The last game at The Garden was on Mabetween the Canadiens and the Dallas Stars. At around the same time, a high-pitched siren was installed to signal the end of a period.

In the mid-1980s, a new score clock was installed above center ice with a color matrix board on each side.

Clarence Campell, the NHL President suspended him for the rest of the season and the playoffs. The Rocket slugged a linesman during a skirmish with Bruin Hal Laycoe. The story began a few days prior to that, when the Habs played the Bruins in Boston. One of the most infamous nights in Forum history took place on March 17, 1955–the night of the Richard Riot. In 1949, 3,163 seats were added during a lengthy renovation that cost $600,000. He built one of the league’s greatest dynasties–the Habs were in the Stanley Cup Final ten straight years and won six championships.

The legend goes that when the doctors told Morenz the injury would make playing hockey again impossible, he died of a broken heart.ĭuring the Depression, the Canadiens suffered on the ice and the Forum was nearly sold to become a streetcar barn.įrank Selke became the team’s general manager in 1946. Howie Morenz was the greatest hockey star of the early era, and was beloved by the Montreal faithful. His casket lay in state at center ice for tens of thousands of mourners to pay their respects and thousands more lined the route of his funeral procession. Morenz–known as ‘The Stratford Streak’ for his speed–died a few weeks later at a local hospital. 28, 1937, in a fluke circumstance, Canadiens superstar Howie Morenz caught a skate in a rut along the boards and suffered a gruesome leg fracture. The most sombre chapter in the Forum’s history came when one of the building’s great superstars tragically passed away. Howie Morenz, “The Stratford Flash” (THW Archives) The game between the Detroit Red Wings and the Maroons was decided in a sixth overtime period when Mud Bruneteau scored the game’s only goal, giving Detroit a 1-0 victory. The longest game in NHL history was played at the Forum on March 24, 1936. In the building’s first game, Montreal defeated the Toronto St. It was the home of the NHL’s Montreal Maroons from 1924-38 and the Montreal Canadiens from 1926-96. The Montreal Forum first opened its doors on Nov. Timmins stepped in and backed the project. With trouble finding money for financing, H.L. The original plan was to build a 12,500-seat rink, but due to finances, they were scaled back to only 9,300 seats. It was the brainchild of Sir Edward Beattie (President of Canadian Pacific Railway). The 9,300-seat arena Forum was built in 1924 by the Canadian Arena Company in just 159 days at a cost of $1.5 million Cdn ($21.4 million in 2016 dollars). Montreal Forum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons The Montreal Forum – Construction in the Early 1920s

All of these men later played in the NHL were eventually inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, either as a player or a builder. – Mike Wyman of Inside Hockeyīefore that, it had been an outdoor ice hockey rink used by legends Frank and Lester Patrick, Art Ross and Russell Bowie. Opening night, November 9, 1908, was a sensation and all 3,000 pairs of roller skates available for rental saw extensive use as thousands of Montrealers came to wander through, gawk at or try out the facilities at what was hyped in the press as “the largest, finest and most hygienic roller rink,” a decent establishment, “catering only to the highest classes of patronage.” The claim to antiseptic purity was prompted by the fact that a generation before, Montreal had been a world leader in all manner of communicable diseases, largely due to sanitary facilities that were primitive at best outside of the wealthy enclaves that The Forum hoped to draw upon for their clientele. Original Forum in Montreal – 1908 (THW Archives)

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