"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.

"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.

If they can make connections between religion and sport, it helps get people involved; there will be a lot of diversity."

When we learned about the 100th anniversary, we thought it was a good time to talk about the relationship between sport and religion, especially between the Habs and the religious context in Montreal and in Quebec," Bauer said.

to study whether the Canadiens are, in fact, a faith.

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 tear gascame 30 seconds later.

ichard had led the Canadiens tothree Stanley Cups and had scored 50 goals in 50 games,

The Rocket was the preeminent presence,if not player, of his era.

hockey'stemple, which now lives only in the soft-focus haze of fondmemory.

when sports and thereal world collide at some intersection

There is love in their applause, genuine affection, certainly gratitude for all of the memories, the good feeling he brought them with the goals and the victories and the Cups. And, there is more, not just admiration, not just respect, but reverence,

The majority of those gathered to protest, even those driven to throw garbage at Campbell, were most likely hockey fans upset by a ruling that hurt their team.

“Because I always try so hard to win and had my troubles in Boston, I was suspended. At playoff time, it hurts not to be in the game with the boys.

“For 15 blocks they left in their path a swath of destruction,” Katz wrote in Maclean’s. “It looked like the aftermath of a wartime blitz in London.”

The Forum’s 15,000-plus fans spilled onto streets already clogged with protestors, whose number had swollen into the thousands during the first period. Some headed to neighborhood bars and restaurants, already crowded with holiday crowds. Others simply went home — they would not make the news.

Forty-five, maybe 60 seconds later — at 9:11 p.m. — the bomb exploded. Twenty-five feet to Campbell’s left,

: “If Richard’s name was Richardson you would have given a different verdict.”

The suspension seemed especially harsh because of its likely consequences. At the time, Richard led the league in points.

Irvin defended Richard, saying he was dazed and did not realize what he was doing, that he mistook Thompson, the linesman, for a Bruin.

Richard remained silent during the meeting conducted in English, his second language. When asked to comment, he said, “I don’t remember what happened.”

According to Irvin’s son, his father insisted until his death that the officials altered the facts in their account to please Campbell.

Freedom of speech is no longer mine to enjoy. As a hockey player, I am obliged to obey my employer’s orders.”

he fined Richard a record $500 for attacking McLean in the hotel lobby. And just a little more than two months earlier, the president had fined Richard $250 for slapping the linesman Hayes with his glove.

“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.”

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

A disproportionate number of French-Canadians lived in poverty. Only 13 percent finished high school, compared to 36 percent for English-Canadians.

“The Babe Ruth of hockey,”

Richard averaged a goal a game, playing in all 50 games, and the legend took root. By 1955, Richard had scored more goals, 422, than anyone in the history of the NHL

The punishment is worse for Richard.

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

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.

Maurice Richard­-le Rocket, Montreal’s homegrown French-Canadian star from the city’s blue-collar Nouveau-Bordeaux neighborhood, the world’s greatest hockey player to that time

the Rocket

the NHL began to crack down on all-out brawls

perhaps just the end of a time when hockey was more important than politics,

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.

Catherine, featuring overturned cars, smashed windows, a shot fired from somewhere and 137 arrests.

Laycoe's story had Thompson trying to wrestle both of them and, in order to get at the Bruins player, Richard smacked the official.

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.

how violent the National Hockey League was in those days.

PLEDGED TO THE RACE

The rain was pattering on the roof, and nature, rejoicing that winter was past, sent soft little wandering airs through the casement as though she were sighing in content.

The soft breeze telling of spring came against the window, bringing a confusion of gentle sounds; the swish and sigh of branches swaying and touching one another, the distant hooting of an owl.

"She will die if that be God's pleasure."

For two days she kept her bed, with a watchful eye over everything, directing all the household affairs.

Maria still was silent, and yet the sentences of Lorenzo Surprenant beat upon her heart as succeeding waves roll against the shore.

"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.

LOVE BEARING GIFTS

"We shall have dinner first. What say you, my good friends? You must have found an appetite on the road. As for myself, singing mass makes me hungry beyond anything you could believe."

NEW YEAR'S DAY,

The Lord is with Thee ..."

Of the birches, aspens, alders and wild cherries scattered upon the slope, October made splashes of many-tinted red and gold.

