She was the daughter and sister of two excellent Christians, who had no greater regret in the loss which they had incurred, than that this poor captive had not [30] yet been baptized. She, too, in her captivity did not forget her faith and often exclaimed to God:

On the 1st Sunday in Advent, which fell on the 28th, the 40 hours' devotion was observed at the hospital, with plenary Indulgence,—and this for the space of 4 Days.

At 3 rivers,

Savages and their peltry,—Algonquain savages, I mean, who had gone to trade with the petite nation.

More than 300 Sturgeon

"Demon who dwellest in this place, here is some Tobacco which I present to thee; help us, guard us from shipwreck, defend us from our enemies,

On the way by which the Hurons go to Kébec, there are some Rocks that they particularly reverence and to which they never fail, when they go down to trade, to offer Tobacco.

we are to expect death every hour, and to be prepared for it, this is particularly the case here. For not to mention that your Cabin

Harassed and fatigued as you will be, we shall be able to give you nothing but a poor mat, or at most a skin, to serve you as a bed; and, besides, you will arrive at a season when miserable little insects that we call here Taouhac, and, in good French, pulces [fleas], will keep you awake almost all night, for in these countries they are incomparably more troublesome than in France; the dust of the Cabin nourishes them, the Savages bring them to us, [62] We get them in their houses; and this petty martyrdom, not to speak of Mosquitoes, Sandflies, and other like vermin, lasts usually not less than three or four months of the Summer.

E have learned that the salvation of so many innocent souls, washed and made white in the Blood of the Son of God, is stirring very deeply the hearts of many, and is exciting new desires in them to leave old France that they may come to the New.

"Is it true, mother," she asked as evening was falling, "that if you repeat a thousand Aves on the day before Christmas you are always granted the thing you seek?"

To go to midnight mass is the natural and strong desire of every French-Canadian peasant,

And the Rocket, who always refused to align himself with a political party, would lead his teammates to five straight Stanley Cup victories until retiring in the spring of 1960 with 544 regular-season goals to his credit. 

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.

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.

137 arrests Montreal went nuts, both French and English, and with Detroit coming in for a St. Patrick's Day game at the Forum, revenge was on some fans' minds. However, nothing may have happened if Campbell hadn't made a tactical error — he showed up to the game (10 minutes late) with his secretary (future wife) and took his regular place.

"Sport is part of culture and a good way to learn about another country… To discover why people are so passionate about it, it's like, 'Tell me what your sport is and I'll tell you who you are,' " he said.

Another example of religious behaviour is an expectation of sacrifice, Bauer said.

Bauer's book has six chapters, one of which was written by Benoît Melançon, author of the book Les Yeux de Maurice Richard (The Eyes of Maurice Richard, which will be published in English in April 2009 as The Rocket: A Cultural History of Maurice Richard).

In Bauer's class, students will compare and contrast the Montreal Canadiens and other religions. Bauer said he might demonstrate his neutrality on the subject by lecturing in a referee jersey.

"We really want to see what everyone wants to say.… When you have a lot of people passionate about hockey, and not about religion, it's interesting to see people's reactions to the question," she said. "If they can make connections between religion and sport, it helps get people involved; there will be a lot of diversity."

In Bauer's class, students will compare and contrast the Montreal Canadiens and other religions.

"We really want to see what everyone wants to say.… When you have a lot of people passionate about hockey, and not about religion, it's interesting to see people's reactions to the question," she said. "If they can make connections between religion and sport, it helps get people involved; there will be a lot of diversity."

In addition to the class, Bauer has launched an essay contest asking the question, "Are the Montreal Canadiens a religion?"

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

Three days later Campbell suspendedRichard for the Canadiens' three remaining regular-season gamesand the entire playoffs.

Mayor Jean Drapeau telephoned Campbell at the NHL officein town and begged him not to attend the game that night. Theimperious Campbell not only ignored the mayor's advice but alsomade a diva's entrance at the Forum,

driving a combustible crowd closer to theedge.

