MONTREAL – Among the thousands who gathered on the Boulevard Rene-Levesque in front of the Basilique Marie-Reine-du-Monde to pay homage to Guy Lafleur was Antoine Peyo-Charost, 20 years old – too young to see the man builds an eternal heritage, but is not too young to help carry that heritage forward.
“He was a giant of a player, but also a giant of a man who helped define Quebec and its culture, as our parents and grandparents told us,” said Peyo-Charost. “Even if we have never seen him play, we have heard all the stories about him and we consider him a role model.
He hopes to one day tell his children about Guy Lafleur, the man who scored more than 500 goals and won five Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens, the Hall of Fame that rose to prominence in the footsteps of Maurice “Rocket” Richard and Jean ” Le Gros Bill ”Belivo.
He hopes to tell them how he was there that sunny Tuesday morning, participating in something he knew he would always remember, clapping and chanting Guy! Guy! Guy! as Lafleur’s coffin was carried both inside and outside the church.
“He marked our lives so much,” said Gilles Morensi, 64, who was 20 steps from Peyo-Charost with tears in his eyes. “He is a part of me. He was a handsome man, an incredible hockey player, an incredible talent. He was the greatest Quebecist of all. “
Lafleur was Guy! Guy! Guy! to Morensi and to all the fans who came out en masse, wearing their number 10 T-shirts to honor his memory.
Lafleur was Guy too! Guy! Guy! to his former teammates, who honored their friend, the hockey player, with praises, uttered so eloquently and gracefully shortly after 11 o’clock in the morning
“A man once said you play every game like it’s the last,” said Larry Robinson. “No one embodied this philosophy more than Guy. And not only did he play every game to the fullest; he tried to live his life to the fullest and off the ice. “
Guy Carbono and Patrick Roy spoke of a welcome to the Canadiens from Lafleur in the early 1980s, about how a player with such a celebrated status humbled himself to make them feel part of the team.
“In the 1970s, everyone in Quebec wanted to be Guy Lafleur,” Roy said. “I wanted to be Ken Dryden so I could play on the same team as Guy Lafleur. Guy was a player who was older than life, who achieved unlimited feats. He was a hero, an inspiration and a living proof that we can achieve what we dreamed of.
“In 1984, when I walked through the doors of the Forum and walked down the hall to the locker room to participate in my first training session with the Montreal Canadiens, I accepted this character who was sitting in front of me; his height, his presence, his charisma, ”Roy continued. “No. 10 got dressed in five minutes. Frightened, impressed, I had a surreal moment, and before I left the room, he patted me on the mats to say, ‘Hey, kid, welcome to Canadiens.’
“I think it was Guy Lafleur. He had a heart, deep respect, and incredible generosity. He was the man who took the time to know that just a few words from him would make everything different for you. It was his way of saying we were on the same team, that he would be by my side, even if he was going to shoot at me non-stop for the next few minutes. ”
Ivan Cournoye, the former captain of the Canadiens and the most profitable member of the organization, still alive, thanked the late Sam Pollock, the architect of the dynastic Canadiens in the 1970s, for making Lafleur, and said: “It allowed the fans and us to appreciate it for many years and win five Stanley Cups. His speech ended with, Guy! Guy! Guy!
To his 90-year-old mother, Pierrette, and his sisters, Susanna, 71, Giselle, 68, Liz, 65, and Lucy (who turned 62 on Tuesday), he was simply Guy.
In an interview with Sportsnet last week, Liz shared how she will keep forever memories of long before he became a global icon – memories of how he lived to make fun of her and her sisters, how he will hide under their beds and be kicked to scare them at every opportunity.
She spoke fondly of family vacations before Guy Lafleur became the hockey player she and her sisters inevitably had to share with the world.
“We went to a hunting and fishing camp where our parents brought us, and we went there by train with my grandfather,” Liz said. “They had those old cars and we had a lot of fun together. We loved fishing – no electricity, just each other. We spent a week there and these are really good memories. “
They are the ones that Liz, her sisters and her mother cling to, since the last ones formed with Guy were much more sobering, gloomy and painful.
“We saw him last Wednesday (36 hours before he died on April 22) and he was suffering a lot,” Liz said. “He was conscious, clear; he recognized us and managed to talk to us. But that was the last time we saw him. He died on the night of Thursday to Friday.
“It was the four of us (sisters), my mother and Guy. They said we had to go in threes at a time because he was in a palliative care residence and had COVID protocols, but Guy insisted we be all five together. He wanted us all to be in his room, and we stayed with him all afternoon.
They talked about life, recalled, and said, “See you soon,” thinking they would see each other again before they had to say goodbye.
“He was fighting. He wanted to go home, he didn’t want to stay there, “Liz said. “He told the doctor that he wanted to be given something to increase his strength, and the doctor told him that he could not do it. It was impossible and there was nothing to do. Still, we thought there were at least a few more weeks.
Lafleur died after a two-year battle with lung cancer between 1 and 1:30 a.m. this Friday, leaving everyone who knew him – or knew about him – to feel that he had disappeared too soon.
People immediately flocked from all over the country and the countryside to the Centennial Plaza, outside the Bell Center, to leave flowers and notes next to the statue of Lafleur, which stands next to those of Richard and Belive.
Days later, when the team met the Boston Bruins in the city for the first home game since Lafleur’s move, fans filled the hall and chanted his name and roared in full force for 10 minutes and 10 seconds before a moment of silence. interrupted by more chants and more roars. Lafleur’s family watched from a candlelight vigil outside the arena that bears his name in his hometown of Turso, Que.
Last Sunday and Monday, Lafleur lay near the central ice under his retired shirt, and the Canadians decorated the space as the sanctuary of his career. In addition to the Stanley Cup and the most prestigious NHL awards he has won several times, Lafleur’s wife, Liz, and their sons, Martin and Mark, greeted thousands of people who came to pay their respects and say goodbye.
Many others lined the streets for Tuesday’s funeral, watching former teammates, former opponents, many current Canadians, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Quebec Prime Minister Francois Lego and Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante walk the red carpets leading to the cathedral. They chanted as the procession moved – and chanted a little louder as the coffin, draped in blue, white and blush and the Canadiens logo, was carried upstairs to the front desk.
In the middle of the service, the sensation from Quebec, Janet Reno, sang an exciting performance by L’Essentiel.
“It inspires such a strong feeling in others,” is an English translation of some of the lyrics she sang in French, “it’s a feeling that will survive even after death.”
L’Essentiel, indeed. He captured exactly what Guy Lafleur had done all his life and what Guy Lafleur would continue to do forever, after his death, in these parts.
His legacy is celebrated not only by everyone who comes to say goodbye; it was accepted so that it could be transmitted by these people.
“Guy was a fraud,” said Serge Savard, who was Lafleur’s teammate for 10 years. “He brought everyone together, made everyone feel part of something, made everyone feel like they were with him, not under them. And they can take it with them today and always. “
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