Henri Richard, 1936-2020

Imagine having more championship rings than you have fingers. In the history of North American major league sports, only 2 athletes have ever achieved that: Bill Russell and Henri Richard.

Russell is now 86 years old, and has had health difficulties. Richard was younger, but has now left Russell alone in this category.

Henri Joseph Richard (pronounced the French way, "On-REE Zhoh-SEF Rih-SHARD") was born on February 29, 1936 in Montreal. He is probably the most famous person ever born on Leap Year Day. But, officially, he was 84 years old, not 21.

He was 15 years younger than his brother Maurice Richard, the legendary Montreal Canadiens star known as the Rocket. And, being just 5-foot-7, he was short enough that his nickname became the "Pocket Rocket."

Since Maurice began playing for the Canadiens in 1942, when Henri was just 6, they didn't see much of each other. So that when Henri made his Canadiens debut in 1955, when he was 19 and Maurice was 34, the bond between them would be as teammates far more than as brothers.

Henri and Maurice

But it would work. The 1955-56 through 1959-60 seasons would be Maurice's last 5 in the NHL, and Henri's 1st 5, and the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup all 5 times. It is a feat unmatched in NHL history. In baseball, the Yankees won 5 straight World Series, 1949 to 1953. In the NBA, Russell's Boston Celtics won 8 straight, 1959 to 1966. But no other NHL team, not even the Canadiens themselves, has done 5 straight.

The Canadiens and the Yankees have won titles in the same calendar year 5 times: 1953, 1956, 1958, 1977 and 1978. The Canadiens and the Celtics have done so 8 times: 1957, 1959, 1960, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969 and 1986. And the team that leads the NFL in Championships, the Green Bay Packers, have shared title years with the Canadiens 5 times: 1930, 1931, 1944, 1965 and 1966. There has never been a year in which all 5 won in the same year.

The brothers had different playing styles. Maurice was a lefthanded right wing, while Henri was a righthanded center. Maurice described himself as, "I wasn't the best player, I was the best scorer." He scored 544 goals, a record he raised from 324, and led the League 5 times, but never led the League in assists, finishing his career with 966 points. Henri finished with 358 goals, peaking at 30 in 1960, but twice led the League in assists, finishing with more career points than Maurice, 1,046.

Henri would play 20 seasons for the Canadiens, totaling 1,256 regular-season games, both of which remain franchise records. He won a 6th Stanley Cup with them in 1965, and a 7th in 1966, scoring the Cup-clinching goal in overtime of Game 6 against the Detroit Red Wings. The "Habs" won again in 1968 and 1969.

The 1969-70 season was uncharacteristically bad for the Canadiens, and they didn't even make the Playoffs. They were in transition, as some older stars had left, and the players that would come to dominate the NHL in the 1970s were still working their way up.

But 1970 would be a difficult year in another respect. "The October Crisis" is a story that most Americans don't even know, but it almost tore the Province of Quebec apart, and could have shaken the entire nation of Canada to its foundations had Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (father of current PM Justin Trudeau) acted differently.

Tensions, especially between Anglophones (English-speakers) and Francophones (French-speakers) were still strong as the Canadiens moved into the 1971 Stanley Cup Playoffs. It didn't help that it was already known that it would be the last time for team Captain Jean Beliveau, who was retiring. By this point, Henri Richard was seen as the team's overall leader.

In the Quarterfinals, the Canadiens pulled off a shocking upset, defeating the defending Champion Boston Bruins, including winning Games 2 and 7 at the Boston Garden. To this day, it may be the loss that stings Bruin fans the most.

The Canadiens then beat the Minnesota North Stars in the Semifinals, setting up a Finals with the Chicago Blackhawks, led by Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, and a goaltender the Canadiens had let go because they had a glut of them, Tony Esposito.

Think about this: In the late 1960s, the Canadiens had Esposito (brother of Bruins star Phil) and Rogie Vachon, and let both of them go, and they both went on to Hall of Fame careers, and yet the Canadiens never missed either of them, because they had another, Ken Dryden, waiting in the wings.

Jim Pappin of the Hawks won Game 1 in Chicago with an overtime goal. The Hawks also won Game 2, before the action shifted to Montreal. In front of the most passionate fans in hockey at the Montreal Forum, the Canadiens tied the series up.

The action went back to Chicago Stadium for Game 5, and Canadiens head coach Al MacNeil benched Richard. The Hawks won 2-0. After the game, speaking to reporters for French-language newspapers, Richard called MacNeil "incompetent" and "the worst coach I ever played for."

He was not the 1st Habs player to accuse MacNeil, who didn't speak French at all, of favoring Anglophone players. The tensions of October rose again, and MacNeil received death threats. The Montreal police assigned bodyguards to his family for Game 6 at the Forum. He played Richard, and the Habs won 4-3.

May 18, 1971. Game 7. A crowd of over 21,000 jams into a steamy Chicago Stadium. Dennis Hull (assisted by his brother Bobby) and Danny O'Shea give the Hawks a 2-0 lead. It looked like they would celebrate in front of their home fans, while the Canadiens were doomed to be remembered as a team doomed by personality conflicts.

