RateItAll: The Opinion Network

From the blue line in, probably the best player ever.

Certainly the most murderously intense.

And equally certainly, the most beloved and important player in NHL history.

Relatively small, even for his era, and injury prone in his early years, he was possessed of one of the most indomitable wills in athletic history.

He is also, to all intents and purposes, hockey's version of Babe Ruth. He was the first player to score 50 goals in a season, the first to reach 500 career goals, and was overwhelmingly the best player in the league for a good part of his career, setting offensive standards that took decades to be matched. On one memorable occasion he scored all 5 Montreal goals to beat Toronto 5-1 and was awarded all 3 stars of the game, the first and only time that has happened in NHL history.

His sweater number 9 became iconic for great forwards, worn by Howe of Detroit, and Hull of Chicago, and in semi-tribute, the great Gretzky wore 99.

Scored what may have been the most heroic goal in NHL history in the 1952 semis against Boston. With the series tied 3-3 the deciding game was in Montreal, in the legendary hockey shrine called the Forum.

Early in the second, with the score tied 1-1, Richard was checked heavily to the ice and kneed in the head. He lay twitching on the ice, a halo of blood around his head. The Forum crowd went silent, then stood in adulation and relief as Richard clambered unsteadily to his skates and made his way to the dressing room.

There, the team doctor tried to send him to the hospital, but Richard refused, taking stitches in his head and trying to clear the fog from his brain as he hears the building roar of the crowd in the Forum.

With four minutes left in the game, Richard returned to the bench, his white sweater stained with blood. Asking the score, he's told its still tied 1-1. He was so concussed that he asked three more times, unable to remember.

With the puck in the Habs end, Richard jumped over the boards, taking a head man pass before wheeling towards the Boston net. Cutting to the boards, he lost one defenseman, then turned to the net, holding off two Bruin defenders with his free arm, cradling the puck with his stick and whipping the winning goal in.

In the winning dressing room, unable to remember the game at all, Richard broke down in uncontrollable sobbing.

Richard was beloved in Montreal, so much so that fans rioted, burning and looting large sections of the city when he was suspended for striking an official. He was seen by the francophone fans in much the same way that blacks saw Jackie Robinson in baseball.

I saw him long after he retired, at the last game at the old Montreal Forum in 1996, coming out onto the carpet to center ice. In one of the most moving things I have ever seen, the crowd rose and chanted "Rocket" for 16 minutes, as a visibly emotional Richard waved shyly and mouthed "thank-you."

When he died in 2000, his body lay in state like a deceased Pope at the Molson Center, while hundreds of thousands of people stood in line for hours to pay their respects, and his funeral was broadcast live across Canada, the only time such an honor has been accorded an athlete.

Come on, show some love for the Rocket.

As a player everybody knows his intensity and single minded goal scoring prowess. The five rating is for his role as a leader and icon of French Canada. When Montrealers rioted in the streets following his infamous suspension, it was his voice on the radio pleading for calm that ended it all. Not the mayor's voice, not the premier's, his voice. Because it was their own voice. This player and his team hold a place in the socio-political fabric of a nation, how many North American sports franchises can say that?

Only Wayne Gretzky did better that 50 goals in 50 games...not ever Lemieux, Howe, Lafleur or Esposito.

As someone once observed, "Yankee Stadium may have been 'the house that Ruth built,' but the Montreal Forum was the house that the Rocket filled." Maurice (Rocket) Richard was the most exciting player to ever play in the NHL. For those too young to have seen him... "You don't know what you missed." Truly, with his piercing brown eyes, and burning desire to "put the puck into the net," he was something really special. As Ted Lindsay noted, "I don't care if they play the game of hockey for another 1,000 years, there will never be a better player from the blue line in."

SUCKY OVERRATED

from the blue line in there was none better

First man : 50 goals in 50 games.

The best of an era. How could his average rating be 3 stars?!