Jacques Plante Read online

  The fact of the matter was that McNeil himself had asked the coach to replace him. He had become too nervous during the playoffs. In the preceding games, he had fumbled the puck several times, and knew that it had put his teammates off their stride. Before getting out of the taxi, Dick Irvin turned around again, and, as if he wanted to startle his young goaltender out of his daze, said in an authoritative voice, “And you’re going to get a shutout tonight.”

  Not another word: silence, except for the howling Chicago wind. If the old wizard had wanted to cast a speli on Jacques, he could not have done it better. Jacques felt that his heart was about to stop beating. But Johnson and Harvey were already hustling him along the sidewalk. Irvin, the cunning fox, not only wanted him to be good – he wanted him to be perfect! A goaltender must always be perfect. Jacques was shaking all over now. Between the two star defencemen, he felt that he was of little account. When he entered the Stadium, he had the impression that he was sleepwalking.

  In the dressing room, after all his equipment was laced, buckled, and tightened ready to play, Jacques was feeling shakier than ever. He was barely aware that the coach was making radicai changes to the lineup, sending in team members who hadn’t played in the series at all so far.

  Jacques was in the full throes of goalkeeper’s anguish, but at the same time, he recognized the thrill deep within himself that had always spurred him on to give his best. Since he had fallen in love with this sport, he had never bowed to pressure no matter what obstacles had to be overcome, and he had always tried to surpass himself. Jacques always loved to rise to a challenge. He enjoyed playing under pressure and fighting against his own nervousness. He often told himself that true champions are revealed in difficult moments. And Jacques Piante’s desire was to be a true champion – nothing less would do.

  Until then, things hadn’t come easily to him. He had painstakingly climbed each step of a difficult ladder to reach his present situation. At twenty-three, he wasn’t a kid anymore. Dick Irvin had finally given him the chance to achieve his most cherished ambition. He would have other, perhaps higher ambitions in the future – he was certain of it.

  Jacques got up, feeling his leg guards tight against his legs. He adjusted his chest pad and the last pieces of protective equipment before donning the white sweater emblazoned with the superimposed red and blue “CH” that made all Quebec youngsters dream. He passed his hand over his pounding heart as he pulled the sweater over his diaphragm.

  Jacques looked around at the others – at the younger ones, “Boom-Boom” Geoffrion, Dickie “Digger” Moore, and Dollard St. Laurent; then at the veterans, Émile “Butch” Bouchard, Elmer Lach, Bert Olmstead, Billy Reay, and Ken Mosdell. They were his partners – men who were in a cold sweat just like he was, and who all had one thought in their minds: to win.

  Again, Jacques turned towards the Rocket, who was stili sitting down, his piercing black eyes fixed on an invisible point, as if he were watching the opponents’ goalie and planning a manoeuvre to get past him. More than anything, Maurice Richard hated to lose. For a fleeting moment, Jacques had the impression that he was among Titans.

  Was he dreaming? Was he, Jacques Piante, the kid from Shawinigan, really standing in the dressing room of the Chicago Stadium with the Montreal Canadiens?

  A familiar scene from his adolescence flashed into his mind.

  It was spring, 1944. He was fifteen years old. His family did not have enough money to buy a radio, but, luckily, the upstairs neighbours had one, and it was tuned to the nasal, play-by-play commentary of the Stanley Cup playoff games. Through the ceiling of his sisters’ room, “le grand Jacques” could hear what was happening on the far-away rink. But that wasn’t good enough: he would climb on top of his sisters’ bedroom furniture to be closer to the ceiling so that he could hear better. Upright on a chest of drawers, Jacques tended an imaginary net, using his hands and feet to help Bill Durnan, the Canadiens’ rookie goalie, stop the killer shots. That was how he “played” with the Habs that year: it was his way of helping his club beat the Chicago Black Hawks to win the 1944 Stanley Cup. The familar names carne down through the ceiling: Maurice Richard, Elmer Lach, Toe Blake, Butch Bouchard – athletes, heroes, gods. In Jacques’ excited imagination, every one of the players whose exploits carne to him as if from heaven above were at least ten feet high.

  Now it was his turn to stand among the gods – in real life.

  Of course, it wasn’t the first time. During the regular season, when Gerry McNeil had fractured his jaw, Irvin had brought Jacques in for three games. The young man had not disappointed him.

  However, there had been the famous tuque affair – the tuque that had accompanied Jacques Piante since childhood, and had always distinguished him from the other players on the rink.

  2

  A Funny-Looking Stick and

  a Woollen Tuque

  Christmas Day was the only time of the year that the Plante family indulged in the luxury of soft drinks. In the morning, there were Christmas stockings – long wool socks filled with apples, oranges, and clear drop-boil candies. Under the Christmas tree, there would always be a few toys that Jacques’ father, Xavier Plante, had made himself. In those Depression years, there was no alternative: with a new baby arriving almost every year, a father had to be clever enough to create a little happiness for his children with his own hands. For Xavier, everything one needed in life could be attained by work, and by using one’s imagination, and he instilled those two solid principles in Jacques. Perhaps it was his father’s greatest gift to him.

