And the Rocket, who always refused to align himself with a political party

Out on the street, the largest riot since Conscription was passed in 1944 (bringing in the draft for the final year of the Second World War) broke out along a seven-block length of Rue Ste. Catherine, featuring overturned cars, smashed windows, a shot fired from somewhere and 137 arrests.

Either way, Maurice Richard was in trouble. 

Sticks were high, fists flew, blood often smeared the ice, and the owners thought this was all manly and a great way to sell tickets.

In concluding these two accounts, I shall say that these Peoples admire and esteem highly those persons who have anything that elevates them above the crowd. Such persons they call oki, the same name as they give to demons; consequently, if there were any one here endowed with the gift of miracles, as were those who first announced the Gospel to the world, he would, in my opinion, convert all these Barbarians without difficulty. But God dispenses such favors when, how, and to whom he pleases; and perhaps he wishes us to wait for the harvest of souls with patience and perseverance. Besides, certainly, they are inclined [33] as yet to their duty only by temporal considerations, so that we may well apply to them the reproach of the Gospel: Amen, amen dico vobis, quœritis me, non quia vidistis signa, sed quia manducastis ex panibus, et saturati estis.

In the year 1628, when the English defeated the fleet of the Company of New France, whose loss was the damnation of many Canadians and the postponement of the conversion of many others, as. may be believed,—there happened to me in this country an incident almost the same as the preceding, which, by reason of its likeness to it, seems to me worth relating here. The drought was very great everywhere, but particularly so in our village and its neighborhood. I was indeed astonished, sometimes, to see the air heavily laden with clouds elsewhere, and to hear the thunders roaring; while in our neighborhood, on the contrary, the Sky was clear, very bright and very hot

There is in our village a little Christian girl named Louyse, who at six months began to walk alone; the [page 13] parents declare they have seen nothing like it, and ,attribute it to the efficacy of Holy Baptism. Another person told us one day, with great delight, that his little [7] boy, who had always been sick and much emaciated before Baptism, had been very well since then. This will suffice to show how Our Lord is inspiring them with a high opinion of this divine Sacrament, which is strengthened by the perfect health God gives us, and which he has given to all the French who have been in this country; for, they say, it is very strange that, except a single man who died here from natural causes, all the others, during the twenty-five years or thereabout in which the, French have been frequenting this region, have scarcely ever been sick.

there are among these Tribes many errors, superstitions, vices, and utterly evil customs to uproot,—more than we had imagined at first, as will be seen in the course of this Relation; but with God nothing is impossible.

An embassy of Island savages (from the Allumettes) visits the Hurons, attempting, but in vain, to incite them to an attack on the Iroquois. Brébeuf takes this opportunity to win, for himself and his brethren, the friendship of these Islanders,—giving them a canoe and other presents.

eighty-six savages

Maybe organize a hockey tournament with different ethnic or religious communities,"

titled La Religion du Canadien or The Habs Religion.

The arena is their temple, the players are their saviours, and those who worship them pray that the sacrifices made on the ice — of blood, sweat and tears — will lead them to glory.

Orlando spun the fan aroundand socked him in the jaw, scattering teeth like jujubes. Therewere shouts, invective, a rumbling in the Forum. The tear gascame 30 seconds later.

Sportsriots have become commonplace, but the one in '55 was like noother because one of its central figures, Maurice Richard, waslike no other hockey player.

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?”

Richard knew his temper meant trouble but felt defenseless against it. “When I’m hit, I get mad and I don’t know what I do,” he confided in one writer. “Before each game, I think about my temper and how I should control it, but as soon as I get on the ice I forget all that.”

In an era when the game was more violent than today’s version, when players did not wear helmets or mouth guards and when they jousted more frequently with their sticks,

Only 13 percent finished high school, compared to 36 percent for English-Canadians.

Pinned against the boards in the corner by the other defenseman, he broke free, skated across the crease, lured the goalie out of the net then whipped the puck past him to put the Habs into the Stanley Cup finals. A Richard goal inspired a celebration in the home of the bleu-blanc-et-rouge like no other. “The singular and sudden pandemonium that shatters the Forum, like thunder and lightning” was “many decibels above in volume” the applause for any other goal, Herbert Warren Wind wrote in Sports Illustrated. “There is no sound quite like it in the whole world of sport.”

By 1955, Richard had scored more goals, 422, than anyone in the history of the NHL — 98 more than the next guy on the list.

He had started playing this game as a 4-year-old on the backyard rink his father Onésime, a machinist at the Canadian Pacific Railway, built for him. It was quickly apparent he could play in ways other boys could not. By the time he reached his teens, his skills were in such high demand he played as often as he could, sometimes four games in a weekend, using aliases to play for multiple teams, often against grown men. The oldest of eight children, he quit school at 16 to work with his father in the factory.

When Laycoe throws a bloody towel at him, he adds 10 minutes.

Then Richard snatches a stick from the ice and swings it wildly at Laycoe. He cuts him below the eye.

Laycoe sheds his gloves and rushes at Richard, who drops his gloves. The two thrash at one another with their fists.

In the second period, the Canadiens’ star tripped Laycoe and sent him spinning across the ice but escaped a penalty. Richard was further aggravated by the fact his team was losing 4-1.

"So I shall stay—shall. stay here after all!"

