April 14, 1960: Five Straight Stanley Cups

April 14, 1960: The Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-0 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. This completes a 4-game sweep of the Stanley Cup Finals, and gives Les Habitantes their 5th straight Stanley Cup.

The previous year's achievement of 4 straight was the 1st in history. Three straight had been done by the 1908-10 Montreal Wanderers and the 1947-49 Maple Leafs. Four straight would be done again by the 1976-79 Canadiens, followed immediately by the 1980-83 New York Islanders. But 5 straight has been done only this once.

The Captain for all 5 Cup wins was Maurice "the Rocket" Richard, then the NHL's all-time leader with 544 goals. In Game 3, he had scored his 82nd and last Playoff goal. He retired in the ensuing off-season

These 5 Cups, giving him 8 for his career, were also the 1st 5 seasons for his brother, Henri Richard, 15 years younger. Because he was so short (5-foot-7), he was known as "the Pocket Rocket," but was a very skillful player on both offense and defense, and would eventually play on 11 Stanley Cup winners. This is a record in North American sports, matched only by Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics.

There were 12 players on the Canadiens for all 5 Cup wins: The Richard brothers, Jean Béliveau, Bernie "Boom-Boom" Geoffrion, Doug Harvey, Tom Johnson, Don Marshall, Dickie Moore, Jacques Plante, Claude Provost, Jean-Guy Talbot and Bob Turner.

Both Richards, Béliveau, Geoffrion, Harvey, Johnson, Moore and Plante were all elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. So was head coach Hector "Toe" Blake, who would eventually coach 8 Cup winners, a record until surpassed by Scotty Bowman, with 10.

The Canadiens had swept the Chicago Black Hawks in the Semifinals. This made them the 2nd team to sweep all 8 games in the Playoffs in the "Original Six" era, following the 1952 Detroit Red Wings. There would not be a 3rd.

The Leafs would regroup, and would win the Stanley Cup in 1962, '63 and '64. The Canadiens would win in '65 and '66. They faced each other in '67, and the Leafs won.

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April 14, 1960 was a Thursday. There were 4 baseball games played that day:

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Milwaukee Braves, 5-4 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Joe Koppe singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning. Hank Aaron went 4-for-5 with a home run and 3 RBIs.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 13-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Roberto Clemente went 3-for-3 with 5 RBIs. Frank Robinson went 0-for-4.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-2 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Cardinals scored in the top of the 9th, but the Dodgers tied it on a triple by Gil Hodges, and won it on a wild pitch by Cardinal reliever Bob Duliba. Duke Snider hit a home run for the Dodgers. Stan Musial went 2-for-4 for the Cards.

* And the Chicago Cubs beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-5 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Ernie Banks hit a grand slam. Willie Mays went 1-for-4. Frank Thomas won the game for the Cubs with a double in the top of the 9th.

Football was out of season. The NBA season ended 5 nights earlier, when the Boston Celtics beat the St. Louis Hawks, 122-103 at the Boston Garden, in Game 7 of the Finals. 

March 23, 1944: Maurice Richard, Three Stars

"The Rocket's red glare": Maurice Richard had crazy eyes.

There's an old joke: (person you don't like) is doing the work of three men: Chico, Harpo and Groucho. Alternately: Moe, Larry and Curly. (Either the Marx Brothers, or the Three Stooges.

In a key game early in his career, the hockey player known as the Rocket was given the honors of three men.

March 23, 1944: Maurice Richard of the Montreal Canadiens scores 5 goals against the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Montreal Forum. The Canadiens win, 5-1.

There were no goals, by anyone, in the 1st period. Richard scored 1:48 into the 2nd period, then added another just 17 seconds later. Reg Hamilton scored for the Leafs, but Richard made it 3-1 at 16:46. He scored 1 minute even into the 3rd period, and then again at 8:54.

On all 5 of his goals, right wing Richard was assisted by left wing Hector "Toe" Blake. On 4 of them, he was assisted by center Elmer Lach. On the 1st, he was assisted by Mike McMahon. Head coach Dick Irvin, whose son Dick Jr. would be a longtime broadcaster for the Canadiens, put Richard, Blake and Lach together on a forward line. For its scoring ability, it became known as the Punch Line.

As tradition already dictated, the "three stars of the game," as chosen by the sportswriters, were announced shortly after the final horn. The third star was announced as Richard, and the home crowd booed like crazy: How could he be only the third star?

Then the second star was announced as Richard, and the crowd figured out what was happening, and roared their approval. When Richard was also announced as the first star, he came out, and the Forum erupted in jubilation.

This was Game 2 of a Stanley Cup Semifinal. The Leafs had won Game 1, but the Canadiens ended up winning the next 4, clinching with an 11-0 win, in which Richard, Blake, Ray Getliffe and Erwin "Murph" Chamberlain each scored 2 goals.

