Quebek

Quebek

they were drunken blasphemers, and mutineers

news was brought from 3 rivers of the suffocation of three soldiers in prison, by the fumes of charcoal and brandy;

Ste. Marie

Barrie

CLEVELAND

"If that was the start of the Quiet Revolution,it wasn't very quiet."

The melee

diva's entrance

When the French Canadian speaks of himself it is invariably and simply as a "Canadian"

whole day in the woods

pea-soup

With hands upon her hips, refusing to seat herself at table, she extolled the beauty Of the world as it existed for her: not the beauty wherein human beings have no hand, which the townsman makes such an ado about with his unreal ecstasies.-mountains, lofty and bare, wild seas-but the quiet unaffected loveliness of the level champaign, finding its charm in the regularity of the long furrow and the sweetly-flowing stream—the naked champaign courting with willing abandon the fervent embraces of the sun.

Hanging upon the wall were the illustrated calendars of shopkeepers in Roberval and Chicoutimi; a picture of the infant Jesus in his mother's arms-a rosy-faced Jesus with great blue eyes, holding out his chubby hands; a representation of some unidentified saint looking rapturously heavenward; the first page of the Christmas number of a Quebec newspaper, filled with stars big as moons and angels flying with folded wings

ean stood his ground:—"A dollar, I won't go back on it."

but the rivers are no longer safe

Peribonka

PERIBONKA

"Charity has been the function of the church. Now it's the team who is taking charge of the social life, visiting children in hospitals, inviting children to see a game or giving money to charity… Does that mean they have kind of a religious role?" he asked.

He knows the class will attract students who are unfamiliar with religious studies and says that's okay. He noted, however, it's still an academic course.

"It's a divine inspiration," Bauer said of the idea behind the theology course that begins in January 2009.

In Prof. Olivier Bauer's class at the Université de Montréal, worshippers can argue that their team is their religion.

jersey

Richard Riot, as it has become known, for initiating Quebec’s la Révolution tranquille (the Quiet Revolution)

Good to his word, though, Richard returned the next season to lead the Habs to the Stanley Cup championship, the first of five consecutive championships they would win before Richard retired in 1960 — a convincing vindication.

Some, though certainly not all, English-speaking writers, such as Ted Reeve of The Ottawa Citizen, exonerated Campbell for doing “his duty as he saw it and in the good heart of him, turned up at the match, full square, and faced the affronts of the half-wits, as a gentleman should … a big salute to the president.” Reeve held Richard himself responsible: “Why should Richard, for whom the game is made to order, take tantrums like a spoiled child and incite a lot of crack-pots such as the tear-gas bomb thrower at the Forum and the fools who broke windows and took after streetcars last night in Montreal?”

French papers blamed Campbell for provoking the violence. Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau also placed responsibility on Campbell. “He should have known that his presence at the game would have spurred some sort of protest or reaction,” Drapeau told the Ottawa Citizen.

mayhem.

courage

Even before Campbell could sit, they began shouting insults and throwing objects his way.

Then Campbell arrived.

It was St. Patrick’s Day, a holiday even in Montreal

Announcers on Montreal radio stations urged those upset by Campbell’s decision to make their feelings known.

Queen Elizabeth Hotel, after Britain’s new teenage monarch.

including the archbishop of Montreal — a major shift in allegiance for the Church, which had traditionally supported the elite.

In a letter to Campbell, one person called out the ethnic prejudice seemingly tainting the NHL president’s judgment: “If Richard’s name was Richardson you would have given a different verdict.” That statement laid bare the sentiment many suspected behind Campbell’s decision. Campbell, the imperialist dictator headquartered in their city, came to embody the Anglo elite, every Anglo boss who had wronged a Franco worker, every Anglo landlord who had ousted a Franco tenant and every Anglo employer who had not given them a fair shake.

Richard remained silent during the meeting conducted in English, his second language.

Campbell, understandably, did not like being upbraided publicly by a player.

donnybrook

So Richard, sensing the lack of fairness in Canadian society at play on the ice, often dispensed his own vigilante justice, as he had done with Laycoe and Thompson.

Opponents slung ethnic slurs

And so at le Forum, they cheered him with decibel-defying abandon. Goals were not just goals. Brian McKenna asserted in his documentary “Fire and Ice,” “Richard became the archangel of French Canada, avenging humiliation.”

“The Babe Ruth of hockey,” Wind wrote. “He is more important than the cardinal or [Quebec Premier Maurice] Duplessis,” one fan told Sports Illustrated’s Gil Rogin. “Hockey in Canada was bigger than the church, and Rocket Richard was bigger than the Pope,” reflected Red Storey later. “He is God,” Frank Selke Sr. once said bluntly.

bleu-blanc-et-rouge

In the 1952 semifinals against the Bruins, Richard left the ice early in the third period to have a deep gash over his left eye bandaged. He returned late in the period, the game tied 1-1. With blood still spilling down his cheek, he took the puck at his own blue line and headed up ice.

he one after that, he joined Elmer Lach and Toe Blake to form the “Punch Line,” a name that spoke as much to their toughness as their scoring prowess.

In 1939, when war broke out in Europe, the 18-year-old Richard tried to enlist for active duty, but military doctors determined his wrists and ankle — already broken during hockey games­ — had not healed properly. He tried to enlist again the following year, but was again turned away.

And none of them meant to their fans what le Rocket meant to Canadien fans.

Not Gretzky

“RICHARD GOES INSANE”

Richard thinks Thompson, who once played for the Bruins himself, holds him so Laycoe can hit him.

So now, at 15:11 of the third period, when Laycoe confronts Richard, the crowd senses something bad about to happen — but it has no way of knowing how bad it is going to get.

14th and final meeting of the regular season

“No one can know when the anger of men, whipped indefinitely, becomes sculpted into political revenge. And more, it is not just a matter of hockey.”

The Rocket Richard Riot 

or perhaps just the end of a time when hockey was more important than politics, as the latter began to take hold among French Canadian youth.

It went on most of the night with fears of a repeat a few hours later as it grew dark again — only quelled when Richard went on radio and TV, asking for calm. He would reluctantly take his punishment.

Ted Lindsay had been dispatched for four games after punching a Toronto fan.

Rocket broke his CCM stick over Laycoe's back.

Richard smacked the official

ockey was bigger than the Church, and Rocket Richard was bigger than the Pope

How Richard himself, the Rocket, was so much a part of Quebec society that he transcended even organized religion.