More than a hockey player
Jan 28, 2005 12:47:27 GMT -5
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Jan 28, 2005 12:47:27 GMT -5
The Rocket personified greatness and meant everything to his people - on and off the ice
RED FISHER
The Gazette
Friday, January 28, 2005
The Canadiens teams I've watched win 17 of their 24 Stanley Cups during the last half-century were blessed with most of the best of the best. You know their names, and if you visited a seventh-floor boardroom at the Bell Centre, you would see them in living colour. Jean Beliveau is there. Toe Blake is there, and so are goaltenders named Plante, Dryden and Roy. Guy Lafleur and Doug Harvey are there. And, of course, Maurice Richard is there.
His best years already were behind him when I started covering the Canadiens at the start of the 1955-56 season. By then, after 13 NHL seasons, he had lost a step. He carried weight he found increasingly difficult to lose. He was hurt frequently. But now and then in his last five seasons, he was once again The Rocket. And on those nights, there was no finer sight anywhere.
- tinyurl.com/52tv2
Rocket article written in 1954 for SI
RED FISHER
The Gazette
Friday, January 28, 2005
The Canadiens teams I've watched win 17 of their 24 Stanley Cups during the last half-century were blessed with most of the best of the best. You know their names, and if you visited a seventh-floor boardroom at the Bell Centre, you would see them in living colour. Jean Beliveau is there. Toe Blake is there, and so are goaltenders named Plante, Dryden and Roy. Guy Lafleur and Doug Harvey are there. And, of course, Maurice Richard is there.
His best years already were behind him when I started covering the Canadiens at the start of the 1955-56 season. By then, after 13 NHL seasons, he had lost a step. He carried weight he found increasingly difficult to lose. He was hurt frequently. But now and then in his last five seasons, he was once again The Rocket. And on those nights, there was no finer sight anywhere.
- tinyurl.com/52tv2
Rocket article written in 1954 for SI