"Maybe invite Guy Carbonneau to speak at your church, or maybe you can create a hockey team in your church. Maybe organize a hockey tournament with different ethnic or religious communities," he said.

"The fans, they pray for two things. The first is that the Canadiens will win. The second thing is that they pray for the Canadiens to crush the Maple Leafs, but I think you don't need any God for that," he said with a laugh.

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.

Richard had led the Canadiens tothree Stanley Cups and had scored 50 goals in 50 games, but hehad never won a scoring title and was on the brink of his first.

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

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.

But for those who were, somewhere lurking within their motives — though how much so, to what degree is impossible to measure — was the sense of oppression, and Richard’s suspension became the catalyst to uncork years of repressed anger. From one day to the next, something changed forever.

“Hockey in Canada was bigger than the church, and Rocket Richard was bigger than the Pope,” reflected Red Storey later.

You’ve never seen a hockey player like Maurice Richard. Not Crosby. Not Gretzky. Not Orr, Beliveau, Howe. None of them had the talent, the intensity, the will to take over a game like Richard. And none of them meant to their fans what le Rocket meant to Canadien fans.

Incensed, Richard swings his stick with two-fisted fury at Laycoe. He hits him with such force across the shoulders that his stick splinters. 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.

Bruins defender Hal Laycoe had another of his endless run-ins with Richard, leaving the Habs' star cut on the head after a high stick. A brawl ensued, and the Rocket broke his CCM stick over Laycoe's back.

After the riot, the NHL began to crack down on all-out brawls (especially carrying your stick into one), though it would take another 25 years for the changes to take effect with the institution of the third-man-in rule. 

He was a talent so large that Conn Smythe, owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, offered a million dollars to the Canadiens for him (about $10 million today). Richard's coal-black eyes glowed with defiance, danger and pure disgust for losing.

"You are their slaves; that's what you are. You tend them, you clean them, you gather up their dung as the poor do the rich man's crumbs. It is you who must keep them alive by hard work, because the earth is miserly and the summer so short. That is the way of it, and there is no help, as you cannot get on without them; but for cattle there would be no living on the land. But even if you could ... even if you could ... still would you have other masters: the summer, beginning too late and ending too soon; the winter, eating up seven long months of the year and bringing in nothing; drought and rain which always come just at the wrong moment..."

... And so the church is finished-a beautiful stone church, with pictures on the walls and coloured glass in the windows ... How splendid that must be!

Meantime the women in their turn had begun to leave the church. Young or old, pretty or ugly, nearly all were well clad in fur cloaks, or in coats of heavy cloth; for, honouring the Sunday mass, sole festival of their lives, they had doffed coarse blouses and homespun petticoats, and a stranger might well have stood amazed to find them habited almost with elegance in this remote spot; still French to their finger-tips in the midst of the vast lonely forest and the snow, and as tastefully dressed, these peasant women, as most of the middle-class folk in provincial France.

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.

That is not all. As these poor People have neither hunting, nor fishing, nor grain, they scatter hither and thither in quest of acorns and roots. Our Fathers, unable to forsake them, accompany them when they constitute any considerable body,—preferring to perish with hunger rather than deny them the bread of the Gospel. [1

While the enemy delayed around the Pastor of that Church, his poor scattered flock had at least more leisure to escape; and many, in fact, betook themselves to a place of safety,—indebted for their lives to the death of their father. The others could not escape promptly enough,—especially some poor distressed mothers, who succumbed beneath the burden of three [13] or four children; or who, having attempted to hide themselves in the depth of the forest, saw themselves discovered there through the innocent cries of an age which betrays itself, calling upon itself the misfortune which it most fears.

Ragueneau concludes this Relation with a review of "the present state of Christianity, and means of helping these Peoples."

Early in May, news comes from Three Rivers and Montreal that famine prevails there. There is also great scarcity at Quebec; but the Jesuits are able to aid the people there, with "more than 40 casks of grain," for seed and for food. On June 6, thirty-four Frenchmen are sent to the Huron country. A grant of two leagues of land, opposite Montreal, is made to the Jesuits.

The bones having been well cleaned, they put them partly into bags, partly into fur robes, loaded them on their shoulders, and covered these packages [page 285] with another beautiful hanging robe. As for the whole bodies, they put them on a species of litter, and carried them with all the others, each into his Cabin, where each family made a feast to its dead.

The eagerness they show to learn the duties of a Christian keeps us from doubting it. The smallest ones throw themselves into our arms, as we pass through the Cabins, and do not require to be urged to talk and to learn. Father Daniel hit upon the plan of quieting a little child, crying in its mother's arms, by having it make the sign of the Cross.

love myself," the Hurons say only iatenonhwé; "I love thee," onnonhwé; "I love you both," inonhwé; "I love you" (several), wanonhwé, and so for the rest. What I find most extraordinary is that there is a feminine conjugation, at least in the third person both of the singular and [84] of the plural; for we have not discovered more of it, or very little. Here is an example of it: ihaton, he says; iwaton, she says; ihonton, they say [masculine]; ionton, they say [feminine]. The principal distinction of this feminine conjugation from the masculine is the lack of the letter H, in which the masculine abounds

In the first place, we all came together for the [page 53] spiritual exercises, as is the custom of our Society. We had the more need of these exercises, as the high duties we are called upon to perform need more union with God, and because we are compelled to live in a continual bustle.

At a council of the Huron chiefs, Brébeuf produces [page 1] letters from Champlain and Duplessis-Bochart, who exhort the tribesmen to follow the teaching of the missionaries, and embrace Christianity; to emphasize this advice, and in accordance with the custom of the country, he " presents to the assembly a collar of twelve hundred beads of Porcelain, telling them that it was given to smooth the difficulties of the road to Paradise."