Wil Larochelle and the Healing Power of the Morenz Game
Joseph Omer Wildor Larochelle appeared, like Gus Rivers, to have one of the most unlikely backgrounds to have qualified to play for the Canadiens, and to wear the number 10 sweater: La presse, 4 novembre 1930, p.24, c.4. The local media were not particularly consistent about his birthdate – being either September 2, 1906: Le devoir, 23 mars 1964; or September 23, 1906: Montreal Matin, 23 mars 1964;, support the age of 19 at his first training camp. Wil arrived in Montreal when he was just 19, and only 3 years of local hockey down the river in his hometown of Sorel. He had come to the big city in the fall of 1925 to find a new team, and sought guidance from Jos Choquette, the stick maker.
Choquette knew that Leo Dandurand had seen the lad play a few times, and suggested that Wil work out with the Canadiens for a week during training camp while Choquette looked around: Marcel Desjardins “Entre Nous”, La presse, 29 janvier 1963.
Larochelle was a sensation, lively enough to become known immediately in the English press as “the Sorel Sky-rocket.” Le devoir, 23 mars 1964, used the word “sensation.” In Toronto they referred to him as “that ‘Firecracker’ Larochelle.”: The Globe, February 7, 1930, p.10, c.1.
Imaginations projected a brilliant career for his future, just as they had two years before for Howie Morenz. After that first week, Willie Larochelle arrived in Montreal to sign a three year contract so that his son could play professional hockey with the Canadiens.
Reality after that initial training camp success had been more humbling. Wil managed just 8 scoring points in 106 NHL games over those first three seasons: 5 goals, 3 assists. His role on the team fluctuated with his offensive production. This season he had been expected to play on the second line, beside Pit Lepine and Georges Mantha, ahead of Gus Rivers and Johnny Gagnon but behind Nick Wasnie: La presse, 7 novembre 1930, p.24, c.1 – 2.
Despite the quiet of his offense, he made great friendships on the club and around the League:
Il a toujours loui d’une grande popularite tant aupres de ses coequipiers que de ses adversaires. Montreal Matin, 23 mars 1964
During his time with the Canadiens Wil became particularly inseparable from Armand Mondou, a relationship that continued during their retirement.: Le devoir, 23 mars 1964; The Gazette, March 25, 1930, p.16. The two of them lived with Mondou’s parents during the season, and socialized, holidayed in the States, and did promotional appearances together during the summers: e.g., The Gazette, February 18, 1935, p.18, c.5; La presse, 11 octobre 1930, p.41, c.4. Like Howie Morenz and others, he also spent a lot of the summer at the horse racing tracks: The Montreal Daily Star, April 1, 1930, p.28, c.2.
This season, they had also gone to hospital together after both suffering injuries in the team’s first game at Chicago: Mondou a knee complaint after running into a goal post, and Larochelle for an injured arm and shoulder as a result of a collision with Taffy Abel: La presse, 26 novembre 1930, p.24, c.4 – 5. Larochelle left hospital first: La presse, 28 novembre 1930, p.30, c.1.
After those difficult first three years, Wil spent a year in the Can-Am League. He returned to the Canadiens for his best years starting in the fall of 1929. Instead of just being a speedy skater, he had now developed a reputation as a brainy, thinking type of player:
Larochelle n’a jamais eu la reputation d’etre un compteur prolifique, mais il etait un habile fabricant de jeux et il etait tres intelligent: Montreal Matin, 23 mars 1964.
He was a “pinch hitter,” with the skill and felicity to be able to play both offence and defence at high speed: The Montreal Daily Star, April 9, 1931, p.38, c.4 – 5; Le devoir, 23 mars 1964.
He would often find a way to chip in an important goal during games when the big scorers were being neutralized. In the spring of 1930 he had scored the only goal in the Canadiens’ first playoff game against Chicago: The Gazette, March 29, 1930, p.20, c.1. This season he would score two overtime goals against the Bruins to secure the Canadiens’ NHL Championship, and launch them into the Stanley Cup Final series.
