On Rocket Richard's 100th birthday, where does he rank now?
Ken Dryden makes a terrific point. True greatness isn't always measured by statistics. And that's why The Rocket will always be among the greatest who have ever played the game
A century after he was born, more than 60 years since he played his last game and more than two decades since his death, Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard remains the most beloved Montreal Canadien of all-time, the best athlete the province of Quebec has ever produced and on any hockey fan’s shortlist of the greatest players in NHL history.
But today, on what would have been The Rocket’s 100th birthday, the hockey world has an opportunity to reflect on his legacy. And sadly, it’s diminishing. Check that, perhaps not sadly. The passage of time allows those who follow to usurp a person’s greatness, and that’s pretty much what has been happening here. There was a time when The Rocket was the NHL’s all-time leading scorer and its greatest all-time player, then Gordie Howe took over both mantles. Then came Bobby Orr, who nudged Richard down a peg, and Wayne Gretzky, who pushed everyone down by one. Until recently, Richard was firmly in the top five, along with those three and Mario Lemieux.
But as we make our way past the first quarter of the 21st century, whither Rocket Richard? There are a lot of observers who already have Sidney Crosby penciled in for the top five of all-time, which would knock Richard out of that hallowed club. By the time Connor McDavid finishes his career, he’ll likely be there as well. With the phenomenal talent that is on the way, it could be a matter of a generation or two before Richard is knocked entirely out of the top 10. His name is no longer on the Stanley Cup, with the ring commemorating the Canadiens’ 1959-60 championship, the last year Richard won the Cup, removed from the bowl a few years ago.
So now things get interesting. Perhaps it comes down to how you measure greatness. It’s quite possible that Richard will someday no longer be remembered as one of the game’s all-time greatest players, but that does not diminish his legacy. (Full disclosure: In 2008, I wrote a book called Habs Heroes that ranked the 100 greatest Canadiens all-time. Even though Richard was No. 1 in that book because voting was done by a panel, for my money the greatest Canadiens’ player of all-time is Jean Beliveau. He had superior career numbers to Richard, was an elite NHL player for a longer period of time, won more Stanley Cups, was a better leader and made players around him much better.)
So, really, there’s at least one person out there who doesn’t believe Richard was even the greatest Canadiens’ player of all-time, let alone one of the best players in league history. But then you talk to Ken Dryden, a guy who knows a thing or two about greatness. Numbers and accomplishments can be quantified. What can’t be measured is how people showered their love on Richard the night the Montreal Forum closed in 1996. As the torch was being passed from one great Canadiens player to another that night, the ovation Richard received brought the man to tears. It was unforgettable. “On the ice that night, there were all kinds of great players, all kinds of Hall of Famers,” said Dryden, who was among them. “But there was only one player who got the reaction that The Rocket did.”
Dryden has often said that the great teams, of which he was a part, in the 1970s were “sucking the fumes” of those legendary Montreal teams that came before them. By that measure, there was none greater than Richard. Because before Richard joined Montreal in 1942, the Canadiens were not the legendary franchise we know today. They were good, but not great. They would win the Stanley Cup with decent regularity, but in Richard’s rookie year, the Toronto Maple Leafs, with four championships, were actually tied with the Canadiens. The Boston Bruins were one behind. The team had seriously considered moving to Cleveland in 1935 and four years later almost suspended operations.
Richard changed all of that, for a couple of reasons. First, he was talented and fiery and easily combustible. Second, if you can believe it, Richard was actually the player who started the pipeline of great francophone players from Quebec that gave the Canadiens a stranglehold over the league for decades. Think about it. Sprague Cleghorn was from Montreal, but he was an anglophone. Howie Morenz was from southwestern Ontario. Aurel Joliat and Newsy Lalonde were from Ontario. Richard was the first actual francophone superstar, a player whose effect on people went far beyond the arena, a man who inspired francophone players to rise on the rink and others in Quebec to rise and realize their own potential in the everyday world.
“Why isn’t he just the guy who scored 50 goals in 50 games and 544 in his career?” Dryden said. “Other people have done that. So why him and not others? Because he was the beginning point of the greatest of all hockey franchises. The Canadiens were not a great team before The Rocket. They were a middling team. And he had no real forerunners from Quebec.”
I’ve often said that if you took someone who knew absolutely nothing about hockey or its history and you put the picture that is at the top of this piece in front of him or her, that person would look at it and say, “That is greatness, right there.” Perhaps that’s how it should be measured. And on the day Rocket Richard turns 100, even as players pass him by on scoring lists and in stature, that’s what we should remember. “Those who stay, it’s not because of any kind of statistical measure,” Dryden said. “It’s the stories they generate. Stories grow and statistics shrink and that’s where true greatness lies. If you’re one of the few people who generates truly legendary stories, that’s the measure of greatness. And there are very few that are more legendary than The Rocket.”
As usual Ken ... a really good read ... I never saw the Rocket play ... but my Dad did and he would often say this ... if it's a playoff game and it's in overtime ... "give me the Rocket ... he'll win the game"