Published Apr 03, 2026 \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 Last updated 2\u00a0hours ago \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 6 minute read<\/p>\n
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The Montreal Forum before a game between the Canadiens and Chicago Blackhawks in the 1960s. Photo by Gazette files \/jpg, KI, apsmcArticle content<\/p>\n
The Bell Centre, home of the Montreal Canadiens, recently turned 30 years old. If there was a birthday bash, it was likely low-key. Celebrating a building\u2019s 30th year is like bragging about the new sedan having just turned over 1,000 km. Big whup.<\/p>\n
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Should the arena nicknamed the \u201cphone booth\u201d\u00a0 \u2014 it was originally christened the Molson Centre \u2014 feel slighted by the subdued salute to three decades of structural sturdiness, corporate might respond with direct and humbling advice, such as:<\/p>\n
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\u201cBuck up, shinny barn, your time will come. I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll do it up right for you on your 50th. In the meantime, keep the turnstiles spinning, the merch moving, and the ice cold and hard. And please, no roof leaks. Oh, and how about stringing up a few Stanley Cup banners of your own, something to go with the two dozen plucked from the rafters of your predecessor, the Forum. Start with one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ah yes, the fabled Forum. It closed 30 years ago, leaving behind a glorious star-speckled history and a mountain of memories.<\/p>\n
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For oldtime Canadiens fans who are hopelessly afflicted with nostalgia, the famous arena at the corner of Atwater Avenue and Ste. Catherine Street was as welcoming as their own living rooms.<\/p>\n
One of the most awe-inspiring playgrounds in all of professional sport, the Forum ended its illustrious 72-year run on March 11, 1996. Journeyman Russian forward Andrei Kovalenko tallied the final goal. An overwhelmed Maurice \u201cRocket\u201d Richard was given a 16-minute standing ovation at the closing ceremonies. Once labelled \u201cthe most storied building in hockey history\u201d the Forum is now a Cineplex movie theatre, its signs, sin bins, stanchions, and most of the folding wooden seats sold off after the death knell sounded. Today, visitors and moviegoers pause to snap selfies in a small, authentically steep bank of cardinal-red seats positioned above a centre-ice circle and two CH emblems.<\/p>\n
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Feeling nostalgic about all this, I asked a few knowledgeable locals, among them a couple of NHLers who had played there, to share their memories of the Forum.<\/p>\n
\u201cI first played there in junior with London and with Niagara Falls,\u201d former NHL\/WHA defenceman Jim Dorey recalls ice battles with the Yvan Cournoyer-led Junior Canadiens. \u201cWe changed in the visitor\u2019s dressing room, which was also a real thrill because it was an actual NHL room.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo have had the chance to play in that old barn, with all its history, retired numbers, banners and such, it\u2019s still a remarkable memory for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
A small surgical scar on Dorey\u2019s shoulder serves as a lasting memory of the Forum. \u201cI got in too deep on a rush and (Canadiens defenceman Pierre) \u2018Butch\u2019 Bouchard levelled me behind the Habs net, broke my shoulder,\u201d Dorey, 78, remembers. \u201cIt was my first game with the New York Rangers after the trade from the Leafs, and it was also my last game ever at the Forum.\u201d<\/p>\n
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With 24 championship pennants and a gallery of great players, the Forum generated enough memories to last several lifetimes.<\/p>\n
The longest game in NHL history (1936) was played on Forum ice. Kingston\u2019s Gus Marker was on the losing end of a 1-0 Detroit win that took six hours to complete.<\/p>\n
The infamous Richard Riot touched off on March 17, 1955. Overzealous fans rioted inside and outside the Forum, irate over the Rocket\u2019s league-imposed suspension for coldcocking a linesman.<\/p>\n
The caskets of three Canadien legends, Howie Morenz, Richard and Jean Beliveau, were laid in state on Forum ice while tens of thousands of mourners passed by.<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s collective hockey pride was jolted by a freewheeling squad of Soviets, who laid a 7-3 thumpin\u2019 on our lads in the Forum-hosted Game 1 of the 1972 Summit Series.<\/p>\n
