March 16 supplies hat trick of historic events in Canadiens lore

MONTREAL -- When you’re the oldest team in professional hockey, pre-dating the National Hockey League, anniversaries are going to crop up on your calendar.

But even by the standards of the Montreal Canadiens, March 16 basks in a spotlight, a hat trick of events spanning four decades which are important benchmarks in franchise history.

Check the boxes of the table being set for the infamous “Richard Riot;” Bernie Geoffrion becoming the second NHL player to score 50 goals in a season; and the Canadiens moving into Molson (now Bell) Centre, their home after 72 years at the legendary Montreal Forum.

On this date in 1955, superstar Maurice “Rocket” Richard was suspended by NHL President Clarence Campbell for the final three games of the regular season and all of the Stanley Cup Playoffs following a March 13 game in Boston.

Richard had struck linesman Cliff Thompson during a wild melee on Boston Garden ice during a battle with Bruins’ Hal Laycoe, blinded by rage, by the blood on his face from the stick he had taken over his head, or both.

An intense Maurice Richard in the Montreal Forum dressing room during the 1956-57 season.

The Rocket’s subsequent suspension was meted out three days later by Campbell at NHL headquarters in Montreal; the next night, St. Patrick’s Day, the city experienced the “Richard Riot.”

A tear-gas bomb that was set off in the Forum resulted in the building being cleared in a panic and the Canadiens forfeiting their game to the visiting Detroit Red Wings. Enraged fans spilled destructively into city streets, their anger a flashpoint in a revolt that would forever change the landscape of politics and hockey in Quebec.

On Sunday, 71 years less a day since perhaps the most famous suspension in NHL history, members of the Rocket’s family joined officials from the Quebec and Montreal governments and Canadiens executives for a Bell Centre ceremony.

Three of Richard’s children -- Maurice Jr., Andre and Suzanne -- were on hand for the arena-front unveiling of a plaque celebrating the most fiery leader of this franchise, an 18-season veteran who won the Stanley Cup eight times while scoring 544 regular-season goals and 82 more in the playoffs, the latter the most in team history.

The two plaques unveiled on Bell Centre on March 15, 2026, commemorating the first recorded game of hockey, played in Montreal in 1875, and the career of Canadiens legend Maurice Richard.

Richard wore the captain’s “C” from the 1956-57 season through his retirement in 1959-60, winning the Stanley Cup those four years, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1961. 
 
The Rocket was given the distinction of being named a historic figure by the province of Quebec in May 2025 to coincide with the 25th anniversary of his passing.

Translated, “The Rocket's exploits fueled the pride of hockey fans and the entire Quebec nation,” reads the French-language plaque in part. “His will to win, his courage, and his tenacity inspired several generations. A hero to an entire people, he became a true symbol of Quebec identity.”

Unveiled beside Richard’s plaque was another, commemorating the first recorded game of hockey that was played at Montreal’s Victoria rink on March 3, 1875.

Two teams of nine players each, made up of members of the Victoria Skating Club, faced off using a flat, circular wooden block that served as the puck. The 90-minute contest ended with the team of principal organizer J. G. A. Creighton, an accomplished athlete, civil engineer and McGill University law student, eking out a 2-1 victory against the squad coached by Charles E. Torrance.

Bernie “Boom Boom” Geoffrion in a team publicity shot, and holding the puck with which he scored his 50th goal of the regular season on March 16, 1961.

Half a rink length away from the plaques, a statue of the Rocket and his retired number monument stand near a monument celebrating Geoffrion and others whose numbers will never again be worn by Canadiens players.

Larger than life in every way, “Boom-Boom” was claimed by cancer just 12 hours before his No. 5 was retired by the Canadiens at Bell Centre on March 11, 2006, during an emotional ceremony. It was 10 years to the day after the team’s final game at the Forum.

Geoffrion was a living, breathing quote machine who was known as “Boomer” as much for his boisterous storytelling, the volume of his baritone laugh and his gregarious self-deprecating sense of humor as for the thunderous slap shot he pioneered.

