Marner sets Cup Final record with historic hat trick for Golden Knights
“Part of the Leafian strategy was to tie up Richard,” Montreal Gazette columnist Dink Carroll wrote. “They said they could stop the Habitants by stopping him. But last night they simply could not hold the boy from Bordeaux, and to coach Dick Irvin must go an assist for the black-haired forward’s great display.”
Thirteen years later, the superlatives were flying again following Richard’s record-setting hat trick.
“Rocket Richard, author of so many glittering chapters during a 15-year career in the NHL, still remains a generous distance from closing the book,” wrote Montreal Star sports editor Baz O’Meara. “Nobody this year has so dominated a game as the Rocket did. He wasn’t only great on offense, he was wonderful on defense.”
Leaving Forum ice to a huge ovation, Richard suggested modestly that his feat wasn’t really noteworthy, the record book in disagreement for the next 69 years.
“The Rocket was just terrific,” Canadiens coach Toe Blake, a 1940s Richard linemate, said of the record-setting hat trick he had just witnessed. “He never skated any faster in his life than he did tonight.
