Thus, this exceptional heart which, in its best years, amazed the doctors with its thirty-six beats per minute, stopped beating… Even though we knew it was very ill, the death of Flower, it gives a blow. This heart, it must be said, had been through a lot. It was big like the world I grew up in. Among the Glorieux, other champions impressed us: the arrogant youth of Patrick, the physical resistance of Gainey, the work ethic of Carbo, the superb nonchalance of Kovalev, the courage of Koïvu. But Lafleur is different. Quebec loved him with love.
Beyond the admiration and the brilliance of talent, there was this great love story between a man and a nation. The love that lifts you up, that goes through ups and downs, misbehaviors and car accidents, the love that forgives. Because this Blond Demon has not always been an angel… Flamboyantly embodying these seventies at the six Stanley Cups where the party started in the 1960s continued, the Flower would not let itself be formatted any more by the realism of the following decade than by the defensive system of “Coco” Lemaire. On the floor of the old Forum or elsewhere, Ti-Guy would never be the pawn of any marketing machine. He had the rebel’s short fuse.
The great team that was his was a rambunctious collection of stars (the Mahovlichs, the “Big Three” on the blue line, Dryden in goal) who gave the impression of having as much fun on the ice as in the bars of Crescent Street. Of this dynasty of Flying Frenchmen, Lafleur will forever remain the figurehead. I’m telling you about a time that people under forty can’t know, and maybe a bottle of champagne and a few cigarettes weren’t the worst way to deal with mental health.
Above all, he will have been, at a decisive moment in the evolution of his sport, the champion of the beautiful game in a national league dominated by two dynasties of brutes. Remember, those were the days when speed and skillful passing were left to the Russians and when, on the rinks of America, sticks were also used as axes. When Lafleur had his first 50-goal, 100-point season — he would have six in a row — the defending champions were the Philadelphia Flyers, who reigned terror with a lineup of unsubtle minions like Dave Schultz, Bob Kelly and Don Saleski.
To get their hands on the cup the previous year, the “Broad Street Bullies”, as this cohort of sad lords had been nicknamed, had beheaded the “Big Bad Bruins” themselves quite well endowed with big arms and bastard players. . Even the most talented hockey players of these formations (Clark, Orr) let themselves be tempted by a vicious blow on occasion. The visiting teams jumped onto the Spectrum ice of this misnamed “city of brotherly love” with the guts tied by the famous philadelphia flu (Philadelphia diarrhea…).
Of the 1976 final series where the Canadian led by Guy Lafleur swept away this clique of killers in four games to establish his own dynasty, a Winston Churchill could have said that “it was their finest hour”. The Habitants had brought hockey back to its essence, which is speed. And nothing embodied that essence better than the Flower’s skating and slap shot. Afterwards, the Canadiens overthrew the Bruins three springs in a row, and when a wireworm like Stan “Bulldog” Jonathan publicly threatened to rip Lafleur’s head off at Boston Garden, the latter was the type to retaliate the same night by scoring a pair goals on enemy ice.
It was against this same old opponent that he would score, in 1979, the most emblematic goal of his career, forcing, with a little help from the “ghosts of the Forum”, extra time at the very end. of a seventh game which, thirty years later, would still give coach Don Cherry nightmares. I wonder if the offensive powerhouses that later became Gretzky’s Oilers and the great Mario’s Penguins would have even been possible if Lafleur and his cronies hadn’t cleaned up their sport by sending these madmen back to their niches.
Equally important to me is the fact that this simple man, whose father worked at the Thurso Pulp and Paper mill, was that increasingly rare thing: a hero of the people, in the unifying sense of the term. When Pierre Foglia went to meet him in New York — it may have been in Quebec City — where Lafleur, towards the end of the 1980s, had returned to service, the columnist addressed his readers in the following way (I quotes him from memory): “You have no idea how fine your Guy is…” It was written without any irony, and coming from a guy as ferocious as Foglia, that said it all.
He leaves a silhouette, all in front, skating with his head held high, comet hair in the wind.
As I say goodbye to him, the words to a song by old Tom Waits come to mind.
I will close my eyes and wake up there in dreamland
And tell me who will put flowers
We have flower’s grave