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March 23, 1944 was a Thursday. Ric Ocasek, lead singer of rock band The Cars, was born.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. In the other Playoff game played that night, the Detroit Red Wings beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. The Hawks won the series, anyway.

The Canadiens went on to win the Stanley Cup by sweeping the Hawks in 4 straight. It would be the 1st of 8 Cups won with Richard. The last 5 were in a row, all coached by Blake.

January 11, 1948: Toe's Ankle Turns Him Into a Coach

January 11, 1948: The Montreal Canadiens lose a game, and a player for the season due to injury. But it turns out to be a blessing in disguise -- perhaps, to borrow Winston Churchill's phrase, very well disguised.

Joseph Hector Blake was born on August 21, 1912 in Walden, a mining town that no longer exists, outside Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. His father was English and from Massachusetts, and his mother was from Quebec, so he spoke both English and French fluently. A younger sister had trouble pronouncing "Hector," and it came out "Hec-toe," and he was "Toe" for the rest of his life.

A left wing, he debuted in the NHL with the Montreal Maroons in 1935, and helped them win the Stanley Cup as a rookie. But the Maroons were bankrupt -- they folded in 1938 -- and so they took the cash when the Montreal Canadiens offered it to them for Blake.

In 1939, he won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the League's Most Valuable Player. He also led the League in scoring, although the Art Ross Trophy, given for that achievement, would not be created until the 1947-48 season. Because of the red light bulb behind every net that would be turned on by a goal judge for a goal, Blake became known as "The Old Lamplighter." (That was also the title of a 1946 hit song by Sammy Kaye.)

In 1943, the team known as Les Habitantes (the Inhabitants, or "Farmers," or "the Habs" for short) put him on a forward line with center Elmer Lach and right wing Maurice "the Rocket" Richard. This became known as the Punch Line, and it led to Stanley Cup wins in 1944 and 1946. In 1945, while they didn't win the Cup, the assists of Blake and Lach enabled Richard to become the 1st player to score 50 goals in a season -- which was then only 50 games.

But on January 11, 1948, in a 3-1 loss to the New York Rangers at the old Madison Square Garden, Blake collided with the Rangers' Bill Juzda, awkwardly hit the boards, and suffered a double fracture of his ankle. He was only 35, and should have had at least a couple of good years left. But, given the nature of sports medicine at the time, he was finished.

At the time, he was 2nd all-time in career scoring with 527 points, 21 points behind Bill Cowley for the all-time record. He had the all-time record for career points in the Playoffs, with 62 points in 58 games. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame as a player in 1966. In 1998, he was ranked 66th on The Hockey News' list of the NHL's 100 greatest players of all time to date.

The Canadiens offered Blake a minor-league coaching job, and he moved up the ranks until he was named head coach on June 8, 1955, replacing Dick Irvin Sr. (Dick Irvin Jr. would become one of the Canadiens' many great broadcasters.) Blake was fluent in French, and management also felt that Richard's former linemate was better suited to control the star's explosive temper, especially given the riot of the preceding March.

Blake coached the Canadiens for 13 years, winning the Stanley Cup 8 times, including in each of his 1st 5 seasons. Only Scotty Bowman, with 9, has won more, 5 of those with the Canadiens. His 500 regular-season wins are still the most in Canadiens history. He retired after the Habs clinched the Cup in Game 4 of the 1968 Finals, ending 33 consecutive years at ice level with the Canadiens organization.

From 1952 to 1983, he ran Toe Blake's Tavern, at Guy & Ste. Catherine Streets, 6 blocks east of the Montreal Forum. He was honored at the Forum as part of the Canadiens' 75th Anniversary ceremonies in 1985, as the coach on their all-time team. But he had already begun to suffer from Alzheimer's disease: By 1989, the great Montreal Gazette hockey writer Red Fisher reported that Blake no longer recognized him. Blake died on May 17, 1995, at the age of 82.

Toe Blake remains one of the magical names of Montreal Canadiens history. And yet, his Number 6 remains, with 8, the only remaining single digit never to be retired by the team. I can't imagine why, given his significance as a coach and a player.

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January 11, 1948 was a Sunday. The NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action that night. In the other 2 games, The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings played to a 2-2 tie at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit; and the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Boston Bruins, 4-1 at the Chicago Stadium.

Baseball and football were out of season. There were 3 games played in the league that would become the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Chicago Stags, 99-86 at the Chicago Stadium. That's right, the Stadium hosted an NHL game and an NBA game on the same day.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Washington Capitols, 84-56 at the Boston Garden. The Caps were coached by Red Auerbach, but nobody in the building that night, not even he, had any idea of what the future had in store for him in that building.

* And the St. Louis Bombers beat the Baltimore Bullets, 69-54 at the St. Louis Arena.