I don’t think I need even five fingers to count the number of great sports movies. In fact, the American Film Institute’s list of the Top 100 American Movies of all time includes only two sports films: Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull and Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky.

Charles Binamé’s The Rocket is not a great movie -- but it’s a damn good one. A low-budget Canadian production, it tells the story of Maurice "Rocket" Richard, one of the greatest hockey players to ever don skates. Richard played for the Montreal Canadians from 1942 through 1960, set the famous scoring record of 50 goals in 50 games, and was the first hockey player to ever score 500 goals.

The Rocket takes place in an era when athletes seemed much tougher, when players treated each other with genuine meanness, and team rivalries were driven more by hatred than by good-natured competitive spirit. The game was not sanitized for family viewing, and violence and bloodletting were common. It was a time when steak and potatoes were considered a healthy meal, and athletes smoked a good cigar before and after the game. Hockey players didn’t have business agents but had day jobs, and management considered them disposable rather than prized assets.

Binamé effectively engages us quickly in the story of the "Rocket" by opening with newsreel footage of Montreal’s infamous St. Catherine Street riots of 1955, which were sparked by the announcement of the suspension of "Rocket" Richard for clubbing a Boston player with his hockey stick, then punching out a referee. We wonder: How could the suspension of a hockey player have caused such a violent reaction?

Then Binamé takes us back to 1937. We see the 16-year-old Maurice Richard (François Langlois-Vallières) playing hockey and meeting Lucille Norchet (Julie LeBreton), the 13-year-old girl he was to marry five years later. From then on, the story unfolds in linear fashion. Flash forward to 1942, when Richard (now played by Roy Dupuis), still a metalworker, asks Lucille’s father (Michel Barrette) for permission to marry her and is rejected because of his poor earning prospects. The couple marries against the father’s wishes and begin life together in a small apartment. When Richard tries out for the Montreal Canadians, the coaches test his toughness by sending in a goon to fight him on the ice. Richard survives the confrontation and is picked up by "Les Canadiens."

Roy Dupuis, better known to North American audiences as the assassin Michael on the television series Nikita, gives a convincing performance as the adult "Rocket" Richard, as does fellow Canadian actor Stephen McHattie as the legendary Montreal coach Dick Irvin, Sr., who at times used insults and humiliation to extort great playing from his team.

Binamé well captures the feel of old-time hockey, using hockey gear of the 1940s and ’50s and a realistic reconstruction of The Forum, where poor patrons were separated from the rich by a wire fence. Much of the action takes place in dimly lit hockey arenas, and though I know Binamé filmed The Rocket in color (because of the blood), it feels like a black-and-white film noir.

The Rocket is no candy-coated tale of Richard’s feats of scoring, but a raw portrayal of him, and his experiences as a Francophone working in an Anglophone organization at a time when many French-speaking Canadians believed that big business was run by the English, and that they discriminated against the French. The film explores the anguish faced by Richard and his family when his team fails to protect him on the ice as many other teams protected their star players, and provides, at the very least, an explanation of why so many French Canadians adopted Richard as their own personal hero.

The Rocket was released in Quebec as Maurice Richard -- after all, no one in the province would ever have asked, "Who’s he?" Mostly in French with English subtitles, The Rocket will be especially enjoyed by those who love hockey, who are interested in the history of sport, or who have even a mild interest in the politics of Canada and Quebec.

• Go Back