Bonin dies at 93, Stanley Cup champion with Red Wings, Canadiens
Forward won 1 in Detroit, 3 in Montreal, will be remembered for eccentric stories, public service
He was not on the list.
MONTREAL -- Marcel Bonin, a colorful four-time Stanley Cup champion between 1955-60 who wrestled a bear and ate glass for fun and profit, has died at age 93.
Bonin’s death was reported by his family to Montreal Canadiens alumni director Rejean Houle.
“Just a small word to tell you that Marcel played his final game today,” Bonin’s daughter, France, told Houle late Sunday morning in a French-language email message. “He died peacefully this morning, surrounded by his family.”
Born in Montreal on Sept. 12, 1931, four days after what’s usually reported because of an error on his baptismal certificate, the 5-foot-10, 170-pound forward won the Stanley Cup with the Detroit Red Wings in 1955, then with the Canadiens in 1958, 1959 and 1960.
Bonin played 454 games between 1952-62, scoring 272 points (97 goals, 175 assists). His first 107 games were played with Detroit, then 67 with the Boston Bruins in 1955-56 before he skated his final 280 with the Canadiens from 1957-62.
Bonin was signed by the Red Wings out of Quebec senior hockey on Oct. 22, 1952, his rights sold to Detroit by the Canadiens. The 1950-51 Quebec junior rookie of the year with Shawinigan would bounce around the Detroit organization, from the senior Quebec Aces to the Red Wings’ American Hockey League affiliate in St. Louis, back to senior in Sherbrooke, Quebec and out to Edmonton in the Western League.
He famously was part of an eight-player trade with Boston on June 3, 1955, a deal that would send legendary goalie Terry Sawchuk to the Bruins, then would wind up with his hometown Canadiens when claimed by Montreal on June 4, 1957, in the NHL’s inter-league draft.
With the Canadiens, Bonin was a key cog in the gears of three champions, scoring 15, 13 and 17 goals on Montreal’s last three of five consecutive Stanley Cup winners. Coach Toe Blake used him on a line with Dickie Moore when the latter won the NHL’s Art Ross Trophy for most points in 1957-58, then lined him up regularly with Moore, Jean Beliveau, Bernie Geoffrion and Maurice and Henri Richard.
Bonin scored the Cup-clinching goal for the Canadiens in the
1959 Stanley Cup Final, registering a League-leading 10 goals in 11 postseason
games, with five assists.
Marcel Bonin is in close on Maple Leafs goalie Johnny Bower, Toronto’s David Keon (left) and Carl Brewer defending during a 1961 game at Maple Leaf Gardens.
It was a pinch-me moment for a player who grew up worshipping Maurice Richard, the Canadiens’ legendary Rocket, and now was playing alongside him.
“I used to listen to hockey on the radio,” he told author Dick Irvin Jr. in the latter’s 1991 book “The Habs: An Oral History of the Montreal Canadiens 1940-1980.”
“I always would hear about the lines – (Sid) Abel, (Ted) Lindsay and (Gordie) Howe in Detroit, the Bentleys (Max and Doug) in Chicago. And of course, the Punch Line in Montreal – Toe Blake, Elmer Lach and Maurice Richard.”
Bonin had never seen the Rocket live before they met on Olympia Stadium ice as opponents in Detroit.
“Before the game, in the warmup, I skated over to shake hands with Maurice and I said to him, ‘You’ve always been my idol.’ He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me with those big black eyes. Then I said, ‘I’m going to check you tonight.’ He just said, ‘It’s going to take two guys like you to check me tonight.’”
Canadiens’ Marcel Bonin, general manager Frank Selke Sr. and Henri Richard shake hands during the Stanley Cup Final against the Toronto Maple Leafs in April 1959 in Montreal.
The Rocket would become a dear friend in Montreal. If Bonin had plenty of championship success, it was this bond, and other relationships he enjoyed along the way, that he said were the best part of his career.
“What I remember most about that (1959) team was the boys,” he told Irvin Jr. “We were like brothers. When we go out after the game, everybody goes together. Not two guys go here and three guys go there. My best hockey memory is about the friends I made on that team.”
To say that Bonin was a bit eccentric would seriously understate the truth. By the time he joined the Red Wings, he was known as “the bear wrestler,” and that had nothing to do with the Bruins.
