Famous people
die from time to time. Sometimes it upsets us when they die young with so much left to offer. It would be hard
to think of anyone who got to enjoy his life more than Jean Beliveau in his 83
years on this planet. He was adored and respected from the time he started
playing junior hockey in Quebec in the late 1940s.
Most of us
never knew much about him other than his hockey playing accomplishments with
The Montreal Canadiens and that he always seemed to be a gentleman. His hair
never seemed out of place in the era he played in where helmets were uncommon.
In all those years there was never any controversy about Beliveau other than
maybe his holding off the Canadiens for a few years playing for his hometown
team The Quebec Aces. When Beliveau finally did sign with the Canadiens it was
for more money than any other NHL player was getting. He signed a 5 year deal for about 20 Gs a year.
Beliveau
retired as a player in 1971. That’s 42 years ago. About the youngest you could
be today if you saw him play is about 50 years old. Most who remember his
playing days are now in their sixties or older. Just what was it that made him
so special?
Jean Beliveau
was a bit of a “freak” in a nice way. When he broke into the NHL there pretty
well wasn’t anybody in the NHL as tall as him. He was either 6’3” or 6’4”. The
average NHL player back then was around 5’10”. Because of his size he had a
distinct reach advantage. Once the puck was in his possession it was hard to
get it away from him. What was unusual for a big man back then was having the
capability to deftly handle the puck with his stick. He could do the dippsy
doodle to keep the puck away from opponents or slide it through their legs as
he went by them. Because his legs were longer than most other players it took him less strides to get up the ice.
Beliveau also
had puck sense and saw the ice well like other greats Doug Harvey and Bobby
Orr. Often he was more than one move ahead with a plan.
Hockey in the
early 1950s was a lot different than today. Coaches back then basically threw
all their players to the wolves, even up and coming stars. Beliveau was never
coddled at the beginning of his career. He may have been soft spoken but he
could hack and whack with the best of them. He had to in order to survive.
It is hard to
compare Beliveau to later hockey greats. For starters, most of his career happened
when there were only 6 teams in the NHL that only had about 120 players at the
time. Travel was all by train and was easier than flying all over North America
like players do today. On the other hand each team played the other team 14
times during the season back then and coaches and players knew very well everything
the other team and its players were capable of.
An
interesting comparison between Wayne Gretzky and Jean Beliveau is the number of
penalties they took in their careers. Most years Gretzky was in the penalty box
less than 30 minutes. He always had protectors who got him ice room like Dave
Semenko and Marty MacSorely. Touch Gretzky and someone would beat the crap out
of you or at least try to. At the peak of his career, Beliveau was sitting in
the box close to 100 minutes per season. It wasn’t until later in Beliveau’s
playing days that tough guy John Ferguson took over the role as his protector.
It would be interesting
to be a fly on the wall back in the 50s and have heard conversations between The
Rocket and Jean. There was obviously a lot of mutual respect. Beliveau, back
then, seemed like an ex choir boy (which he was) who was cerebral and above the
fray, and Richard would probably meet you in a back alley if you said something
about his mother.
The first
time I heard Beliveau’s name was around 1953 or 1954. For a few years each
winter, a number of boys who lived within several houses from me on the west
side of Montreal (NDG) would play hockey out on the street (Harvard Avenue) or
in an alley between houses on the next street over (Oxford Avenue). Frozen dark
ice chunks were usually the goal posts. The boys ranged from about 8 years old to 11
years old.
I was one of
the younger boys and the teams were chosen by a couple of older boys. I was
often one of the last picked. All you needed to play was some kind of wooden hockey
stick. Some of those sticks only had half of the blade left or the blade was
just a sliver. Even 60 years later I can still remember how competitive a lot
of those boys were. Some went on to play organized football and baseball. None
of them, to my knowledge, played organized hockey.
If we stopped
for a car to go by there was no such thing as grabbing a Gatorade. If we were
thirsty and went to our house close by for a drink we were not likely to come
back. Homework or “you are going to get your eye poked out” were some of the
methods mothers used to curtail the action.
