Longtime Hab captain helped spark dynasty
MONTREAL— Emile (Butch) Bouchard, a longtime Montreal Canadiens captain and four-time Stanley Cup winner, died Saturday. He was 92. Friend and sports analyst Ron Fournier says Bouchard was surrounded by his family when he died. The defenceman scored 49 goals in 785 games during a 15-year NHL career, captaining the Habs for eight seasons before retiring in 1956. The Canadiens won the Stanley Cup four times while Bouchard was with the team, twice while he was captain. “He was one of the great captains in the history of the Canadiens,” Rejean Houle, the Habs alumni president who played with the Canadiens in the1970s and 80s, said in an interview Saturday. “It was a period where the team really became a dynasty.” Pierre Bouchard, a member of the Canadiens from 1970 to 1978, said his father remained active until the end of his life. “He was getting old, but he was in good shape,” he said. The Canadiens issued a release saying the organization was “deeply saddened” by Bouchard’s death. Born in Montreal on Sept. 4, 1919, Emile Bouchard wasn’t planning on a career in hockey after originally wanting to work in banking or as a beekeeper. He competed in many sports growing up, including baseball and boxing. Around age 16 he began to take hockey seriously. After borrowing $35 from his brother to buy equipment, Bouchard began playing for the Verdun Maple Leafs of Quebec’s old Provincial Senior League. The rugged 6-foot-2, 205-pound Bouchard quickly got noticed and the Montreal Canadiens offered him his first professional contract to play with their minor league club in Providence, R.I. He played 12 games for the team in 1940-41. Bouchard grabbed the big club’s attention at training camp the following year when he made the 80kilometre trip by bicycle from his home in Montreal to the training site in St-hyacinthe, Que. He earned a spot on the blue line and played the next 15 seasons. Bouchard was inducted by the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1966.