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Retired Corrections Canada employee Steve Dine winds his memory back 60 years to recall his first game at the Forum, which came about courtesy of a family connection to a man who lived in the same Montreal apartment building as then-NHL president Clarence Campbell. \u201cPrime seats right beside the penalty box,\u201d says Dine, \u201cand me a huge Habs fan. For a 10-year-old kid, it didn\u2019t come any better.\u201d<\/p>\n
The game actually played second fiddle to the Dine family\u2019s train ride back to Kingston. A host of Habs \u2014 the team was en route to Toronto to play the Maple Leafs the next day \u2014 passed through the Dines\u2019 car on route to the club car, \u201ca parade of famous faces,\u201d Dine, 70, says. Among the famous faces was the battered mug of Dine\u2019s childhood hero, goaltender Lorne \u2018Gump\u2019 Worsley. \u201cI was a flopper too, just like the Gumper,\u201d notes Dine, who played goal in the blue-chip Rotary Kiwanis minor-hockey loop. \u201cI just never thought I\u2019d end up looking like him.\u201d<\/p>\n
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There was the night in the late 1950s when explosive hip-checker Leo Boivin sent the Rocket into orbit. In a 1990 feature piece on the squat hall-of-fame rearguard, I asked Boston Bruins\u2019 legend Milt Schmidt to recount his favourite Boivin belt. Schmidt answered in an eyeblink. \u201cOne night at the Forum, Leo caught the Rocket in full flight,\u201d said Schmidt. \u201cRichard did a complete somersault in the air and landed right on his chest. I must\u2019ve seen Leo do that a thousand times, but that one sticks out because it was right in the Rocket\u2019s backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Retired Kingston hotelier Venicio Rebelo spins the calendar back to 1975 and his first trip to the Forum with friend Dan Meehan. \u201cI remember all the women and men being dressed up to the nines and almost everyone seemed to be smoking,\u201d Rebelo, 67, says. \u201cEverything looked so clean and bright, the emblem at centre ice, the painted lines, the red seats, the gleaming white boards with no advertising. Then you gazed up at the retired numbers and all the Cup banners and, well, as a Hab fan you were simply in awe.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Rebelo indoctrinated his son Jonathan in Hab history and patronage. At the Forum\u2019s farewell souvenir sale, Jonathan purchased one of the wooden seats.<\/p>\n
Yours truly\u2019s initial visit to the Forum happened March 21, 1973, a date that l\u2019d be hard-pressed to remember at gunpoint if not for an historic highlight that makes it easily researched \u2014 Canadiens winger Frank Mahavlich\u2019s 500th career goal. I stood with a pal along the rail near the roof of the arena.<\/p>\n
What stands out in my memory was the ovation from 17,000-plus throats when Mahavlich potted the milestone marker that clinched a 3-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks. The cheering was deafening and unlike anything I\u2019d heard before. Passionate patrons in standing room were suddenly in a state of joyous delirium, me included. A second thunderclap of applause erupted once the goal was announced over the PA system. \u201cLe but de canadiens compte par\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
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Kingston-born Dennis Kearns played 10 seasons with the Canucks including the night the Big M deposited his 500th. Each time he visited the Forum Kearns had the same feeling \u2014 \u201cAwestruck,\u201d the 80-year-old blueliner recalls from his home on the West Coast. \u201cThat\u2019s how you felt when you looked around and took in all the history. You got the sense you were in a special place.<\/p>\n
\u201cMontreal GM Sam Pollock parked his Lincoln right inside the Forum,\u201d Kearns adds with a laugh. \u201cI guess if you were a hockey architect like him, you could park anywhere you like.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Kingston businessman and lifelong Habs fan Brent Neely, his first visit to the Forum remains an indelible memory several decades later. \u201cIt sounds cliche, and it is cliche, but being inside the Forum for the first time was almost a religious experience,\u201d Neely, 56, recalls the 1992 visit. \u201cThe energy, the atmosphere, the vibe \u2014 it was all incredible. Walking around, looking at the photos, looking up at the banners, you felt this genuine sense of history from year to year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was 22 years old at the time, not exactly a kid, but I felt like one. The place could do that to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patrick Kennedy is a retired Whig-Standard reporter and hardfast fan of les bleu, blanc et rouge. He can be reached at pjckennedy35@gmail.com<\/p>\n
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