Talk:Maurice Richard

Richard and violence

To 199.212.150.16 and anyone else, this is a dance we've been going through for a while, and it shows a marked ignorance of history, revisionist history movies aside. That Richard was one of the great players of hockey history is unquestioned, but that he was one of the most violent and uncontrolled is also unquestioned, and he was fortunate to have played in the era he did, because he was the perp in repeated stick incidents and assaults on officials. The Bertuzzis and McSorleys of the world aren't even the same category. RGTraynor 18:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Richard Riot

Please check your facts before posting conjecture. As it happens, Bruins' home uniforms at the time of the Richard-Laycoe incident were principally gold; Boston didn't use black home uniforms until 1968. RGTraynor 18:39, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

That aside ... the Riot section -- which astonishingly enough occupies twice as much column space as discussion of the playing career of one of the league's most renowed skaters -- has been increasingly loaded with POV on how much Richard was screwed and how this was just another sign of Quebec's oppression by Anglos. Given the extreme and repeated nature of Richard's actions (quick, can anyone name a single player in NHL history who had more stick fights and assaulted more officials?), this was anything but, however aggrieved Montrealers were at the time. Perhaps the recent editors would trim the polemic back down to something consistent with the space accorded to recording Richard's non-thuggish gameplay and with NPOV guidelines. RGTraynor 06:55, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Or ... I'll do it myself. (grins) RGTraynor 15:53, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Richard and violence

To RGTraynor:

Richard had 2 incidents involving stick swinging! You make it seem like this was a common occurence in every single game! Do you even know the circumstances of how the 2 incidents even occured?

Maurice Richard was a hockey player and a skilled one at that. He was NOT a THUG as you make him out to be! As a matter of cold hard fact, has was trailed, sticked, speared, slashed, cross-checked every single night of his playing career.

Great hockey historians like former NHL referee Red Storey have repeatedly said that they (the refs of the day) were surprised that Richard showed as much restraint as he actually did! Richard was the one being bullied throughout his entire career and the 2 incidents that he felt went overboard is when he snapped, and no other.

Don't try to revise history!

Watch this entire clip of Dickie Moore and Red Storey talking about Richard...

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDCC-1-74-85-567/sports/rocket_richard/

Don't try to revise history yourself. Almost unique to his era, Richard had several stick incidents and was penalized numerous times for going over the top. After the previous time that given season he'd assaulted an official, Clarence Campbell made a public statement (which I can post in its entirety tonight) saying that Richard had been given chance after chance, after egregious incident after egregious incident, and that he would have no more chances. Other stars of the day (I'm thinking of Syl Apps and Teeder Kennedy, off the top of my head) were heavily fouled and abused without breaking sticks over people or repeatedly assaulting officials, regardless of what Red Storey's -- and this is the first time I ever heard him characterized as a "great hockey historian" -- hazy fifty year old war stories maintained. I'd much sooner go with the very detailed contemporary accounts reported by Charles Coleman, who was a universally recognized giant as a hockey historian.

That being said, I'm quite aware (being, actually, a hockey historian, which I gather you are not) about the circumstances of the various incidents, and consider them no more pertinent than whatever Donald Brashear did to "make" Marty McSorley club him upside the head, or what Steve Moore did to provoke Todd Bertuzzi. RGTraynor 16:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

So, to the allegation that he was singled out for rough treatment, you point out that he was singled out for rough treatment? Gleemonex 14:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Nope. "Singled out" implied he was unique amongst stars in receiving rough treatment, which of course he wasn't. If there's an era in hockey where stars haven't been targetted, it's yet to be recorded. RGTraynor 16:28, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

"First legitimate hockey superstar?"

