The first one happened unexpectedly. Hardly anyone in 1942 knew who Maurice Richard was; even fewer predicted a great career for him. The one who was to become a national myth, The Rocket, always spoke very little and his media interventions were laborious. We admired him, of course, but he had his own way.
Posted yesterday at 11:00 a.m.
The second was expected after his exploits in Quebec. Jean Béliveau, when he comes to join Richard with the Montreal Canadiens, is already impressive. Tall, slow-spoken, deep-voiced, he embodies a form of elegance, on and off the ice, uncommon in French Canada. This did not prevent attachment, but created limits that should not be crossed.
When Béliveau leaves the team, their designated successor, to him and to Richard, arrives in Montreal preceded by a procession of praise for which there has been no precedent: Guy Lafleur, still a child, is already a star. The Montreal club went out of its way to recruit him. He can only dominate in turn.
Things will not immediately turn out the way we hoped.
His first three seasons were disappointing, but the capital of sympathy from which Guy Lafleur has benefited to this day is already there: we suffer with him, we resent the organization which does not seem to give him a chance, we try to to encourage.
The “ordinary guy, who aims for the top”, of which the writer Victor-Lévy Beaulieu speaks in 1972, attracts all sympathy. He is a loved one who is going through difficult times.
The successes multiplied from the 1974-1975 season; less than a decade later, it will be over, after a hasty departure from the Canadiens and despite a return with the New York Rangers and the Quebec Nordiques. This does not mean that Guy Lafleur is therefore absent from Quebec society. We see him on television in rarely successful advertisements, we follow his family difficulties to the courthouse, we hear him on all the sports forums, even beyond, because we appreciate his outspokenness. He will have spent his life under the eye of the media. He could have demanded more privacy; he rarely did, except when his health began to fail.
As in 1971, when he was unable to find his feet and become the successor to Richard and Béliveau, Guy Lafleur will remain a figure of identification beyond hockey fans all his life. He embodied kindness, generosity, availability. On this level, it will have been unique.
They were three. They are no longer there, but the collective memory has already ensured that they are never forgotten, each in its own way, each in its own context.