That was enough success to justify his place on the Canadiens’ roster, but Wil Larochelle created a career of 10 full seasons in the uniform. Years later he summed up his transformation as a player in a few short sentences:
Les conseils sont faciles. Que les jeunes patinent a tout allure, qu’ils passent la rondelle. Qu’il ecoutent aussi leur gerant. . . .Qu’ils regardent avant de lancer. Combien plus de buts seraient comptes si les joueurs se donnaient la peine de regarder ou ils lancent.
Wil Larochelle as quoted by Marcel Desjardins, “Entre Nous”, La presse, 29 janvier 1963
Larochelle’s light scoring this season had been due in part to missing 4 games earlier in the season with a “separated shoulder”: La presse, 28 novembre 1931, p.30, c.1; The Montreal Daily Star, November 26, 1930, p.28, c.7; The Montreal Daily Star, November 28, 1930, p.38, c.1 – 2; The Montreal Daily Star, December 5, 1930, p.38, c.3
That injury had prevented him from being able to shoot: La presse, 28 novembre 1931, p.30, c.1; 3 decembre 1930, p.22, c.7 – 8. It had alao required a short stay at Dr Sir Henry Gray’s hospital. It would be the most significant injury of his hockey career.
On this night against the Falcons, he had been given the opportunity to start. It was an opportunity to play with Pit Lepine and Aurel Joliat, as a bit of an “experiment” by Cecil Hart to once again try to unlock Wil’s offence: The Gazette, February 27, 1931, p.16, c.1. As it turned out, he did score a goal and was credited with an assist in the Canadiens’ 5 – 0 victory.
By this point in his career, including his Stanley Cup win in the spring of 1930, he was finally confident enough about his skills to be giving advice to his younger brother Dollard Larochelle, who was with the Canadien Junior and looking to follow him to the senior club: La presse, 1 decembre 1930, p.2, c.4.
In 1933 – 1934, Larochelle actually finished second in Canadiens’ team scoring to Aurel Joliat, and 23rd in the League. That put him ahead of both Johnny Gagnon and Howie Morenz: Joliat: 22G+15A=37; Larochelle: 16G+11A=27; Gagnon: 9G+15A=24; Morenz: 8G+13A=21. After Howie Morenz was sold to Chicago in October, 1934, Larochelle moved up to the first line full-time and had his most explosive offensive season as a member of the Canadiens, accumulating 28 points on 9 goals and 19 assists, fulfilling new coach Newsy Lalonde’s hopes for him. Larochelle finished third in team scoring that year behind Pit Lepine and Aurel Joliat:The Gazette, October 19, 1934, p.12. c.5. That was his last flash with the Canadiens. About a third of the way into the 1935 – 1936 season, and just 2 assists after 12 games, he too was sold to Chicago.
Years later, his mind played a trick that spoke eloquently about his feelings about how it felt to play both with Morenz on the club, and without him. Wil told Marcel Desjardins of La presse in 1963 that he had left the Canadiens with Morenz. Larochelle had effectively erased his personal achievements of that 1934 – 35 season from his memory. Instead, he remembered Chicago – where he was able to continue to play with Howie Morenz, even though the reunion was actually only for a few weeks: New York Daily News, December 25, 1935, p.39, c.5.
Larochelle was still playing for Chicago on the night of January 28, 1937, when he watched Howie Morenz shatter his leg in that collision with the end boards:
Je jouais alors pour le Chicago, le soir que Morenz se fractura la cheville apres avoir ete mis en echec par Earl Siebert. . . . Ce fut la derniere fois que je vis Howie.
as quoted by Marcel Desjardins, “Entre Nous”, La presse, 29 janvier 1963
If Wil remembered that he had scored three goals that night for Chicago in a loss to the Canadiens (which he had), that held no continuing importance to him. The month after the Morenz injury had been quite difficult for him personally. The Hawks schedule had kept them at home between January 31 and February 18. His father Willie, who had signed Wil’s first contract, died on February 8: The Gazette, February 9, 1937, p.9, c.2. Wil didn’t miss a game – which meant he must have missed the funeral: The Hawks played the Maroons on January 31, New York Americans on February 7, New York Rangers on February 11, and Boston on February 14.
Wil had attempted to visit Morenz in the hospital when the Hawks’ schedule brought him back to Montreal, but reported that Howie’s hospital room had been closed:
A la visite suivante du Chicago a Montreal, je voulu aller le voir a l’hopital mais le medecin nous fit savoir qu’il n’etait pas en etat de nous recevoir
as quoted by Marcel Desjardins, “Entre Nous”, La presse, 29 janvier 1963
He had remembered that as “la visite suivante,” following the Morenz broken leg on January 26, 1937.
