Richard Riot

The Richard Riot was a riot on March 17, 1955 (Saint Patrick's Day), in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The riot was named after Maurice Richard, the star ice hockey player for the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League (NHL). Following a violent altercation on March 13 in which Richard hit a linesman, NHL president Clarence Campbell suspended him for the remainder of the 1954–55 NHL season, including the playoffs. Montreal fans protested that the suspension was too severe; the team's largely Francophone fan base claimed the length of the suspension was motivated by Richard's French Canadian ethnicity. Outside of Montreal, however, the suspension was seen as justified and, if anything, too short.

On March 17, Campbell appeared at the Montreal Forum for the Canadiens' first game after Richard's suspension. His presence provoked a riot at the Forum that spilled into the streets. The riot caused an estimated $100,000 in property damage, thirty-seven injuries, and 100 arrests. Tensions eased after Richard made a personal plea accepting his punishment and promising to return the following year to help the team win the Stanley Cup. The incident likely cost Richard the 1954–55 scoring title (an honour Richard never achieved in his NHL career) and played a role in the off-season departure of longtime Canadiens head coach Dick Irvin.

Maurice Richard was the star player for the Montreal Canadiens, and it was common for opponents to provoke him during games. Teams reportedly sent players onto the ice to purposefully annoy him by yelling ethnic slurs,hooking, slashing, and holding him as much as possible. Throughout his career, Richard was fined and suspended several times for retaliatory assaults on players and officials, including a $250 fine for slapping a linesman in the face less than three months before the March 13, 1955 incident. Richard was considered the embodiment of French-Canadians and was a hero during a time when they were seen as second-class citizens. He was revered when he fought the "damn English" during games. In his book, The Rocket: A Cultural History of Maurice Richard, Benoît Melançon compares Richard to Major League Baseball's Jackie Robinson by stating that both players represented the possibility for their minority groups to succeed in North America.

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