Maurice is an intimate look at Quebec's biggest hockey hero

CBC

02-03-2025

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Le Bel Écran is a monthly column about Quebec's screen culture from a local perspective.
Nearly three decades after he retired from hockey, I was introduced to Maurice "The Rocket" Richard when our school librarian read us Roch Carrier's The Hockey Sweater. A picture book set in late 1940s rural Quebec, the illustrations feature flashes of red and blue against a mostly snowy backdrop. In the story, every kid in the small town has the same Montreal Canadiens #9 sweater, for their hero, The Rocket. One day, Carrier's mother accidentally orders the wrong replacement jersey, a blue Toronto Maple Leafs sweater. Forced to wear the colours of the Canadiens' bitter rivals, Carrier finds himself an outsider, struck by a deep crisis in identity and community.
It didn't occur to me as a child that Carrier's book was anything more than a story. In the first few pages, he writes, "Real battles were won on the skating-rink. Real strength appeared on the skating-rink. The real leaders showed themselves on the skating-rink." Looking back on it now, it's clear now that hockey was more than just a game, the same way the Rocket Richard was more than just a player.
The French language trailer for Maurice:
Serge Giguère has been working on documentary films for over half a century now. His career began as a cameraperson at the National Film Board, but he soon began making his own films. The scope of his filmmaking is diverse, from portraits of folk musicians to personal reflections on his own relationship to his mother. The diversity of his filmmaking reaches towards a common theme: capturing the life, dreams and ambitions of the Québécois people.
With his most recent film, Maurice, Giguère picks up the mantle of long-time collaborator and friend Robert Tremblay. For decades Tremblay has been working on his magnum opus, a documentary on Maurice Richard. Since the early 1980s, Tremblay has been shooting intimate scenes of The Rocket's life post-retirement. What began as one behind-the-scenes documentary at an Old-Timers game, an exhibition match featuring retired NHL players, expanded into 35 years worth of footage shot with Maurice Richard. After his death a few years ago, Tremblay left an archive of previously unseen footage, archival material and indecipherable notes for Giguère to shape into his film.
I spoke with Giguère the morning after Canada beat the USA in the 4 Nations Face-Off. I asked about the game but Giguère laughed, "I'm not really a hockey fan. Growing up my dad preferred to watch combat sports. I never played hockey. I prefer individual sports like tennis. You must find it strange that I made this film…"
I did find it strange, but then again, Maurice isn't your typical sports film. As Giguère continues, it becomes increasingly clear that this film in many ways is a tribute to his lost friend, as well as a cultural history of Quebec with The Rocket as a lens. "My friend, Robert Tremblay, he loved hockey. I was already making my own films when we began making this film in the early 1980s. I was his camer aperson. I liked his approach — a documentary about people coming together, whether it's Maurice Richard or a city garbage worker. We had the same attitude, to listen and to depict life as it was lived."
The scenes that Giguère is describing are the touchstone of the documentary. In these sequences, the rather stoic but attentive Richard, interacts mostly with younger people in group settings; a fishing trip or an arena working with at-risk youth. We have a sense of The Rocket's imposing majesty as children group around him. Most weren't even born before the time he retired, but his image was inescapable. Some children say to him, "you were my dad's favourite player," eying him with reverence reserved for a living God.
In some ways, this framing of the film, positions Richard as a kind of holy father within Quebec. "Richard became an institution here in Quebec and long before Céline Dion, he became our first ambassador abroad," explains Giguère. "There's a library here where I live in Victoriaville," he continues, "they have these giant posters. First you have Elvis Presley, then the Pope, Mother Teresa, there's Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles and then, right at the end is a hockey player: Maurice Richard."
The looming myth of the Rocket is deconstructed within the film. Richard's extraordinary prowess and success as a hockey player set the tone for his legendary status. Though there are other hockey players with his popularity and influence, Richard came to symbolize a particularly Québécois hero. Giguère explains that unlike some of the more "gentleman stars" of the game, like Jean Béliveau or Gordie Howe, Richard was popular in part due to his unpredictability, his emotiveness and his Frenchness. A rather quiet public figure, it became easy to project onto his image grand ideas about identity, inequality and redemption.
Part of the film tackles the legendary Richard Riots which took place in 1955. After being suspended for the end of the season, on St. Patrick's Day, a large riot protesting the decision took place outside of the Montreal Forum where the Canadiens played. The event quickly became more than just about hockey, and is often discussed as a precursor to the Quiet Revolution. Pitting Richard against the English speaking president of the league, President Campbell, the riot has been framed as a kind of uprising against the unequal and unfair treatment many Quebecois endured under the English language rule. Despite being a majority in the province, French speakers in Quebec faced significant discrimination in most aspects of public life, as English was prioritized by elites, but also in nearly all public services.
While that night, Richard went on the radio to plead for people to stop, his action on the ice — tempestuous and emotive — became symbolic of an unwillingness to sit down quietly. The film examines how, despite his own reticence to talk politics publically, Richard became a symbol not only in the growing Quebec national identity, but was taken up as a symbol among other oppressed groups within Canada.
Maurice was selected as the closing night film of the Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma, the largest showcase of Quebec cinema in the province. "It only seems natural," says Laura Rohard the director of the festival, "to close our 2025 edition with the long-awaited premiere of Maurice, directed by one of our greatest documentarians, Serge Giguère. The film's unifying theme is not only a vibrant homage but also a moving portrait of an icon."
As a documentary, Maurice reaches to capture a man beyond the ice. Giguère, a non-hockey fan, inevitably frames the movie around his lost friend Robert Tremblay's passion. It's a film portrait of friendship and community, tied together through the influence of one of Quebec's greatest heroes.