Toward four o'clock the wind leaped to the south-east, and the storm ended swiftly as a broken wave sinks backward from the shore; in the strange deep silence after the tumult the mother sighed, sighed once again, and died.

Ah! the assurance, the comfort of the divine promise which dispels the awful mists of death!

there is nothing for her to do but to stay quietly in bed. But if there is some injury within, to the kidneys or another organ, it may be a grave affair."

"This is what I have," he announced rather dubiously. "They are little pills. When my brother was bad with his kidneys three years ago he saw an advertisement in a paper about these pills, and it said they were the proper thing, so he sent the money for a box, and he declares it is a good medicine.

Her parents would like her to marry Eutrope Gagnon—that she felt—because she would live near them, and again because this life upon the land was the only one they knew, and they naturally thought it better than any other. Eutrope was a fine fellow, hard-working and of kindly disposition, and he loved her; but Lorenzo Surprenant also loved her; he, likewise, was steady and a good worker; he was a Canadian at heart, not less than those amongst whom she lived; he went to church ... And he offered as his splendid gift a world dazzling to the eye, all the wonders of the city. He would rescue her from this oppression of frozen earth and gloomy forest.

She was silent, however, dreading to speak any word that might seem like the foreshadowing of a promise. Though Lorenzo gazed at her long as they walked together across the snow, he was able to guess nothing of what was passing in her heart.

And if only you give thought to it, you will see there is no young fellow here who could give you such a future as I can; because if you marry me we shall live like human beings, and not have to kill ourselves tending cattle and grubbing in the earth in this out-of-the-way corner of the world."

"There is no better life than the life of a farmer who has good health and owes no debts. He is a free man, has no boss, owns his beasts, works for his own profit ... The finest life there is!"

The duty of a girl like you

Maria did not for a moment dream that life for her was over, or that the world must henceforward be a sad wilderness, because Francis Paradis would not return in the spring nor ever again. But her heart was aching, and while sorrow possessed it the future held no promise for her.

How he must have suffered, far off there amid the snows!

He is lost ..

Throughout the afternoon she must knit the woollen garment designed for her father as a New Year's gift,

On such days as these the men scarcely left the house

Whenever the heat failed, mother Chapdelaine might be heard saying anxiously.—"Don't let the fire out, children."

The autumn! And it seemed as though spring were here but yesterday.

install the second batch of bread, and seat herself upon the door-step, her chin resting in her hands, upheld through the long hours of the night by her inexhaustible patience.

a blazing sun scorched their necks, and smarting sweat ran into their eyes; when evening came, such was the ache of backs continually bent, they could not straighten themselves without making wry faces.

The children began picking at once with cries of delight

He checked himself, but it was plain that after the kind of life he had been living and what he had seen of the world, existence on a farm between a humble little village and the forest seemed a thing insupportable.

"A hard time!" exclaimed Legare with scorn. "The young fellows of to-day don't know the meaning of the words.

Seizing the bucket he drank half its contents and poured the rest over his head and neck; still dripping, he threw himself afresh upon the vanquished stump and began to roll it toward a pile as one carries off a prize.

"If there is anything," said the mother, "which could reconcile me to living so far away in the woods, it is seeing my men-folk make a nice bit of land-a nice bit of land that was all trees and stumps and roots, which one beholds in a fortnight as bare as the back of your hand, ready for the plough; surely nothing in the world can be more pleasing or better worth doing."

A blazing sun warmed field and forest, the lingering patches of snow vanished even in the deep shade of the woods;

Accustomed for fifteen years to hear her mother vaunting the idyllic happiness of the farmer in the older settlements, Maria had very naturally come to believe that she was of the same mind; now she was no longer certain about it. But whoever was right she well knew that not one of the well-to-do young fellows at St. Prime, with his Sunday coat of fine cloth and his fur collar, was the equal of Paradis in muddy boots and faded woollen jersey.

"The soil is good but one must battle for it with the forest; and to live at all you must watch every copper, labour from morning to night, and do everything yourself because there is no one near to lend a hand."

Samuel Chapdelaine came into the house and supper was served. The sign of the cross around the table; lips moving in a silent Benedicite, which Telesphore and Alma Rose repeated aloud; again the sign of the cross; the noise of chairs and bench drawn in; spoons clattering on plates. To Maria it was as though since her absence she was giving attention for the first time in her life to these sounds and movements; that they possessed a different significance from movements and sounds elsewhere, and invested with some peculiar quality of sweetness and peace all that happened in that house far off in the woods.

"O look," said Alma Rose, "here is Chien come for his share of petting." The dog laid his long head with the sad eyes upon her knee; uttering little friendly words, Maria bent and caressed him.

Passing the church, Samuel Chapdelaine said thoughtfully—"The mass is beautiful. I am often very sorry that we live so far from churches. Perhaps not being able to attend to our religion every Sunday hinders us from being just so fortunate as other people."

"This is indeed a bit of luck, for I haven't seen you this long while, François. And your father dead too. Have you held on to the farm?

The smiles were bold enough as they spoke of her, this inaccessible beauty; but as she came down the wooden steps with her father and passed near by, they were taken with bashfulness and awkwardly drew back, as though something more lay between her and them than the crossing of a river and twelve miles of indifferent woodland road.