But late in the 2nd period, Jacques Lemaire, later to coach the New Jersey Devils to their 1st Stanley Cup, got the Canadiens on the board. Four minutes later, Lemaire assisted on the tying goal -- by Henri Richard. At 2:34 into the 3rd period, Richard finished his redemption and scored the go-ahead goal. The Canadiens' defense held the Hawks off for the last 17 minutes and 26 seconds, including a kick-save by Dryden on Pappin that might be the best-remembered save in hockey hisory, and they were Stanley Cup winners for the 17th time -- the 10th for both Beliveau and Richard.

At 35, Richard was no longer the kind of athlete who could have blamed an ill-timed quote on youth and inexperience. After the game, he and MacNeil hugged it out. Richard admitted, "I should have kept my mouth shut until the Finals were over. There is so much pressure on me and the coach." But he also called the win, "the best of all ten Stanley Cups I've won," and added, "I hope we forget everything except that we won."

Interviewed in 2009, he said, "I was angry, and I said some things I probably shouldn't have said. I spoke out because I thought it was necessary. I'm not saying it's right, because it's important to respect the coach. But I just wanted to play hockey."

MacNeil was a defenseman who had played for each of the teams in the Finals, including with Richard on the Canadiens in the 1961-62 season. But his position as head coach had become untenable. He wasn't fired, but he was demoted: The 1st native of Canada's Maritime Provinces to be an NHL head coach (he was from Sydney, Nova Scotia), the Habs made him head coach of their farm team in the American Hockey League, the Nova Scotia Voyageurs (based in Halifax).

It turned out to be the right move, as he led them to 3 Calder Cup (AHL championship) wins over the next 6 years, helping to build the Canadien dynasty that would be forged by his successor, the bilingual Scotty Bowman. He would be the Canadiens' director of player personnel in the 1978 and 1979 seasons, earning 2 more Stanley Cup rings. And he would coach again, with the Flames in both Atlanta and Calgary. He is still alive, 84 years old.

With Beliveau's retirement, Richard was named Captain of the Canadiens. After an off-season in 1972, they won the Cup again in 1973, again defeating the Blackhawks in the Finals. It was the Pocket Rocket's 11th Cup, his 1st as Captain. Years later, he would say, "No one's going to break that record. It's impossible. I say that without boasting. There are too many teams now, and the best players are too spread out."

He played 2 more seasons, including receiving the 1974 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy for "perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication," and retired in 1975. Early the next season, the Canadiens retired his Number 16. It would later also be retired for a player who wore it before him, Elmer Lach. In 1979, Henri Richard was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. In 1998, The Hockey News named its 100 Greatest Players, and he was ranked 29th. In 2017, the NHL named him to its 100th Anniversary 100 Greatest Players.

Henri Richard and Elmer Lach at

the Canadiens' 100th Anniversary celebration, 2009

He was named one of the Canadiens' "Club Ambassadors," working in community outreach. He and his wife Lise were married for more than 50 years, with 5 children and 10 grandchildren. As far as I can tell, none of them ever played professional hockey.

In 2015, Henri Richard was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and dropped out of public life. He died this morning, March 6, 2020, at age 84, in the Montreal suburb of Laval, Quebec.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, like his father a Montreal native, and born the year of Henri's controversial Cup win: "A legend on and off the ice, in Montreal and beyond, Henri Richard was one of the fiercest competitors in hockey history."

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman: "Henri Richard was one of the true giants of the game. The entire National Hockey League family mourns the passing of this incomparable winner, leader, gentleman and ambassador for our sport and the Montreal Canadiens."

Bob Gainey, Hall-of-Famer whose career start overlapped the end of Richard's: "He was an intense, very quiet leader, when being that was okay. He was humble, when being that was okay. He had the competitive fire to battle against bigger/stronger and succeed."

Guy Lafleur, another Hall-of-Famer who came up as Richard was wrapping up, spoke of his leadership: "When a player wasn't doing his job on the ice, it wasn't Scotty Bowan who went to see him, it was Henri Richard."

Even the Canadiens' arch-rivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs, paid their respects: "One of the game's greatest winners and an inspirational ambassador for hockey, the Maple Leafs are saddened to learn of the passing of Henri Richard."

With his death:

* There are only 2 surviving players from the Canadiens' 1956 Stanley Cup winners: Jean-Guy Talbot and Don Marshall.

* There are 4 from the 1957 Cup winners: Talbot, Marshall, Phil Goyette and Andre Pronovost.

* There are 6 from the 1958 Cup winners: Talbot, Marshall, Goyette, Pronovost, Marcel Bonin and Al Langlois.

* There are 7 from the 1959 Cup winners: Talbot, Marshall, Goyette, Pronovost, Bonin, Langlois and Ralph Backstrom,

* There are 7 from the 1960 Cup winners: The same 7 as from 1959.