“Hockey, in Quebec, is a religion”, goes the adage.
If this is true, then the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are Jean Béliveau, Guy Lafleur and Maurice Richard.
A little demon
Maurice the Holy Spirit, because it was he who arrived first and who cleared everything, teeth and clenched fists.
Jean le Père, because he was the greatest captain of all time, a model of calm, righteousness and presence.
And Guy le Fils, because he was speeding along, the wind in his long hair.
In music, we would say “The wolf, the fox, the lion”. Felix, Vigneault, Charlebois.
Three generations. Three legends.
I don’t want to push the comparison too far, but it’s true that there is a certain resemblance – not to say a certain resemblance – between the Blond Demon and Garou (the singer of Lindbergnot that of Notre Dame de Paris).
They were both spectacular to watch.
They were both delinquents (Guy Lafleur, it is well known, smoked between periods).
And they were both giving a ‘show ostie’.
Not to mention their respective adventures in the wonderful world of alcohol – Charlebois in beer and Lafleur in wine, gin and vodka.
Of course, I’m talking about the bottles they sold. Not the ones they emptied.
A team or a hotel?
I know it’s a worn image that comes out every time a famous personality passes the gun on the left, but with Guy Lafleur, it’s not just an exceptional athlete who disappears.
It’s an era.
The one where the star players did not yet consider themselves as independent companies renting their services to the highest bidder, but as members of a team with a history, a past, a tradition.
The Montreal Canadiens were like Habitant soup, there were a few (a lot) of us in there.
Today, apart from the logos on the jerseys, what is the difference between one team and another?
These are businesses.
The identity link that binds us to “our” team is increasingly tenuous.
The Montreal Canadiens have become a Hilton, a Marriott, a Best Western, the players arrive, put down their suitcases and don’t even bother to learn our language, anyway, in a few years, they will be playing elsewhere, then. ..
But when we looked at Lafleur, Cournoyer, Lapointe, Lemaire, we saw each other, we projected ourselves.
It was us, on the ice!
When they mattered, we mattered!
And the Stanley Cup parades were as important, if not more so, than the Midsummer’s Day parades!
Hockey teams, at the time, sold dreams. Today, they sell beer.
ordinary gods
And then, the big ones, at the time, didn’t have swollen heads.
Richard, Béliveau and Lafleur all had a great sense of responsibility.
They were humble, modest.
They were men. In the noblest sense of the word.
Rights. Integrate. Solids.
With a hardened steel character.
Do you remember when “acting like a man” was seen as a compliment?