The Richard Riot is generally considered the firstexplosion of French-Canadian nationalism, the beginning of asocial and political dynamic that shapes Canada to this day. Theriot was a harbinger of the 1960 election of Quebec premier JeanLesage, which gave Francophiles a greater sense of empowerment,and the so-called Quiet Revolution, in which French Quebecoisbegan asserting greater control over their lives.

Campbell stuck out his hand. He got a slap in theface. Retired Red Wings tough guy Jimmy Orlando had spotted thefan heading toward Campbell and bounded from his seat inpursuit. An instant after the slap, Orlando spun the fan aroundand socked him in the jaw, scattering teeth like jujubes.

In a match the previous Sunday, Richard had twice viciouslyslashed his nemesis, Hal Laycoe of the Boston Bruins, and thenassaulted a linesman.

The Rocket's triumphswere the people's triumphs

No athlete has embodied the soul of a city and the spirit of itspeople as Richard did in the 1940s and '50s in Montreal, my homefor the past 21 years.

Smoke from a tear-gas canister haddriven thousands of hockey fans into the streets, sparking afour-hour rampage that yielded the requisite fires, shatteredwindows, looted stores, overturned cars and 137 arrests.

There are moments when life gets in the way, when sports and thereal world collide at some intersection--

Many exited the Forum angered by what they had seen in their team’s poor play, the president’s arrogant entrance, the explosion and the enforced forfeit. Their ire further riled the protestors outside. The revelry turned incendiary.

After the war, he helped prosecute Nazis for crimes against humanity.

Campbell was of Scottish descent, born in Saskatchewan in 1905. He earned a law degree at the University of Alberta and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, where he played for the university hockey team. He later refereed in the NHL and once swore at a player who then punched him. During World War II, Campbell enlisted in the Canadian Forces, served in Europe and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. After the war, he helped prosecute Nazis for crimes against humanity.

Richard felt the need to protect himself because, he claimed, the officials would not.

“Bailey tried to gouge his [Richard’s] eyes out,” Red Storey, who refereed that game, later told a reporter, “Rocket just went berserk.”

The next day, when Richard spotted McLean in the hotel lobby, he grabbed the referee by the throat,

Yet Richard had a dark side. His intensity sometimes provoked violence. His tantrums had become as legendary as his goals.

Laycoe lunges at Richard. His stick blade clips the Rocket above the left ear and opens a gash. The blood stains his scalp. Incensed, Richard swings his stick with two-fisted fury at Laycoe. He hits him with such force across the shoulders that his stick splinters.

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.

Laycoe, the Bruins forward had nailed Richard in the first period. He served two minutes for charging. But the hit lit the fuse of Richard’s infamous temper. 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.

The tension between the two rivals in the six-team NHL has been building inside the Boston Garden all night.

Rocket was suspended for the final three games of the season plus the entire Stanley Cup playoffs. 

The president really worked for the six owners, five of whom wanted the book thrown at Richard for the Boston incident. 

leaving the Habs'

How Francophone players in the NHL, almost exclusively the property of the Montreal Canadiens, believed they were more harshly treated by league president Clarence Campbell — especially Richard — when it came time to dish out suspensions and fines.

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.

Maurice Richard, left, played with a fire that made him one of hockey's all-time greats but could also land him in trouble — most dramatically in March of 1955.

In the mornings Tit'Bé jumped out of bed long before daylight to see if the great sticks of birch had done their duty and burned all night; should, unluckily, the fire be out he lost no time in rekindling it with birch-bark and cypress branches, placed heavier pieces on the mounting flame, and ran back to snuggle under the brown woollen blankets and patchwork quilt till the comforting warmth once more filled the house.

In November Esdras, Da'Be and Edwige Legare went off again to the shanties. The father and Tit'Bé harnessed Charles Eugene to the wood-sleigh, and laboured at hauling in the trees that had been cut, and piling them near the house; that done, the two men took the double-handed saw and sawed, sawed, sawed from morning till night; it was then the turn of the axes, and the logs were split as their size required. Nothing remained but to cord the split wood in the shed beside the house, where it was sheltered from the snow; the huge piles mingling the resinous cypress which gives a quick hot flame, spruce and red birch, burning steadily and longer, close-grained white birch with its marble-like surface, slower yet to be consumed and leaving red embers in the morning after a long winter's night.