One of the strongest players of his day, Bonin used his muscles to advantage on and off the ice.
“A big circus came to town in Joliette (Quebec) and I wrestled a bear,” he told Irvin Jr. “Believe it or not, Joe Louis (the heavyweight boxing legend) was the referee because he would do anything then to make money to pay his taxes.
“They offered $1,000 to anyone who could put the bear down. I start like a boxer and give the bear a real punch on the jaw. So right away Louis told me, ‘Hey, the bear isn’t a boxer, he’s a wrestler.’ I wasn’t afraid, but the bear beat me.”
Bonin wisely chose not to argue with the former heavyweight champion of the world.
Throughout his career he endlessly entertained his teammates with his antics, munching glass and regaling them with his stories, his life better than any fiction.
“Marcel added a lot to the team," Dickie Moore recalled to Montreal Gazette writer Ian MacDonald in a 2003 reflection. “He fit right in as a player, and off the ice he always had a lot of spirit and helped us have a lot of fun.”
Moore recalled the Canadiens watching a football game in their Boston hotel the afternoon of a night game against the Bruins.
“Marcel saw how when a football player would knock a guy down, he’d often help him up, even though he was on the other team,” Moore said. “Sure enough, that night Marcel hammers a Bruins guy down, then leans over and helps the guy up. Toe (coach Blake) pulled his hat over his head and really let Marcel have it when we got back in the room.
"Marcel said: ‘Hey, coach, in football they do that, so I do that, too.’”
A back injury suffered in Edmonton in 1954 would finally lead to Bonin’s retirement, surgery keeping him bedridden for two months and forced to wear a brace.
He left the game to serve as a police officer and pistol-shooting instructor in Joliette, then worked for a decade and a half in student security with the city’s school board.
Until a few years ago, Bonin was an occasional visitor to Montreal’s Bell Centre for Canadiens games, always welcome in the team’s alumni lounge where his stories were usually the best of the night.
“I’ve stayed in touch with Marcel over the years. It’s always been good to speak with him,” alumni director Houle said on Sunday. “Marcel was more than a champion, he was a member of our Canadiens family.”
Career statistics
Regular season and playoffs
Regular season Playoffs
Season Team League GP G A Pts PIM GP G A Pts PIM
1949–50 Joliette
Cyclones QIHL — — — — — — — — — —
1950–51 Trois-Rivières
Flambeaux QJHL 44 30 43 73 73 8 1 6 7 7
1950–51 Shawinigan-Falls
Cataracts QMHL 2 0 1 1 0 — — — — —
1951–52 Quebec
Aces QMHL 60 15 36 51 131 15 4 9 13 32
1952–53 Quebec
Aces QMHL 4 0 2 2 9 — — — — —
1952–53 St.
Louis Flyers AHL 24 7 23 30 21 — — — — —
1952–53 Detroit
Red Wings NHL 37 4 9 13 14 5 0 1 1 0
1953–54 Sherbrooke
Saints QHL 17 10 11 21 38 — — — — —
1953–54 Edmonton
Flyers WHL 43 16 33 49 53 13 5 6 11 30
1953–54 Detroit
Red Wings NHL 1 0 0 0 0 — — — — —
1954–55 Detroit
Red Wings NHL 69 16 20 36 53 11 0 2 2 4
1955–56 Boston
Bruins NHL 67 9 9 18 49 — — — — —
1956–57 Quebec
Aces QHL 68 20 60 80 88 10 5 9 14 14
1957–58 Montreal
Canadiens NHL 66 15 24 39 37 9 0 1 1 12
1958–59 Rochester
Americans AHL 7 3 5 8 4 — — — — —
1958–59 Montreal
Canadiens NHL 57 13 30 43 38 11 10 5 15 4
1959–60 Montreal
Canadiens NHL 59 17 34 51 59 8 1 4 5 12
1960–61 Montreal
Canadiens NHL 65 16 35 51 45 6 0 1 1 29
1961–62 Montreal
Canadiens NHL 33 7 14 21 41 — — — — —
NHL totals 454 97 175 272 336 50 11 14 25 51
Awards and achievements
Stanley Cup champion - 1955, 1958, 1959, 1960
NHL All-Star Game roster - 1954, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960
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