A few boys
had Montreal Canadiens sweaters, the red ones. They were made of wool and the
snow stuck to them. They often seemed tight too, probably because wool shrinks
in the wash. Sometimes the CH crest would become unglued a bit and a mother
would be asked to sew it on more permanently. There were no
numbers or NHL player’s names on the sweaters. If a kid absolutely had to have
a number he usually made it out of hockey tape.
Playing
hockey on the street or in an alley was a scrum more than a precision game. I
can still hear the sound of one stick whacking another. No wonder a lot of the stick blades
looked like shards. Some of the older boys had a back-up stick stuck in a snow
bank until needed. That stick might have been saved for special occasions.
Most of these
kids, there may have been around 12 in all, were big sports fans and had stacks of
hockey cards. I remember one guy. Jimmy, who lived across the street, in
particular who was very excited about a new young player with The Montreal
Canadiens, Jean Beliveau. It’s hard to believe in some ways that that was over
60 years ago.
It wasn’t
uncommon for kids to do their own play by play while scuffling for the tennis
ball (real pucks weren’t used). It went something like this….” Bouchard over to
Harvey, he passes to Beliveau who feeds it to Richard. McNeil makes an amazing
save!” Back then kids would take turns playing goalie. Nobody ever owned an
actual goalie stick.
Scoring on your own goalie somehow made sense.
![]() |
Butch Bouchard |
![]() |
Doug Harvey |
![]() |
Jean Beliveau |
![]() |
Maurice Richard |
Most kids
where I grew up were huge fans of The Canadiens. Personally, once I saw a
coloured photo and a write up about Bobby Hull in The Weekend Magazine that was
stuck inside The Montreal Star newspaper Saturday edition, I became a Blackhawk
fan. Some dads where I lived liked Detroit and Gordie Howe partly because he
wasn’t French it seemed. Most hockey
fans didn’t really care which player was French or English particularly kids.
Anyway The Canadiens had their English speaking players like Dickie Moore, Bert
Olmstead, Floyd Curry, Ken Mosdell, Doug Harvey and Gerry McNeil.
I have to say
that for an 8 year old the name “Butch” Bouchard sounded pretty exotic. It
seemed to me to be kind like a professional wrestler’s name. Just the name “Butch”
seemed to imply toughness.
When you look
over the names of the greats Beliveau played with from the beginning of his
career to the end of his playing days it is pretty amazing. When Beliveau
joined the Canadiens Bouchard had been with the team since the early 1940s.
Here is a
list of just some of them. Elmer Lach, Doug Harvey, Maurice Richard, Dickie
Moore, Bert Olmstead, Bernie Geoffrion, Tom Johnson, Henri Richard, Claud
Provost, Don Marshall, Gerry McNeil, Jacques Plante, Marcel Bonin, Phil
Goyette, Ralph Backstom, Bobby Rouseau, John Ferguson, Claude Larose, J.C.
Tremblay, Gilles Tremblay, Jacques Laprerriere, Yvon Cournoyer, Ted Harris,
Dick Duff, Terry Harper, Serge Savard, Mickey Redmond, Gump Worsley, Pete
Mahovlich, Frank Mahovlich, Jacques Lemare, Marc Tardif,
and Guy Lapointe.
and Guy Lapointe.
Almost 20
seasons, 1219 points in 1125 regular season games, played in 13 All Star games,
won the scoring title once, was the NHL’s MVP twice, won The Stanley Cup 10
times as a player.
People come
in different flavours and almost always nobody is liked by everyone or
respected by everyone. Jean Beliveau was one of those few exceptions.
With Jean
Beliveau’s passing, some of us who are of an age, are once again recognizing
how short life really is.
I’m reminded
of Simon and Garfunkle’s song Mrs. Robinson with the lyrics “Where have you
gone Joe Dimaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.” Take out Joe’s name
and insert Jean’s and the sentiment is the same.
RIP Jean
Beliveau.
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