Sport: The Rocket

In four powerful, gliding strides that left his pursuers flatfooted, Maurice (“The Rocket”) Richard was off and skating at top speed, skimming down the ice toward the Detroit goal. To Richard, the Red Wing goalie was more than an opponent. He was a bitter enemy, a monstrous mass of protective padding designed to stop what Richard enjoys doing most: scoring goals. Detroit Goalie Terry Sawchuck, with a last-ditch deflection, stopped the Rocket’s shot, but in ten seasons of National Hockey League play, few goalies have been able to stop the Montreal Canadiens’ Richard for long. In Canada and the U.S., he is the Babe Ruth of professional ice hockey.

Right Wingman Richard has some tall claims to his title. A powerful skater and a cat-quick opportunist, he can pounce on a puck and fire his hard, left-handed shot for the net before defensemen can gather their wits. His mark of 50 goals in one season (1944-45) is an alltime League record (and one of the nine he now holds). Last week, Richard was again far ahead of the field in goals scored this season. And at week’s end, Richard was hot on the trail of another record: the lifetime mark of 324 goals set during 15 seasons by Montreal’s Nels Stewart.

The Man to Stop. Like most top hockey players, Richard is a tough, combative cyclone, who has been known to hurl his stocky, 180-lb. frame toward an enemy goalie with two defensemen hanging from his broad shoulders. What’s more, he has scored from just such entanglements—a knack that makes Richard a perpetual target for roughhouse treatment. Says Montreal Coach Dick Irvin: “Never in the history of the National League has a man been subjected to such abuse—or perhaps I should say, attention—from the other teams. They say: ‘We have got to go out and stop this guy.'”

In the rough & ready National League, where almost anything short of mayhem is a fair way to stop a man, Richard has earned more than his share of scars from slashing sticks and skates. His grin, without his upper plate, is toothless. Two broken legs and a broken arm made him the Canadian equivalent of 4-F in the draft. But in this give & take, Richard has learned to give with the best of them. He once got so infuriated that he knocked out the New York Rangers’ “Killer” Dill twice in a single night.

The Record to Beat. Richard’s hockey ability comes naturally. As a boy growing up in a Montreal suburb, he used to skate to & from school in the best French-Canadian tradition. And even today, in solitary practice rituals that less talented players would scorn, Richard tears up & down the Canadiens’ rink just to keep in shape. After four years of this sort of perseverance in Canada’s bush hockey leagues, Richard hit the big time with the Canadiens in 1942.

Since then, Richard has led the league three times in goals scored, has made six all-star teams. This week his ten-year total of goals mounted to 307, just 17 shy of the alltime mark. At 30, with three or four more good seasons left, Richard seems sure to set a new lifetime scoring record.