Maurice became a powerful skater. Playing shinny, a variation of hockey played by schoolboys, Maurice learned how to outmaneuver others’ skating and stickhandling.
The Road to Excellence
As a youngster, Maurice dreamed of seeing a National Hockey League (NHL) game in the Montreal Forum, but because it was financially impossible, he followed all of the Saturday night home games on the radio. Based solely upon radio announcers’ descriptions of the players, Maurice picked Hector “Toe” Blake as his favorite player. In those days, for Maurice to hear the radio announcer exclaim, “Blake lance, y comte!” (“Blake shoots, he scores!”) was his greatest thrill. Eventually, Blake became Maurice’s tutor, line mate, and finally, coach.
Young Maurice began playing organized hockey with his parish team. During his midget and juvenile hockey years, he played in city park leagues, and later he played for Montreal Technical High School. Maurice trained as a machinist and obtained a job, but he had an insatiable desire to play hockey. By the time he was eighteen, he was playing two games every weekday night and four more games on the weekends. Coach Paul Stuart recognized his potential and arranged for him to play with the Verdun Maple Leafs in Junior A, where he gained experience watching and playing with better players. The left-handed youth was switched from left wing to right wing position, a tremendous advantage for Maurice, who skated like a right-footed skater. By his second year with the Maple Leafs, Maurice was the team’s top scorer, which won him an invitation to practice the following year with the Canadiens Seniors, an important farm team of the Montreal Canadiens.
The Emerging Champion
In Maurice’s first game with the Canadiens Seniors, he broke an ankle; ten games into his second season, he broke a wrist—a disastrous start for a professional hockey career. Canada had entered World War II, and many of the regular NHL Montreal Canadiens players were in the armed forces. Despite his image as an injury-prone athlete, Maurice was invited to the NHL Montreal Canadiens’ training camp for the 1942-1943 season.
In Maurice’s first year with the Canadiens, he broke an ankle again. Then his luck improved. During the 1943-1944 season he became free of major injuries, and the Canadiens’ Coach Dick Irwin put him on a line with Elmer Lach and “Toe” Blake, his childhood hero. Suddenly, Maurice began playing like a superstar.
In 1943-1944, with 32 goals and 22 assists in regular-season play, Maurice was outstanding, but when he broke the playoff record with 12 more goals, he became a sensation. Moreover, 5 of those playoff goals came in one game against Toronto for a spectacular 5-1 victory. That year, he picked up the nickname “Rocket” for his forceful skating style—at times he literally ran down the ice rather than gliding.
In his prime, the 5-foot 11-inch Maurice was a solid 195 pounds of strength and determination. Charging over the blue line with menacing eyes blazing and a deadly accurate shot, he terrified goalies. Completely obsessed with scoring, he went to any lengths to put the puck into the net. He was continually harassed by opposing teams and was frequently “shadowed” by two players. Described as a rough, even “dirty” player, he was repeatedly sent to the penalty box, but he returned to the ice more often than not to match any goals gained by the opposition while he sat.
Continuing the Story
The highlight of Maurice’s career came during the 1944-1945 season, when he scored 50 goals in a fifty-game season, a record that stood for thirty-six years until 1980-1981, when Mike Bossy of the New York Islanders scored 50 goals in the first fifty games of a seventy-eight-game season. Only recently have other players begun to achieve 50 goals within the first fifty games of a season.
In 1955, the low point of Maurice’s career came with his suspension for the remainder of the year by NHL officials for hitting a linesman and beating a player during the 1955 playoffs. The suspension sparked a riot in the Montreal Forum and streets, resulting in a game forfeiture and $30,000 in damages. With the suspension, Maurice lost his last chance at winning a high-scoring record during his career.
During the 1950’s, Maurice had no equal as a goal-scorer. He played right wing for the Montreal Canadiens for eighteen seasons, from 1942 to 1960. In 978 regular season games, he scored 544 goals, a record at that time, and 421 assists for 965 points. He made the first or second all-star team fourteen times. A serious injury to Maurice’s Achilles tendon during the 1957-1958 season contributed to his retirement in September, 1960. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame nine months later.
Summary
Although all the records that Maurice “Rocket” Richard set have been broken, most experts agree that he was one of the greatest. As a superstar for the Montreal Canadiens during the 1940’s and 1950’s, Maurice captured the hearts and imaginations of the French-Canadian people as few hockey players have done, leaving a legacy of outstanding hockey feats that will be long remembered.
Bibliography
Carrier, Roch. Our Life with the Rocket: The Maurice Richard Story. New York: Viking, 2001.
Diamond, Dan, and Eric Zweig. Hockey’s Glory Days: The 1950’s and ’60’s. Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews McMeel, 2003.
Dryden, Steve, and Michael Ulmer, eds. The Top One Hundred NHL Hockey Players of All Time. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1999.
MacInnis, Craig, ed. Remembering the Rocket: A Celebration. Reprint. Vancouver, B.C.: Raincoast, 2003.
O’Brien, Andy. Rocket Richard. Toronto: Ryerson, 1961.
Richard, Maurice, and Stan Fischler. The Flying Frenchmen: Hockey’s Greatest Dynasty. New York: Hawthorne Books, 1971.