Forty minutes after the number retirement ceremony, Canadiens legend Dickie Moore -- his own No. 12 retired four months earlier with that of Yvan Cournoyer -- considered his former teammate and dear friend, a six-time Stanley Cup champion:

Bernie Geoffrion whips his 50th goal of the 1960-61 season past Toronto goalie Cesare Maniago on March 16, 1961.

“Boom should have been in Hollywood, in the movies,” Moore said. “Al Pacino? James Cagney? Pussycats next to the Boomer. I introduced him to (then-Canadiens owner) George Gillett. Boom shook his hand and said, ‘Hmm, you’re Mr. Gillett. The man with the money. Well, I’ll tell you one thing: Don’t start your car.’ George loved it.”

Geoffrion had many memorable moments with the Canadiens, but none finer than scoring his 50th goal of the 1960-61 season. Only the Rocket had previously achieved that milestone, in 1944-45.

In besting rookie Toronto goalie Cesare Maniago at the Forum, Geoffrion cast in a long shadow the history-making feat of teammate Jean Beliveau, who would be elected Canadiens captain before the start of the 1961-62 season following the departure of Doug Harvey to the New York Rangers.

Beliveau’s 57th and 58th assists in a 5-2 win against the visiting Maple Leafs that night pushed him past Toronto’s Bert Olmstead for the NHL single-season record in that category, Olmstead’s 56 assists registered with the Canadiens in 1955-56.

A Vancouver Sun story reports on Bernie Geoffrion’s 50th goal of the 1960-61 season.

“It’s like a dream,” Geoffrion said. “I’m afraid I’ll wake up and find it isn’t true. I didn’t sleep a wink the night before the game. I looked over at my wife, Marlene (the daughter of Canadiens icon Howie Morenz), at 5 a.m. and she wasn’t sleeping, either.

“I said to her, ‘Why are you worrying, you don’t have to play the game,’ and she replied, ‘Stop worrying. You’ll score your 50th tonight.”

Richard, in his first year of retirement, was at a dinner in Ottawa.

“I’d have liked Rocket to have been here to see my 50th,” Geoffrion said. “About three weeks ago, he said to me, ‘Keep working hard, Boom, and you’ll reach my record.’”

It was Geoffrion’s most prolific season, by far, never before or after scoring more than 38 in a season.

Molson (now Bell) Centre under construction in the mid-1990s before its 1996 opening.

Boomer’s number retirement is one of many dramatic moments celebrated at Bell Centre since its first game 30 years ago this March 16, a 4-2 win against the New York Rangers.

The team is still looking for its first Stanley Cup championship since its most recent in 1993, having moved from the Forum on whose ice they won 12 of their 24 championships.

Bell Centre rose a few blocks southeast of the Forum, 50,000 tons of foundation concrete, 4,000 tons of steel in the roof and an unrivalled history hanging as banners from the rafters.

The Canadiens’ dressing room in the new arena brought from the Forum the inspirational words from Canadian Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae’s World War I poem In Flanders Fields: “To you from failing hands we throw the torch, be yours to hold it high,” 1995-96 captain Pierre Turgeon holding a symbolic flaming torch to center ice to complete the team’s move.

Four years later, more than 115,000 mourners streamed silently into the darkened arena to view the mighty Rocket one last time in his open casket, Richard having died of cancer on May 27, 2000.

Opening night of Molson (now Bell) Centre on March 16, 1996.

Richard’s body was at one end of the rink, appropriately in the high slot that he ruled throughout his illustrious career. In 2014, then in 2022, the bodies of Beliveau and Guy Lafleur similarly lay in state for public visitation.

None of the Canadiens’ three crown jewels had ever played in this arena but all were revered any time they mingled with fans, the foundation trembling when they were seen on the scoreboard.

Fewer are those who remember the Rocket’s boiling-blood offense, the Boomer’s magical 50th or even the stirring opening of the Canadiens’ current home.

But three events on a single calendar date speak importantly of this team and the place it holds in the hearts and souls of fans to whom a 25th Stanley Cup championship would be new history fully embraced.

Top photo: from left, Maurice Richard Jr., his brother Andre and sister Suzanne admire the new plaque honoring their father, unveiled on Montreal’s Bell Centre on March 14, 2026.