Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Bonus: Reflecting on the legacy of Montreal Canadiens legend Guy Lafleur (Courtesy Locked On Canadiens)

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

A few hours after news broke that Guy Lafleur, Montreal Canadiens legend and Hockey Hall of Famer, had passed away at the age of 70, Locked On Canadiens hosts Scott Matla and Laura Saba recorded a special bonus ad-free episode to share their immediate reaction.They reflected on the legacy he leaves behind and tried to contextualize the loss of a favourite Canadiens great, and what it means to the Habs, the city of Montreal, the province of Quebec, the NHL, and hockey as a whole. It would be easy to list his many on-ice accomplishments, such as five Stanley Cups, three Art Ross trophies, the most points scored by any Montreal Canadien, and many, many more, but what he truly meant to the hockey community was more than just the way he played - it was the way he embodied what it meant to be legend off the ice as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi everyone and welcome to Locked-on Canadians. This is a special bonus episode. We wanted to spend a few minutes talking about Gilafleur, his legacy and what he meant to Montreal. So if you're joining us, thank you very much. And we hope that you share your memories of him too. My name is Laura Sab. I'm one of your hosts. And I'm joined, as always, by Scott Matla. And it's been a really sad day today in Montreal and across the NHL in Canada and among hockey fans. everywhere as a true legend has passed away. You can look at his accolades. You can look at the number of Stanley Cups. He's won. You can look at his point totals, which are astronomical. You can look at all of that on the ice. But I think as a whole, what he meant to the city, the country, the game, the province, particularly, was as an ambassador to hockey.

Yeah. I've it's been a very hard day in that like there's no easy way to say goodbye to not only someone who transcended you know just being a hockey player in hockey's cathedral in Montreal but someone who was so iconic across the league here and I look at it in back to back weeks here the islanders and the NHL lost Mike Bossy on Good Friday last week. And the Canadians said goodbye to Guy Lafleur a week later. And there's a very iconic photo of the two of them shaking hands in a line at some point when they had played. And now you look at and go, both of these guys are no longer here. And the hockey world is worse off for that.

And since I saw the news first thing this morning, I've been trying to come up in my head. How do you properly eulogize? a guy that, you know, I admittedly have only gotten to see the classic clips of him playing. You know, I wasn't born in the era of the Montreal Canadiens dynasty and their elite all-time domination of the NHL, but I knew Gilafleur, and you don't lead the Montreal Canadians in so many categories without being so much larger than life. He was a superstar that stands out in a franchise of hockey icons. players like Jean Belivot and Ken Dryden and Maurice Richard and Henri Richard and Patrick Waugh and all of these players.

And then you have Gie Lafleur just leads in so many things and the outpouring across not only the Canadians fan base and organization, across the NHL from other teams and players from other teams. It is someone who just, there's so much bigger than the game of hockey. and the world is worse off for not having him here. And I look at this and I have ingrained in the back of my mind as a Canadians fan. Is that Stanley Cup final against the Bruins where there's too many men on the ice penalty? And you hear Lafleur's coming out rather gingerly on the right hand side. And every Canadian's fan knows what happens next.

It is part of the lore in the building block of this club. And he is gone now. He is no longer with us. and I hope he is at peace. I hope he gets to say hello to Jean again when he sees them. When he gets there, it's I thought I was all right. You know, we've got, we've lost hockey players. We lost Jean Belvo.

We lost Henri Richard. We've lost members of the punchline and someone, the other people. And then Yvonne Conway was on the radio talking today and he goes, I feel very alone today. And I look at that and I go, the Canadians are much less full than they were. just a week ago. And there's no real way to say goodbye. That's easy. So screw cancer always. And I really hope that Gilafleur is at peace. And I hope his family has all the support and love they need right now. And that's very, very important is that he leaves behind not just fans who loved him and people who appreciated what he did on the ice, but true people in his life who loved him, his friends, his family.

and we're thinking of them right now and it's honestly it's one of those things where you know the leader of the nation for example said that this was one of the first players that he fell in love with you know if you were lucky which Scott and I were not

we were not lucky enough to be around for those Stanley Cups for Gila Fleur you know for the whole arena to be chanting his name I my own personal memory of him was I was in the Bell Center at the same time as him one time it was the Centennial game

And he said my favorite thing that a hockey player has ever said to the city, which was, you fans partied some nights. We partied every night. And I think that that kind of epitomizes it is that he didn't just play hockey. He loved being a hockey player. And he was so good at it. There are so many people that, you know, they have talent or they have determination or they have that personality or or and Gilafer had all of it. And everything you're hearing today from fans is, I met him and he was the greatest to me. When I was a kid, you know, he said this to me.

He would stop and sign autographs for any kid who wanted it. He would give you the time of day. He had very strong opinions. And I recall disagreeing with a lot of those opinions over time. But he was never afraid to be honest. And he truly, truly, you know, you could tell how honored he felt when the QMJL retired his number earlier this season. That was something that, you know, you could, you could see it on his face, how touched he was. And he just, I think, you know, Jeff Moulson said that he asked,

he asked him to be an ambassador for the Canadians. I think he was an ambassador for hockey and for sport. I mean, lots of people know who he is that don't even care about hockey, you know, that don't even know about hockey. They've heard his name and they know he's one of the greats. And I think, you know, there's something to that, his determination. And I just feel like his, what people call his generosity of spirit, I think he really, really embodied that. It was really hard to watch, actually, you're watching professional journalists and broadcasters and they're trying to put it into words and they're all tearing up.

They're all, you know, you hear their voice breaking. it's a really hard thing to to kind of put into words and just how how many people he touched. A lot of people called him my friend. A lot of people called him my idol. And there were so many people that were able to call him both. And just the sheer number in my mind says a lot about him. I think he really will be missed. And, you know, I just, I don't know what to say that would really encapsulate his.

his legacy in the short amount of time that we had or that we have to say it, I have loved just scrolling through people's stories, whether it's on, you know, on news sites, whether I'm watching broadcasts, whether I'm reading tweets, whether I'm looking at Facebook, Instagram. I have loved hearing all the stories of when I was a kid, my dad took me to meet Gila Fleur and he was so great to me. Or when I was a kid or when I turned on the TV and I, and I saw him play and, you know, what that meant to me and all of that. And it's every, every memory is either, it's never just on ice, right? Or off ice.

Every memory is all of it. It's, it's truly amazing. And I know that he meant a lot to Quebec in general, specifically, I mean. And I, you know, there's a lot of talk about Quebec wanting to give him a state funeral if his family allows. it's not the same kind of state funerals you would give a dignitary it's uh it's it's more of a a family type like you know the whole province becomes uh it is able to part partake in it it's a huge honor uh but i also you know i do think that his family right now just like all of us um like it's a huge loss and we need to kind of respect his family and and and send them our condolences

and keep them in our thoughts at this time for as much as like we loved him from afar. And that's that's the reality of being a fan. Like there are real people that were touched by this and that have been left behind by this. So I think what we would like to do is to invite all of you to share your memories of Gilafer with us. We would love for you to, you know, we would share them on our episode. And we would love to hear from you. We would love for you to express how you feel. we want to provide, you know, a little bit of an avenue.

And we'll definitely be talking about him as the week goes on next week. And we thank you for joining us for this episode because it was, you know, we just, we just needed to express it. We needed the sadness to go somewhere. And we wanted to share it with other people who we know are feeling the same way right now. So thank you so much for listening to us. And we will see you on our next episode.