Joseph Henri Maurice Richard was born August 4, 1921, in Montreal. His parents, Onésime Richard and Alice Laramée, were originally from the Gaspé region of Quebec, before moving to Montreal, where they settled in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux.[1] Maurice was the eldest of eight children; he had three sisters: Georgette, Rollande and Marguerite; and four brothers: René, Jacques, Henri, and Claude.[2] Onésime was a carpenter by trade, and took a job with the Canadian Pacific Railway shortly after Maurice was born.[3] The Richards struggled during the Great Depression; Onésime lost his job in 1930 and the family relied on government aid until he was re-hired by the railway around 1936.[4]
Richard received his first pair of ice skates when he was four, and grew up skating on local rivers and a small backyard ice surface his father created.[5] He did not play organized hockey until he was 14. Instead, Richard developed his skills playing shinny and "hog" – a game that required the puck carrier to keep the puck away from others for as long as possible.[6]While he also played baseball and was a boxer, hockey was his passion. After he began playing in organized leagues, Richard joined several teams and used pseudonyms such as "Maurice Rochon" to circumvent rules that restricted players to one team.[7] In one league, he led his team to three consecutive championships and scored 133 of his team's 144 goals in the 1938–39 season.[8]
At 16, Richard dropped out of school to work with his father as a machinist.[9] He enrolled in a technical school, intent on earning a trade certificate.[10] At 18, Richard joined the Verdun Juniors, though as a rookie he saw little ice time in the regular season.[11] He scored four goals in ten regular season games, and added six goals in four playoff games as Verdun won the provincial championship.[12][13] He was promoted to the Montreal Canadiens' affiliate in the Quebec Senior Hockey League in 1940, but suffered a broken ankle in his first game after crashing into the boards and missed the remainder of the season.[14] The injury also aborted his hopes of joining the Canadian military: he was called to a recruitment centre in mid 1941, but was deemed unfit for combat.[15]
Off the ice, Richard was a quiet, unassuming youth who spoke little.[8] He met his future wife Lucille when he was seventeen, and she nearly fourteen. She was the younger sister of one of his teammates at Bordeaux, and her bright, outgoing personality complemented Richard's reserved nature.[16] Lucille proved adept at guiding him through trials and disappointments he experienced in both hockey and life.[17] They were engaged when he was 20, and though her parents felt she was too young, married on September 12, 1942, when she was seventeen.[18]
