As with all players of his era, a meeting with Marcel Bonin, who left us on Sunday, was never trivial. We listened to it without getting tired. Our notebook was filled to capacity. We had a good laugh, because the man was funny and liked to play tricks.
I tasted his medicine during a press conference which focused on an Alumni game which was going to be played as part of the National League All-Star Game at the Forum, in 1993. Marcel had placed ice cubes on my chair, while I sat at a table where former players from the major champion editions from 1956 to 1960 were seated.
The Rocket, the Pocket Rocket, Dickie Moore and the others had a good time. That’s when I noticed that these guys weren’t exaggerating in any way when they said they had brotherly ties.
“Who are we playing against?”
Marcel was down to earth, real. You had to hear the very serious Jean Béliveau laughing when he talked about the game and Marcel’s antics.
“One day, after a team meeting during which Toe Blake gave us his instructions, Marcel asked which team we were playing against,” Béliveau recounted, laughing heartily.
It was without counting when he walked on his hands in the corridor adjoining the locker room, naked as a worm. Or when he told a spectator who came to pour beer down his neck in Chicago to aim at his mouth instead.
Sometimes Bonin would roll up his sleeves and say to his teammates: “I think Marcel is going to fight tonight.” It was in this way, moreover, that he captured the attention of the Detroit Red Wings during a preparatory game against the Quebec Aces at the Colisée in 1952.
Bonin had sent to the ground the detestable Ted Lindsay, the sworn enemy of Maurice Richard. He was 5’9″, 175 lbs, but he had great strength and would not back down from anyone.
Not even in front of a bear, as he did at 16 during a visit to the Barnum & Bailey circus in Joliette. Hence its nickname of the Bear of Joliette. But he tempered it when someone stopped him in the street to talk to him about this event.
“I didn’t last long,” he said.
“I quickly found myself behind.”
This photo clearly demonstrates the family spirit that reigned among the Canadiens in the 1950s, when the team established a record of five Stanley Cup victories in a row. We can see, from left to right on the first row, Dickie Moore, Claude Provost, Bert Olmstead, Jacques Plante, Marcel Bonin, Bob Turner and Phil Goyette. On the second row, we see Doug Harvey, Dollard St-Laurent, Henri Richard, Floyd Curry, Toe Blake, Jean-Guy Talbot, Tom Johnson, Bernard Geoffrion, Jean Béliveau, Don Marshall and Maurice Richard. COURTESY
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Life of a king with $17,500
It is common knowledge that hockey players did not get rich playing in the National League during this era. At the start of the lockout which led to the cancellation of the 2004-2005 season, Marcel told me that his highest salary had been $17,500 in 1958-1959. He received $11,500 in the regular season and bonuses of around $6,000 in the playoffs.
It was during these series that he scored around ten goals playing with the gloves of Maurice Richard, who was injured.
-“But the players were having a good life,” he told me frankly.
“Taxes were lower and we could rent a nice residence for $48 per month in Montreal. I smoked a cigar [ce qui était un signe de prospérité]I played golf and I went fishing. In the summer, I was a Molson representative and I walked everywhere.”
That year, Bonin earned nearly six times the average salary in Quebec, which amounted to $3,669.12 per year (figure provided by Statistics Canada), that is to say $70 per week.
Police officer at $58 per week
The players were still apprehensive about their post-career. Marcel had told me about the existential conversations he had with Jean Béliveau and Bernard Geoffrion, both born in 1931 like him, during the Canadian’s long train rides to Chicago, an 18-hour expedition.
“We told ourselves that we would be very happy to get a job at $100 a week after hockey,” he told me.
“I’m the only one of the three who went through that.”
A back injury forced him to retire from competition at the age of just 30. For seven years, he was a police officer for the City of Joliette.
“I earned $58 a week, but I was happy,” he told me with unequivocal sincerity.
Proud of his four children
His NHL pension brought him $490 monthly in 2004 and had just been indexed following a lawsuit won by former players against the league.
The poor condition of his back forced him to leave the police force, after which he took a position as a drug monitoring agent for the Joliette school board. During these years, he became interested in the history of New France. He had books from the 19th century in his library.e century written by Jesuits.
Beyond his four Stanley Cups, which he won with the Red Wings (1955) and the Canadiens (1958, 1959 and 1960), Marcel was particularly proud of the success of his four children.
The eldest, Richard, was an orthopedic surgeon until recently. Manon practiced law, France was a pharmacist and Michel is still a painter in his spare time. His wife Simone died in 2013.
To each and every one of you, I send you my most sincere sympathies. Your father had a good life.
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