  Jacques Plante, the very young goaltender of the Shawinigan Tigers.

  On Christmas Day, 1936, a hockey stick appeared under the tree, although it didn’t exactly look like the sticks used by Aurèle Joliat or Howie Morenz (who were both playing their last season in the NHL) to pass and shoot, score goals, and drive the crowd wild. It was a quite different type of stick: a goaltender’s stick.

  In Shawinigan, at least in his neighbourhood, Jacques was the only child who already possessed a goalie’s stick; his father had made it for him from the root of a large tree. But now that he was seven, things were more serious: the boy had to have the regulation wide-bladed stick. Xavier Plante had also made leg pads for Jacques by stuffing potato sacks and reinforcing them with thin wooden panels. Jacques had come home too often with bruised legs after being hit by frozen tennis balls during memorable schoolyard games. The pads were necessary for greater comfort, for Jacques Plante was determined to become a professional hockey player. He had already begun to nurture a dream that he would never abandon, working unstintingly to achieve it, as he would to achieve all of his subsequent ambitions.

  Jacques was the eldest of eleven children, and, as in all large families in those days, the eldest was expected to help out at home. Washing floors, or even changing diapers, was no mystery to Jacques. Neither was knitting.

  Jacques spent so much time on the skating rink across the Street from his home that his ears would get extremely cold. When he told his mother that he needed a tuque, Madame Plante, already overloaded with housework, had answered, “You’ll have to knit it yourself.”

  She gave her son some knitting needles and patiently taught him how to make his own tuque. The surprising result of this episode was that Jacques began knitting everything he needed: tuques, socks, scarves, and woollen underwear. He liked knitting so much that he taught himself to embroider as well, with remarkable skill.

  As it was impossible to knit shoes, the Plante children went barefoot throughout the summer. They were not the only shoeless ones in those days. As soon as the weather was warm enough, all the kids in the neighbourhood would run about barefoot, to their delight. They pitied the children of a better-off family down the Street: imagine, the poor kids’ feet were imp
risoned in shoes even in the middle of the summer!

  At school, Jacques did well, succeeding easily both in the classroom and with his homework. But the hockey rink was also part of his school life, situated as it was in the middle of the schoolyard. It was in the centre of town, and was the centre of Jacques’ world.

  When ice time was taken up by the school hockey team, Jacques would stand against the boards, his tuque pulled well down on his forehead and his goaltending equipment slung over his shoulder. Jacques Plante was never able to play any other position in hockey because his asthma prevented him from skating for any length of time.

  Completely absorbed, he watched the older boys play, analysing each one’s strengths and weaknesses. He wanted to play too, of course; he was just waiting to be noticed. For years, he had been stopping hard tennis balls and pucks. He could skate well. He had already figured out dozens of ways to stop the puck without sending it back to the opponents.

  Jacques’ opportunity came on a cold, memorable afternoon after school. The “big guys’ club,” the school team, was practising. His toes numb inside his skates, Jacques shivered with cold as he hung onto the boards. He wouldn’t have missed seeing the practice for anything in the world. Suddenly, there was an altercation between the coach and the boy tending the net. Jacques couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was clear that the coach had a lot to get off his chest, and he wasn’t listening to any excuses. With an imperious gesture, he ordered the goalie off the ice.

  Jacques didn’t care what the argument was about – it wasn’t his business. The only thing that interested him was the empty net. He waited a moment longer until the coach passed in front of him, then he called out, “Can I replace the goalie?”

  The man looked surprised, and for good reason: Jacques was only twelve, while the members of the school team were all sixteen or seventeen years old. He looked around. Wasn’t anyone else available besides this youngster? There was no time to discuss it, however; the boy was already making his way over to the abandoned net as fast as he could skate.

  Jacques had just set out on the path that would lead him to the National Hockey League. Instinctively, he understood that to get ahead in life, one had to be quick on the uptake, to be the right person in the right place at the right time. A goaltender must be more aware of this than anyone else; he should make it his motto. Jacques had just taken advantage of his first big break.

  That day, he not only stayed in the nets until the end of practice, but he impressed the coach so much that he stayed there until the end of the season. He became the school’s number 1 goalie. He was doing what he loved best: stopping pucks and playing hockey. Alert and intelligent, he was already defending the net with the tenacity of someone who is determined to win.

  But Jacques wanted much more. School games were just the first step on a long, ascending stairway.

  Two years later, another sterling opportunity carne his way Jacques had never been inside the Shawinigan hockey arena: the entry fee was ten cents, too expensive for his meagre means. But even though he couldn’t watch the games, it didn’t mean that he would never play there himself. Once again, he called upon his creative imagination. With his equipment slung on his back, Jacques would wait patiently at the entrance of the arena. One day when an intermediate category team arrived to practise, he immediately noticed that there was only one goaltender. He boldly offered his services to the coach: “I can tend one of the nets during the practice.”

  The man smiled. “Are you sure you can block my boys’ shots?”

  “Cercueil!1 I’ve been playing in nets for seven years! You won’t lose anything by trying me out.”