Every morning the men scanned the heavens and took counsel together. "The wind is backing to the sou'east. Bad luck! Beyond question it will rain again,"

THE VOWS

Her young vigour and health, the beautiful heavy hair and sunburnt neck of a country girl, the frank honesty of eye and gesture, all these things, thought he, were possessions of the child of seven years ago; and twice or thrice he shook his head as though to say that, in truth, she had not changed. But the consciousness too was there that he, if not she, had changed, for the sight of her before him took strange hold upon his heart.

Spring is not far ... Spring is not far ..." In her heart she felt that never since the earth began was there a springtime like this springtime to-be.

Perhaps it is wicked of me to say so; but all my married life I have felt sorry that your father's taste was for moving, and pushing on and on into the woods, and not for living on a farm in one of the old parishes."

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.

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

Peribonka

some of our Fathers have thought that God has rewarded this great diligence by that blessed death." Adieu, my Reverend Father;

We know not what God reserves for us, and whether a stake and the flames will not perhaps be our portion, as well as that of our Brethren who have died here within so few days for the cause of God.

O my God, why are you not known? " he wrote some time before dying;

From that time I felt in my soul a great peace, and repose in occasions of suffering.

Yes, my Jesus and my love, it must therefore be that your blood, shed for the Barbarians as well as for us, be efficaciously applied for their salvation; and this is wherein I wish to coöperate with your grace, and to sacrifice myself for them

Others added, mocking, " we treat thee as a friend, since we shall be the cause of thy greatest happiness up in Heaven; thank us for so many good offices,—for, the more thou sufferest, the more thy God will reward thee. "

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

Some Christians had begged the Fathers to preserve their lives for the glory of God

the progress of the Faith has surpassed our hopes

But, no doubt, the Providence of God had led him to this death in a special manner; for it was only two days since he had made a general confession,

the time in which Christianity has appeared in them with greatest luster.

The ship Næuf, which sailed from France in the month of march, not having arrived, was accounted lost. We lost thereby the value of 4000 livres

sailed in a bark

The great stress of Easter Day, and the great crowd, ceased after high Mass. There were 4 masses

FEBRUARY

MARCH, 1649

which was pitiful to see, as well as that of Father [page 33] L'Alemant. Father de Brebceuf had his legs, thighs, and arms stripped of flesh to the very bone; I flaw and touched a large number of great blisters, which he had on several places on his body,

We all thought it was the Iroquois who were coming to attack us;

they were about to eat the flesh of one of their own number.

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, attending the celebration of mass

A number of Hurons come down to three Rivers and Quebec to spend the winter; they are aided by the Jesuits with food, blankets, etc

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.

French are continually harassed by Iroquois raids

employ a new language in reference to their morals, and teach them to keep down the flesh, and hold them in the honesty of Marriage, preventing divorces by fear of the judgments of God on the lewd

draw the bodies from the tombs in the presence of the relatives, who [page 281] renew their tears and feel afresh the grief they had on the day of the funeral.

OF THE SOLEMN FEAST OF THE DEAD

f some woman passes that way, they may secretly enter her womb, and that she may give them life again

The Head of the Council is the Captain who calls it.

This resolution taken, we were obliged to think of repairing and enlarging our Cabin.

They also punish Sorcerers severely, that is, those who use poisoning, and cause death by charms; [155] and this punishment is authorized by the consent of the whole Country,

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

Besides, while God has admirable consolations for those who fear him, he has much greater ones for those who love him.

These feasts will often last twenty-four entire hours; sometimes there are thirty or forty kettles, and as many as thirty Deer will be eaten.

Likewise if it is a poor person, his dreams are held in very little consideration

ut a life full of misery, amid the frequent and ordinary dangers of an unforeseen death, which those whom you hope to save will procure for you

Canoe is very easy to bear, to him who considers the crucified one

I might have added here many things that have [page 83] taken place this year, and of which we have been eyewitnesses, but [58] I have thought it best to reserve them for a second part of this Relation.

while God has admirable consolations for those who fear him, he has much greater ones for those who love him.

Louys drew the conclusion from it for his relatives that, if they served God faithfully, their Cabin would not be burned even if all the village were afire.

they did so well that on the same day God gave them rain, and in the end a plentiful harvest, as well as a profound admiration for the divine Power.

Generally speaking they praise an approve the Christian Religion, and blame their wicked customs; but when will they leave them off entirely?

little [7] boy, who had always been sick and much emaciated before Baptism, had been very well since then

The evil is, they are so attached to their old customs that, knowing the beauty of truth, they are content to approve it without embracing it.

Their great hope is in the conversion of the children,