Former Canadiens captain Yvan Cournoyer appointed to Order of Canada
Former Canadiens captain Yvan Cournoyer was among 56 people appointed as officers of the Order of Canada on Friday morning by Governor General Louise Arbour.
The Order of Canada is considered the country’s highest civilian honour.
Cournoyer, 82, won 10 Stanley Cups during his 16 seasons with the Canadiens. Former teammate Henri Richard is the only player to win more Stanley Cups, with 11. Jean Béliveau also won 10 Stanley Cups with the Canadiens. Béliveau was named a companion of the Order of Canada in 1998.
Cournoyer was captain of the Canadiens for his final four seasons before retiring after the team won the Stanley Cup in 1979. He played only 15 games during the 1978-79 season because of injuries.
Cournoyer was also part of Team Canada for the 1972 Summit Series against the Soviet Union. After Paul Henderson scored the series-winning goal in Game 8 in the Soviet Union, he jumped into the arms of Cournoyer in what became an iconic celebration photo taken by Denis Brodeur.
Cournoyer also scored a third-period goal in that game that tied the score 5-5 and set the stage for Henderson’s winner with 34 seconds left on the clock.
“I have seen Cournoyer score almost all of his 428 NHL goals — and was there for all of his 10 Stanley Cups — but the goal I remember most goes back to the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union,” the late Red Fisher wrote in The Gazette about Cournoyer’s tying goal in Game 8 of the Summit Series.
Cournoyer’s 428 career regular-season goals rank fourth in Canadiens history behind Maurice Richard (544), Guy Lafleur (518) and Béliveau (507). Cournoyer scored a career-high 47 goals in 1971-72. He was named one of the NHL’s Top 100 players in 2017.
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“Somebody once asked me how come I never scored 50 goals in a season,” Cournoyer once told Fisher, who died in 2018 at age 91, a year after being named a member of the Order of Canada. “I said I didn’t need 50 goals in a season. It wasn’t a personal thing with me. All that mattered was winning. We won a lot as a team.”
Cournoyer, who continues to work as an ambassador for the Canadiens, carried the team’s iconic torch into the Bell Centre ahead of Game 3 of the first-round playoff series this year against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