This shows a profound ignorance of hockey history (quite aside from being POV). Richard wasn't even the first "hockey superstar" playing for Montreal -- certainly few reputable historians would deny the title to Newsy Lalonde, Joe Malone or Howie Morenz, and Georges Vezina or Aurel Joliat would get a number of votes as well. How about Eddie Shore, who won four Hart Trophies to Richard's one? Russell Bowie? Clint Benedict? You couldn't even claim without serious dispute that Richard was the greatest right wing of his era, not with Gordie Howe (who won five of his Hart trophies during Richard's career) as his contemporary. RGTraynor 16:56, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Nor could you claim without serious dispute that Gordie Howe (who has 68 playoff goals to Richard's 82, or scored 0 playoff overtime goals to Richard's 6) was the greatest right wing of his era. Methinks the RGTraynor doth protest too much. --Gleemonex 09:52, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

There'd certainly be serious dispute, yes, but few legitimate hockey historians would give Richard the nod over Howe, when Howe had six scoring titles to Richard's zero, when he had six MVPs to Richard's one, when he had over half again as many goals, more than twice as many assists, named twelve times as First Team All-Star right wing to Richard's eight (and seven to five head-to-head), nine times as Second Team All-Star to Richard's six ... and when nearly half Richard's playoff goals and his two biggest scoring seasons came in the wartime years where the first five years of his career came during a period where the average number of goals scored a game was two GPG higher than at any point during Howe's career and at a level not seen in the NHL until the early 1980s.

Richard's greatness is unshakeable, and if I was putting together a hockey team to play a single game against the Alien Invaders for the right of Earth to still exist, him, Howe, Charlie Conacher and Cam Neely are the men I want on the right wing. I just stop short of a hagiography, is all. RGTraynor 21:12, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. But my point is that you could have just said "viz Cyclone Taylor, Q.E.D." instead of going on a passionate rant about how much of a star he wasn't. I mean, are you against POV or aren't you?

When Richard visited Czechoslovakia as a private citizen a few years after his retirement, he was given a state reception and an automobile. Even if it's untrue that he was the "first legitimate hockey superstar" (my admittedly-subjective position is that he was, but mostly because of new media technologies of the time and the subsequent exposure), it's not a stretch of the imagination for anyone with half a brain. Gleemonex 14:48, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Hm. Color me confused. Are you (or anyone else) just going to swallow a counterargument without evidence? That being said -- and leaving aside utter irrelevancies such as which countries gave him state receptions -- the point of an encyclopedia isn't to reflect hazy childhood memories. It's to reflect fact. The fact is that Richard wasn't the first hockey superstar by a long shot. The irony is that his days as a preeminent star came only a dozen years after Howie Morenz's, a superstar so glittering his funeral was held at center ice in the Montreal Forum; it would be like calling Guy Lafleur the Habs' great star of the last forty years and ignoring Jean Beliveau. RGTraynor 16:41, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Playing Career

I removed the following text as it refers to the story ("The Hockey Sweater") and not directly to the subject of this article. The reference is otherwise left intact, and a link to the article on the story added. Spoxox 22:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

"It also helped transcend his legend through several generations. In this story, the main character purchases a must-have Richard hockey sweater with a mail-in order form from Toronto-based "Mr. Eaton". But when he receives a sweater from the Canadiens' historical adversary the Toronto Maple Leafs, he is ridiculed, and even ostracised, by his schoolmates for attempting to impose his "way of things" because of his jersey. The story was made into a short animated film by the National Film Board of Canada. An excerpt of this short story is reprinted on the new Canadian $5 bill."

"St. Catherines' St. Riot"

I find 12,400 G-hits for "Richard Riot", ZERO for any permutation of St Catherines' Riot. While I agree about the inherent unfairness of naming the riot after a man who neither caused nor provoked it, history's spoken decades ago. It's our job to be accurate and verifiable, not to invent neologisms to push our own POV. RGTraynor 03:28, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Pronounciation

Last name is actually pronounced ree-SHAR, not ree-SHARD. Although I wouldn't want to start an argument with any hockey historians on this page :-). --206.47.141.21 20:22, 18 September 2006 (UTC)JP

Vandalism

I came to this article and I noticed that the quick facts for Maurice are damaged. Somebody fix this please. MakeDamnSure 21:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)