TEAM CAPTAIN FOR EIGHT SEASONS, ÉMILE BOUCHARD DISHED OUT SOLID HITS AND MADE PASSES LIKE NO ONE ELSE.

When Emile Bouchard attended his first Canadiens training camp, he arrived in a less than conventional fashion. The man more commonly known as “Butch” to fans and friends and alike climbed on a bike and cycled the 50 miles from his Montreal home to Ste-Hyacinthe, site of the Habs preseason workouts.

At 6-foot-2 and 205 pounds, Bouchard’s size got him noticed right from the start. He joined the Canadiens to start the 1941-42 season and never looked back. He would remain a stalwart on the blue line and an essential component of the Montreal teams that defined hockey excellence in the 1940s and 1950s.

The strongest man in the league, Bouchard played a robust brand of hockey. While other defensemen around the league resorted to more underhanded tactics, Butch hit with his hip rather than his fists. After a short period of introduction, he was rarely invited to engage in fisticuffs and probably stopped more fights that he took part in, often seizing both combatants and keeping them at arm’s length until they cooled off.

Playing in an era when a defenseman’s job rarely took him beyond center ice, Bouchard specialized in separating oncoming attackers from the puck and redirecting it back in the direction from which it came. Once a Montreal forward gained possession, it was a good bet that the play would be in enemy territory for the next little while.

Good-natured and easygoing, Bouchard’s dry sense of humor and gift for the “bon mot” made him popular with fans, teammates and writers. The same traits also made him one of the more proficient practical jokers on the team.

As the 1940s unfolded, the Canadiens rose to the top of the league. They won the Stanley Cup in 1944 and again in 1946. Prior to the 1948-49 season, Bouchard, by then a seven-year veteran and the longest serving defenseman on the team, was named captain.

He wore the “C” proudly for eight seasons, leading fellow veterans by example and taking youngsters under his wing. NHL President Clarence Campbell handed Bouchard the Stanley Cup in the spring of 1953 and again following his final game at the Forum on April 10, 1956.

Bouchard was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1966.
On March 11, 1996, the Canadiens played their last game at the Montreal Forum. The post-game closing ceremony saw a torch was passed from one man to another, starting with then-captain Pierre Turgeon and going back in time, to all but three of his living predecessors. The last man to receive the flame was “Butch” Bouchard.

An entrepreneur who set up his first businesses in his youth, Bouchard put his hockey fame to use outside the game, owning and operating a successful downtown restaurant. The site of numerous team events over the years, it was also a popular destination for Montrealers to enjoy a night out on the town.

Butch’s son, Pierre, later spent eight years with on the Canadiens’ blue line, taking part in five Stanley Cup victories with the powerhouse squads of the 1970s.

On December 4, 2009, the day of the 100th anniversary of the Canadiens, his famous number 3 was retired.