Richard

Maurice (Rocket) Richard celebrates his 500th NHL goal on Oct. 19, 1957 with adoring fans.
Courtesy Montreal Canadiens

Fifty years ago last Friday, Maurice (Rocket) Richard scored his 500th NHL goal.

Lost in the glow of the achievement was the role played by Paul Haynes, a former Canadien and later coach of the senior-league Montreal Amateurs, who saw in the future Rocket a great ability on the right wing – the opposite side of Richard's natural left wing.

Here is how Haynes helped to shape one of the greatest talents in hockey history – aided in part by Haynes's love of the opera.

Friday is the 50th anniversary of Canadiens legend Maurice (Rocket) Richard's historic 500th goal, the first time an NHL player reached this magical plateau. Our friends in the media relations department of the NHL have prepared an information package on the event and what it's meant to hockey, featuring some of the words of The Gazette's Red Fisher (who covered No. 500). We reproduce some of that package here, and direct you to this terrific civilization.ca site, as well.

Roch Carrier
A genius of his craft

Any serious Montreal Canadiens fan knows, and loves, novelist and and short-story writer Roch Carrier's timeless 1979 classic The Hockey Sweater.

Carrier's romantic, autobiographical tale of a young, rural Quebec boy and his love of the Canadiens – and equal distaste for the Toronto Maple Leafs – is, in a way, a love story written for Maurice (Rocket) Richard.

Six years ago, Carrier published Our Life With The Rocket: The Maurice Richard Story. It, too, is a delightful look at one man's fascination with arguably the most exciting hockey player of all time, certainly the most compelling of his generation.