His Hawks had played the Maroons at the Forum on February 20, and the Canadiens at the Forum on March 4. If we trust Larochelle’s memory as to “la visite suivante,” the attempted visit would have been in the area of February 19 – 20, 1937. However, based on the comments of Dr Hector Forgues locating Howie Morenz’s nervous breakdown as after February 20, Larochelle may have been referencing the March 4 fixture involving the Hawks and Canadiens at the Forum: The Stratford Beacon-Herald, March 9, 1937, p.1, c.7 – 8.
Wil Larochelle had a persistent anxiety that he could, perhaps even should, have done more for Howie Morenz when Morenz had been isolated in a hospital room – just as Wil would endure for a dozen years..
Howie’s last season became Wil’s last season in the NHL as well. Always having been physically slight – he played at about 160: La presse, 21 octobre 1930, p.23, c.7 – 8 – his own health was fragile and already deteriorating in the spring of 1937.
Larochelle’s professional hockey career concluded with 21 games at New Haven in the International American Hockey League during the 1937 – 1938 season, after which he returned to Quebec, and helped out with the family’s Central Hotel business in Sorel: The Gazette, February 9, 1937, p.9, c.2; March 23, 1964, p.unknown, c.3. Once retired, he made time to play with his former teammates when the opportunity presented itself – like at the Victory Loan Sports Parade at the Forum in late February 1942: The Gazette, February 25, 1942, p.18, c.1 – 8.
But by 1952, 15 years after his last NHL game, he was ensconced at l’hopital St-Joseph de Rosemont, suffering from tuberculosis: Marcel Desjardins “Entre Nous”, La presse, 29 janvier 1963. He was confined there for the next 12 years – until his death.
During his long days inside the walls of the convalescent home Wil delighted in thinking back to when he had been young, and playing with the Canadiens. He continued to remember Morenz and Joliat with excitement. More than 30 years after playing the game professionally, Wil Larochelle continued to remember Howie Morenz as the best he had ever seen:
. . . un admirateur de Howie Morenz le plus spectaculaire de tous. “Morenz partait d’un bout de la patinoire avec le rondelle et filait a toute allure non seulement jusqu’a l’autre extremite, mais il revenait tout aussi rapidement dans sa zone.”
as quoted by Marcel Desjardins, “Entre Nous”, La presse, 29 janvier 1963
For Larochelle, Howie Morenz was not only a physical but also a spiritual, energizing force – the:
. . . inspiration of Canadiens when it was possibly the greatest team that ever played hockey. In leadership and for dynamic play, Howie had no peer and it was his fire that raised the whole team to the heights of hockey accomplishment.
Attributed to Wil Larochelle in “Hawk Players Grieve”, Canadian Press, Chicago, March 10, 1937; possibly The Stratford Beacon-Herald, March 10, 1937, p.1, c.6
Wil Larochelle knew the comfort provided by the contented memories of his own career, the regular company of friends, and was overwhelmed when flocks of school children came to visit him at the convalescent home. All of them brightened his life for a dozen years.
During Larochelle’s dozen years of hospice confinement his Canadiens family learned to visit him: Joliat would come from Ottawa four or five times a year; Armand Mondou came too, Pit Lepine until he died in ’55, Albert Leduc, and even Leo Dandurand until he too got sick, and died. Occasionally a newspaper writer would drop around. This was something that the Canadiens’ brotherhood would continue to do for teammates over the remainder of the millennium: e.g., Fisher, Red; “What Really Counts: A Visit with Toe Blake”, The Gazette, December 18, 1991, in in Cole, Cam, ed.; Ice Level: Greatest Hockey Stories from the Last 50 Years, CanWest Books (Toronto:2005), pp.73 – 76
Wil Larochelle slipped into a coma in early March, 1964: Montreal Matin, 23 mars 1964, and then died March 20, 1964: The Gazette, March 23, 1964, p.unknown, c.3; Le devoir, 23 mars 1964, p.unknown, c.7 – 8; Montreal Matin, 23 mars 1964, p.unknown, c.6.