Another pro hockey season has come and gone, and with it, as
always, memories of the year that was. The Blackhawks win again, their third in
six years and fourth in 54 years, when one of my favorite hockey players of the
day, Bobby Hull, led them over Jean Béliveau
and the Montreal Canadiens.
In those days, I was no fan of Big Jean, Le Gros Bill, as he
was known. When it comes to sports and our teams, we cherish the triumphs but
still feel the bitter defeats in our hearts, as if we are still the excited child
allowed to stay up late to watch the game that had gone into overtime between
my beloved Bruins and the hated Habs, only to be devastated by the deadly shot of the big centerman over the glove of goalie Gerry Cheevers and into the gaping net behind.
It was April 1969.
Now he is gone. The best of the best. The original team man.
Jean Béliveau passed away in December 2014 during the hockey year that was. I'm still not a fan of Les Canadiens, but it’s a
harder man than I am capable of being not to miss the grandeur that Béliveau
brought to the game – and to life.
It has been almost seven months, but it bears repeating:
This from an article by Dave Stubbs in the Montreal Gazette, Dec. 3, 2014:
“Rarely
has the career of an athlete been so exemplary,” Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau
said on the occasion of Jean Béliveau Night at the Forum on March 24, 1971, the
Canadiens paying on-ice pregame tribute to their captain a few months before
his retirement.
“By his courage, his sense of
discipline and honour, his lively intelligence and finesse, his magnificent
team spirit, Béliveau has given new prestige to hockey.”
Béliveau accepted an oversized
cheque that night for $155,855, giving birth to his foundation that in the
decades ahead would distribute nearly $2 million to organizations helping sick,
underprivileged and physically challenged children.
“Everything I achieved throughout my
career, and all the rewards that followed, came as the results of team effort.
If they say anything about me when I’m gone, let them say that I was a team
man. To me, there is no higher compliment,” he wrote in his
autobiography, “My Life in Hockey,” published in 1994.
Next: Running for Your Life: Core
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