Guy Lafleur

• Born: September 20, 1951
• Birthplace: Thurso, Quebec, Canada
• Died: April 22, 2022
• Place of death: Montreal, Canada

Sport: Ice hockey

Early Life

On September 20, 1951, Guy Damien Lafleur was born in Thurso, Quebec, Canada, a paper-mill town of three thousand French-speaking inhabitants. Thurso is located twenty-five miles downriver from Canada’s capital, Ottawa, and lies on the edge of a vast northern wilderness.

Lafleur was the only boy in a family of five children born to Rejean and Pirrette Lafleur. His father, a welder at the town’s huge McLaren pulp mill, bought him ice skates when he was four, and he quickly took to hockey. From age seven, his main nonschool activities were helping the priest to serve mass, and, above all else, playing hockey. His chief boyhood idol was Montreal Canadiens star Jean Beliveau. He wore Beliveau’s number 4 on his own jersey and kept a poster of the player in his room.

The Road to Excellence

At the age of eight, Lafleur began an accelerated advance through the organized youth hockey leagues. When he was eleven, he first came to the attention of scouts as he led Thurso to the Class C championship in the 1962 Quebec City International Pee Wee Tournament. In 1965, a Quebec amateur team invited him to play for them. His father felt that he was too young at fourteen to leave home but relented the next year when a second offer came. Over the next five seasons, he played at center and right wing for the Quebec Junior A Remparts. He finished high school during this time.

Both Gaston Marcotte, who instructed Lafleur at Laval University’s hockey school, and Rempart’s coach Maurice Filion, praised his determination and hard work. He was the first one to the rink and the last to leave.

Lafleur’s 103 goals in the 1969–70 season were a junior hockey record. The next year, in his final amateur season, he led Quebec to a league title and national championship with an unbelievable 130 goals and 79 assists. During these years, Lafleur, whose last name translates to “the flower,” was treated like royalty in Quebec City and was a national hero in French Canada. The crowds that filled Quebec’s ten-thousand-seat stadium just to see him play included National Hockey League (NHL) scouts. He was the first player chosen in the 1971 NHL amateur draft, going to the Montreal Canadiens.

The Emerging Champion

As early as 1968, Montreal Canadiens owner Sam Pollock schemed to acquire Lafleur in the 1971 draft. The Canadiens manipulated to get the first pick through frantic trades and deals with the league’s poorest teams.

The tremendous publicity that preceded Lafleur’s arrival in Montreal and the NHL put great pressure on the shy, reserved rookie. Excited fans anticipated at least fifty goals per season and were calling him a “second Beliveau.” He had respectable point totals in his first three seasons but fell short of expectations. In a game during his third season, however, the soft-spoken right winger gave teammates a hint of great things to come when he faked out the whole Chicago Blackhawks team and skated through them as if they were not even there. Canadiens team captain Henri Richard’s astounded comment was, “Did you see that? No one can do that.”

“The flower” suddenly blossomed with the 1974–5 season; he discarded his helmet, played aggressively, and regained confidence. For six successive seasons, Lafleur established himself as the NHL’s most exciting and dominating player. He also brought the Canadiens back to the top of the hockey world, leading them to four straight Stanley Cups from 1975–6 to 1979–80.

Before games, Lafleur was high-strung. He would arrive at the arena several hours early and sit in the dressing room breaking sticks over a tabletop to release pent-up tension. Once on the ice, the 6-foot, 175-pound winger combined relentless, blinding speed with a powerful, deadly accurate shot rated by many as the toughest to stop in hockey during that time. He passed beautifully, moved instinctively, and played with the grace and artistry of a ballet star. He could stop, start, zigzag, or suddenly accelerate more quickly than opponents. His heroics frequently had adoring fans at the Forum on their feet screaming “Guy, Guy, Guy.”

Continuing the Story

From 1974–5 to 1979–80, Lafleur consistently scored more than 50 goals and 100 points while making the all-star team six times. He was the NHL’s scoring champion three times, twice its most valuable player (MVP), and once its playoff MVP. He was so popular that Montreal journalists considered his every utterance and gesture newsworthy.

Lafleur's career unexpectedly took a downward turn with the 1980–1 season. A knee injury was followed by an auto collision in which he fell asleep at the wheel of his Corvette in the early morning hours. Over the next several seasons, his point total dropped to roughly half his previous output and the coach reduced his playing time. In November 1984, Lafleur, under pressure to quit, painfully announced his retirement at the age of thirty-three. All of Quebec mourned.

Lafleur, who was one of hockey’s all-time leading scorers, was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1988, the same year he surprised the hockey world by coming out of retirement at the age of thirty-seven. He played one season with the New York Rangers and then signed with the Quebec Nordiques. He retired in fitting fashion. On March 30, 1991, 17,664 fans in the Montreal Forum gave him a nearly six-minute ovation. The next evening, when the Canadiens and Nordiques finished the regular season in Quebec City, 15,399 spectators clad in white honored “the flower” in an hour-long pregame ceremony.

Following his final season as a player with the Nordiques, Lafleur joined the front office as director of corporate affairs for one season, after which he joined the private sector. When he was not piloting a helicopter, a passion that he compared to his love of hockey, he was a regular on the Oldtimer’s Hockey Challenge tour and remained one of the most popular figures in Quebec—he became a knight in the Order of Quebec in 2005. He also served as an ambassador for the Canadiens following his retirement, and journalists continued to interview him for his opinion about contemporary players as well as hockey in general. Additionally, beginning in 1985, he supported amateur hockey players by selecting individuals annually to receive the Guy Lafleur Awards of Excellence and Merit. In 1973, he married Quebec native Lise Barre. They had two sons together, Martin and Mark.

Guy Lafleur died on April 22, 2022, at the age of seventy. Shortly after his death, fans honored Lafleur with a ten-minute-long standing ovation during a memorial held before a Montreal Canadiens game.

Summary

Guy Lafleur was hockey’s most popular and exciting player during the 1970s. His skating and shooting abilities prompted a 1980 hockey publication to refer to him as “the peerless one beyond question.” The Canadiens were one of the most successful hockey teams of the 1970s and Lafleur was the catalyst.

Bibliography

Cowan, Stu. "Stu Cowan: Canadiens Legend Guy Lafleur Still Quick with a Zinger." Montreal Gazette, 8 June 2016, montrealgazette.com/sports/hockey/nhl/montreal-canadiens/stu-cowan-canadiens-legend-guy-lafleur-still-quick-with-a-zinger. Accessed 29 Mar. 2017.

McDonell, Chris. For the Love of Hockey: Hockey Stars’ Personal Stories. Firefly Books, 2004.

McDonnell, Chris. Hockey’s Greatest Stars: Legends and Young Lions. Firefly Books, 2005.

MacInnis, Craig. Remembering Guy Lafleur: A Celebration. Raincoast Books, 2004.

Shilton, Kristen. "Guy Lafleur, Five-Time Stanley Cup Champion with Montreal Canadiens, Dies at 70." ESPN, 22 Apr. 2022, www.espn.com/nhl/story/‗/id/33784103/guy-lafleur-five-stanley-cup-champion-montreal-canadiens-dies-70. Accessed 6 Jun. 2022.

Stubbs, Dave. "Guy Lafleur: 100 Greatest NHL Players." NHL.com, 1 Jan. 2017, www.nhl.com/news/guy-lafleur-100-greatest-nhl-hockey-players/c-285497510. Accessed 29 Mar. 2017.