Course assignments include studying media coverage of the Canadiens, reading chapters from the book La religion du Canadien de Montréal (co-edited by Bauer and Jean-Marc Barreau), and writing essays.

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

Others include Denis Müller from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and the University of Winnipeg's Tom Faulkner, author of More Than a Game, Less Than a God: Canadian Hockey.

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

. 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.

The Detroit Red Wings would take a 4-1 lead over theRocketless Canadiens, driving a combustible crowd closer to theedge.

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--

It was a frustrated people, protesting against their fate.

“He is God,

“The Babe Ruth of hockey,”

“You knew — everybody knew — that the game was over right then,” r

Richard stood 5’10, 180 pounds, with the fists of a former boxer, but his most distinguishing physical feature was his eyes, dark, focused, under a heavy brow.

Richard averaged a goal a game, playing in all 50 games, and the legend took root.

“RICHARD GOES INSANE”

Richard slumps in front of his locker. He refuses to talk to reporters who ask what happened, why the two fought, other than to say, “Ask Laycoe.” He tells them Richard started the fight by hitting him first with his stick. The Boston Record sums up the incident with a banner headline:

For five minutes, the tempest rages. The crowd, on its feet, cannot believe the madness before them. They’ve seen fights over the Garden’s past three decades in the days when players swung their sticks and fists more liberally, but nothing like this, nothing as determined and wild.

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.

the world’s greatest hockey player to that time

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. 

CBC Radio Archive: The Richard Riot

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.

Conspiracy theories now abound, especially one that says the "hearing" with the players involved a few days later was a sham because the decision had been made. But the fact was the Rocket was suspended for the final three games of the season plus the entire Stanley Cup playoffs. 

The power of the English seigneurs in Montreal, who many angry French believed to be modern economic descendants of New France's landowners that treated their farmers as serfs before the system was abolished in 1854.

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

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."

You cannot shoot devils with a gun

It was the Demon of gluttony who tempted me."

hey took the road almost as soon as the meal was over.

Azalma was a tall, flat-chested woman with the undeveloped features of a child, who talked very quickly and almost without taking breath while she made ready the meal in the kitchen. From time to time she halted her preparations and sat down opposite her visitors, less for the moments repose than to give some special emphasis to what she was about to say; but the washing of a dish or the setting of the table speedily claimed her attention again, and the monologue went on amid the clatter of dishes and frying-pans.

"Are you going home to-day

Right you are! A fine hearty girl, and one with plenty of spirit to

The lake is solid yet," said Cleophas Pesant, "but the rivers are no longer safe.

Everyone drew his pipe from his pocket, and the pig's bladder filled with tobacco leaves cut by hand,

The door opened, and the men of the congregation began to come out of the church at Peribonka.

We redoubled our devotions, in which were our strongest [42] hopes, since our help could only come from Heaven.

About two hundred Iroquois having detached themselves from their main body

Let us then die with them, and we shall go in company to Heaven

She asked us for Baptism from the day of her arrival

ne was made at Quebek

All took place in Holy week very nearly as last year; the washing of feet at the hospital

purification,

as the savages had told and declared to us;

Father de Brebœuf was captured on the 16th day of March, in the morning, with Father Lalemant, in the year 1649

"The Iroquois came, to the number of twelve hundred men; took our village, and seized Father Breboauf and his companion;

e case of a Creature of 15 or 16 years, a thief

on the pith, occurred the first execution by the hand of the hangman, in the case of a Creature of 15 or 16 years, a thief.

a poor woman who threw up a coal as large as one's thumb, after some doses of water;

He spoke of a certain false Prophet who had been deceived in his calculation.

Of three kinds of games especially in use among these Peoples,—namely, the games of crosse, dish, and straw

star fell from Heaven in the form of a fat Goose.

I mean Chastity.

On the fifteenth of October, we went to the village of Wenrio, to visit some sick people, in which our Lord helped us by means of a young girl of our village who was there, and who so opportunely dispelled the fear of a poor sick woman that Baptism would shorten her life, that she at last gave way, and another with her.

Louys replied that in that case the Country would very soon be depopulated, as it would be necessary to kill every one

and God did not permit that what he had scorned during life should be granted him at death. Judicia Dei abyssus multa.

They all approved and enjoyed greatly the Christian truths

The Hurons have remained very friendly to us

we undertook another novena in honor of our Blessed Father St. Ignatius, through whose prayers we had, from the day after this novena began and since, such an abundance of rain that [page 41] it caused the corn, to form perfect ears, and ripened them; so that there was this year as much corn as there has been for a long time.

for he has resumed attendance upon the Sacraments, and the habit of [page 31] prayer.

I replied that God gave us all the choice of the one or the other; that he did not know what Hell fire was, and that I hoped he would change his mind when he was better informed.

Another little girl named Catherine had often been wayward about receiving instruction, and so had not been rewarded like the others

On Sundays, we assemble all these young people twice in our Cabin, which serves as a Chape

things besides will help to the same end. The first is the method we pursue in the instruction of the Savages

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

the midst of her greatest weakness foretold that she would not die for eight days; and so it happened.