I'm too young to have ever seen him play. I do however have fond memories of my mother, who has herself recently passed away, talking about watching Guy Lafleur growing up. She wasn't a huge hockey fan as a child, but she lived in a rural Quebec household with only one television, so she watched a lot of habs games growing up. She always spoke so fondly of that era.
I was a Habs fan growing up and my brother was an Isles fan (our age difference = the two dynasties time frames at an impressionable time). My favorites were Cournoyer and Lambert but Guy was way up there. an incredible player and, in a way, like Iginla - at the very top but for a really short time between the reigns of others (in this case between Orr and Gretzky, whereas Iggy was between Gretzky/Lemieux and Sid).
When I was a kid, there were two guys above the rest. Gretzky and LaFleur. At least in my mind.
RIP Guy, there's plenty of the beautiful game being played up on that astral plane.
I'd say when I first became an 'aware' hockey fan as a little kid, Lafleur was the best player (likely him and Clarke actually. Orr was finished even if not fully retired)
as a kid really the way you tracked the entire NHL was through hockey cards- and for several years there , Lafleur was the man - 6 or 7 cards in every set, allstars, league leaders, record breakers etc
even though my dad grew up in Montreal and I was born there, he was a Red Wings guy and sort of steered me away from Lafleur and the Habs- so he was initially my favorite but I moved on quickly and for whatever reason settled on Gil Perreault and the Sabres
magically Bowman put Lafleur, Perreault and Gretzky together in the 81 Canada cup and they were tearing through the tourney until Perreault got injured
I can't remember Lafleur in his hay day, but I do remember when he came out of retirement to play for the Rangers and then Nordiques. I watched a few of his last games in 90-91 as it was known to be his farewell tour and if you wanted to say you at least watched Lafleur play, it was your last chance. Even though I was a new fan at the time, it was something you knew you couldn't miss.
Always seemed like a happy guy. Kind of like Iginla, in how he was always smiling and grateful it seemed.
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Lafleur was before my time, but I do recall meeting him as a kid -- he was signing autographs at the local Food City to promote his "Flower Power" sports drink.
I didn't get to meet him, but my father did. Even got to play against him in and old timers game. My father got sent to the box: "Two minutes for tripping. And an extra two minutes for tripping Guy Lafleur!" (It really didn't matter much; my dad was out of the box in about a minute 20 and the game's final score was something like 22-3).
But speaking to his popularity, I was selling off my hockey card collection last year. Came across a Lafleur single card. Not in bad condition. Looked up the value on Beckett's and it was only a $4 card. So I put it on the community FB group as free if anyone wanted it. Left the house for a few hours. Came back to 30 comments on the post and they had started a bidding war over this $4 card. I ended up taking $25 for the card and giving it to the food bank. The guy that came over said he really appreciated having the card because he could remember, as a kid, going to Forum and hanging out with Lafleur before the games. He always treasured that he could just chat with his hockey hero. "He didn't see me and my friends as annoying brats; he saw us as hockey fans and treated us well."
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I can't remember Lafleur in his hay day, but I do remember when he came out of retirement to play for the Rangers and then Nordiques. I watched a few of his last games in 90-91 as it was known to be his farewell tour and if you wanted to say you at least watched Lafleur play, it was your last chance.
I only had the good fortune to see Lafleur live once, and it was during that same farewell tour. But I cheered for that Habs dynasty as a kid (to the disgust of my father, a dyed-in-the-wool Leafs fan) and Lafleur was always magic on HNIC.
There was some awful hockey played in the 1970s. A lot of games went approximately like this:
1. Faceoff.
2. Someone pins the puck against the boards with his skate. Big scrum. Puck moves three inches in 15 seconds before the ref finally blows the whistle.
3. Faceoff.
4. Someone else pins the puck against the boards, three feet further along. Big scrum. Puck moves two inches in 18 seconds before the whistle.
5. Fight breaks out. Crowd is entertained until the stupid boring game resumes.
Lafleur was the polar opposite of that. He made the most dazzling plays look effortless, and he never needed to play with his knuckles. He, more than anyone else, made me a hockey fan during a dark age of the game.
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A drunken Lafleur nearly decapitated himself when he crashed into a fence. A pole smashed the window, threaded through the steering wheel and imbedded itself in the passenger seat. Lafleur, slouched to one side, escaped with a minor injury to his right earlobe.
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1) When he signed with the Nordiques the Rangers received a 5th rounder in compensation that turned into Sergei Zubov
2) He was taken in the 1991 expansion draft by the Wild and then traded back to Quebec.
That was a bit of an odd expansion draft. Minnesota North Stars got to pick players in the expansion draft because their roster was picked clean by the Sharks in the dispersal(?) draft. The guys who owned the North Stars got permission to get an expansion team and pick players from the North Stars and then the Sharks and North Stars got to pick players in an expansion draft. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_N...pansion_Drafts)
Guy Lafleur was the last selection by the North Stars and the next day was traded back to Quebec for Alan Haworth who hadn't played in the NHL since 87/88, and never did again. Lafleur then retired.