  The coach gave in – why not give him a try, after all? The kid was skinny, but he was quite tall for his age, and he seemed so determined.

  A few minutes later, watching the new recruit in action, the coach found himself wondering if he wouldn’t use this Jacques Plante as goaltender in a game. The kid stopped everything that came his way at the practice. The coach was ready to swear that the lanky teenager was only happy when a puck was flying at him. Jacques’ eyes never left the black rubber projectile, even for a split second. It was as if he wanted to hypnotize it, tame it. Even the arena manager carne to watch from behind the goal zone. After a while, he declared that if this tall boy wasn’t an exceptional talent, he didn’t know anything about hockey. He told Jacques to come to the arena whenever he wanted to; the side door would always be open to him.

  And Jacques dreamed. The lights over the ice glowed: a game had just started. He jumped onto the ice and skated straight over to his net. He felt two thousand pairs of eyes watching him from the stands. He blocked every shot, exactly as if he were wearing the red, white, and blue sweater of the Canadiens, his favourite team. No one had ever actually taught him goaltending; he had only studied photographs and observed the games between the older boys – and had invented his own style.

  After a while, there were only a few curious onlookers left in the stands. But Jacques imagined a roar of applause. He observed every last detail of play, and could describe an entire game if he was given the opportunity.

  The arena began filling up with curious spectators who carne to see how the young prodigy was faring. Soon, Jacques was playing in four different leagues simultaneously, in four different categories: midget, juvenile, junior, and intermediate. He also played for the team of the factory near his home.

  One evening, his father, who had found time to attend one of Jacques’ factory games, asked him: “Did you know that the players on this team are paid?”

  Jacques was astonished.

  “Cercueil! They’re lucky, getting money to play hockey!”

  “No, Jacques, they’re not paid to play games. But they get a salary by working at the factory. You don’t work there, but it’s thanks to you that they’re winning their games.”

  Poverty sometimes makes people bold, and Jacques possessed a good measure of audacity. After the game, he approached the team manager and told him that if he wanted to keep his star goalie, he would have pay him a salary. The man was about to refuse indignantly, but he thought it over for a moment and realized that his team’s popularity was at risk. He looked around to make sure no one was listening, then said in an undertone: “All right, I’ll pay you. I can offer you fifty cents a game, but on one condition.”

  “What?”

  “That you don’t tell anyone about it.”

  Fifty cents a game! For a lad who could enjoy soft drinks only at Christmastime, it was an enormous sum, a small fortune. Jacques accepted the proposed rate, and the condition as well.

  Soon, it seemed to Jacques that the stands were always packed. This was no illusion: during the many games that he played in the Shawinigan arena, the spectators had come to appreciate his talent. Jacques received several hockey offers: eighty dollars a week to play in England, and almost as much to play for the Providence Reds in the American Hockey League.

  For Jacques’ parents, in spite of their difficult financial situation, it was important that their eldest son finish high school before setting out on a hockey career. In any case, even with his passion for the game, Jacques had never neglected his schoolwork. In June, 1947, he obtained his high school diploma with top honours. The year before, he had passed a typing course “with excellence;” he could type 76 words a minute, which probably made him the fastest athlete in the world – on an Underwood keyboard!

  After finishing school, Jacques took a job as a clerk in a Shawinigan factory. When he was invited to take part in the Junior Canadiens training camp, he simply took a two-week holiday from work. His boss, Mr. Racette, drove him to Montreal. After his first week at the camp, the Junior Canadiens wanted to keep him on the team, but manager
Frank Selke offered him only fifteen dollars a week.

  “Fifteen dollars? That’s impossible. My room and board cost twenty dollars a week. Cercueil! My father can’t pay for me to play here, after all!”

  Jacques returned to his job in Shawinigan. A few weeks later, the Quebec Citadels offered him eighty-five dollars a week to play for them. It was only 130 kilometres from Quebec City to Shawinigan; Jacques reasoned that he would not be too far away from home, and therefore would not be too homesick in a strange town. He accepted.

  At eighteen, Jacques Plante already showed that he had a good head for business. And hockey was in his blood.

  Chicago, April 4, 1953.

  The 15,834 people in the Stadium were keeping up their overwhelming booing of the Canadiens. The Chicago hockey fans, who had not been spoiled by watching their team win the Stanley Cup many times over, were reputed to be the loudest, most unruly ones in the NHL. And they knew that Montreal was the team to beat.

  When the Habs had lost at the Montreal Forum on the previous Thursday, Montreal fans showed their discontent by repeatedly littering the ice with rubber overshoes, hats, and rolled-up hockey programmes. In Montreal, a defeat was always a dramatic incident. The home-town partisans in Chicago seemed determined to show that they could be just as rowdy.

  Jacques skated over to the net amid a swelling chorus of jeers. The ice seemed soft under his skates and his legs felt like jelly.

  Referee Red Storey dropped the puck onto the ice for the first face-off. From the start, it was clear that it was going to be a rough game. The Black Hawks in their darker, home-ice sweaters had no intention of yielding an inch of territory. To a man, they were ready to fight.