Everyone drew his pipe from his pocket, and the pig's bladder filled with tobacco leaves cut by hand, and, after the hour and a half of restraint, began to smoke with evident satisfaction. The first puffs brought talk of the weather, the coming spring, the state of the ice on Lake St. John and the rivers, of their several doings and the parish gossip; after the manner of men who, living far apart on the worst of roads, see one another but once a week.

Cleophas Pesant, son of Thadee Pesant the blacksmith, was already in light-coloured summer garments, and sported an American coat with broad padded shoulders; though on this cold Sunday he had not ventured to discard his winter cap of black cloth with harelined ear-laps for the hard felt hat he would have preferred to wear. Beside him Egide Simard, and others who had come a long road by sleigh, fastened their long fur coats as they left the church, drawing them in at the waist with scarlet sashes. The young folk of the village, very smart in coats with otter collars, gave deferential greeting to old Nazaire Larouche; a tall man with gray hair and huge bony shoulders who had in no wise altered for the mass his everyday garb: short jacket of brown cloth lined with sheepskin, patched trousers, and thick woollen socks under moose-hide moccasins.

No, I never had any difficulty with the Indians; I always got on very well with them.

This set them all talking once again of the opening season, and of the work soon to be commenced. The month of May came in with alternate warm rains and fine sunny days which gradually conquered the accumulated ice and snow of the long winter. Low stumps and roots were beginning to appear, although the shade of close-set cypress and fir prolonged the death-struggle of the perishing snowdrifts; the roads became quagmires; wherever the brown mosses were uncovered they were full of water as a sponge. In other lands it was already spring; vigorously the sap was running, buds were bursting and presently leaves would unfold; but the soil of far northern Canada must be rid of one chill and heavy mantle before clothing itself afresh in green.

"You cannot shoot devils with a gun," objected his mother. "But when you feel the temptation coming, seize your rosary and say your prayers."

Through the little square window she threw a melancholy glance over the scanty cleared fields behind the house, the barn built of ill-joined planks that showed marks of fire, and the land beyond still covered with stumps and encompassed by the forest, whence any return of hay or grain could only be looked for at the end of long and patient waiting.

" But what has most delighted me is, to see that the sentiments of the Faith have so far entered these hearts, which we formerly called Barbarian, that I may truthfully say that grace has stifled in many of them the fears, the desires, the joys, and the feelings of Nature."

" About 1,800 persons have been baptized during the year, not including those baptized by Daniel at the destruction of St. Joseph.

Father Daniel, in charge of that mission, is killed while encouraging his flock to resist the enemy, whose sudden and unexpected attack finds the Christians at their little church,

A few weeks later, " the 2nd execution of Justice took place."

The Captains of the village, having heard these stories, sent for me and said, "My nephew, here is what so-and-so says; what dost thou answer to it? We are ruined, for the corn will not ripen. If at least we should die by the hands and arms of our enemies who are ready to burst upon us, well and good,—we should not at any rate pine away; but if, having escaped from their fury, we are exposed to famine, that would be to go from bad to worse. What dost thou think of it? Thou dost not wish to be the cause of our death? besides, it is of as much importance to thee as to us.

began to shoot at it as at a target with their bows and arrows, but our Lord did not permit them to hit it even once. Others were much more wicked, since they were more fully acquainted with the knowledge of the one God, Creator and Governor of all things, for they accused his Goodness and Providence with horrid blasphemies

From all this may be easily gathered the present state of the young Christianity of this country, and the hope for the future. Two or three things besides will help to the same end.

The writer describes the unusual and intense drought which prevailed throughout Canada, in the spring and early summer of 1635. The Huron country, being sandy, is especially affected, and is threatened with a total failure of the crops.

During the year, the missionaries in that far-away field have baptized eighty-six savages,—an encouraging gain over the fourteen who were " rescued from the service of the devil " during the first year of their labors. Their great hope is in the conversion of the children, who, they report, show surprising aptitude and willingness to learn the doctrines of the Christian faith; and, through them, many parents have been reached.