Joseph Henri Maurice Richard (August 4, 1921 – May 27, 2000) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player. He played 18 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Montreal Canadiens. He was the first player in NHL history to score 50 goals in one season, accomplishing the feat in 50 games in 1944–45. He retired in 1960 as the league’s all-time leader in goals with 544. Richard was a member of eight Stanley Cup championship teams, including a league record five straight between 1956 and 1960. He died of cancer in 2000, at the age of 72.
About Maurice Richard in brief
Joseph Henri Maurice Richard (August 4, 1921 – May 27, 2000) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player. He played 18 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Montreal Canadiens. He was the first player in NHL history to score 50 goals in one season, accomplishing the feat in 50 games in 1944–45. Richard retired in 1960 as the league’s all-time leader in goals with 544. His younger brother Henri also played his entire career with the Canadiens, the two as teammates for Maurice’s last five years. Richard was a member of eight Stanley Cup championship teams, including a league record five straight between 1956 and 1960; he was the team’s captain for the last four. In 1998, Richard was diagnosed with abdominal cancer and died from the disease two years later. He became the first non-politician honoured by the province of Quebec with a state funeral. His legend is a primary motif in Roch Carrier’s short story The Hockey Sweater, an emblematic work of Canadian culture. In 2017 Richard was named one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players in history. He is buried in Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, alongside his brother Henri, who is also in the Hockey Hall of Fame, and his father, Onésime Richard, who worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1930s and 1940s. The Richard Riot in Montreal in 1955 was the result of an on-ice incident during which Richard struck a linesman. The riot has taken on a mythical quality in the decades since and is often viewed as a precursor to Quebec’s Quiet Revolution.
Richard, Elmer Lach and Toe Blake formed the \”Punch line\”, a high-scoring forward line of the 1940s and 1950s. He died of cancer in 2000, at the age of 72. He had a son, Henri Richard, and a daughter, Caroline Richard, with whom he had two sons, René, Jacques, Henri and Claude. Richard is buried with his wife, Catherine, in Montreal, Quebec, where he also played hockey. He also had a brother, Jean-Claude, who also played in the NHL and is also a former Montreal Canadiens player. Richard’s father worked as a carpenter by trade, and had three sisters: Georgette, Rollande and Marguerite; and four brothers: René,. Jacques, and Henri andClaude. His parents were originally from the Gaspé region of Quebec, before moving to Montreal, where they settled in the neighbourhood of Nouveau-Bordeaux. The Richards struggled during the Great Depression, and the family relied on government aid until he was re-hired by the railway around 1936. Richard received his first pair of ice skates when he was four, and grew up skating on local rivers and a small backyard ice surface his father created. At 16, Richard dropped out of school to work with his father as a machinist. He scored 133 goals in the 1938–39 season and won the provincial championship in Quebec Senior League.
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