Pierre Pilote - Heart of the Blackhawks: The Pierre Pilote Story

INTRODUCTION

The Winter of His Youth

It was cold out this morning of January 20, 2012, bitter cold, like he remembered. The snow crunched under his feet as he got out of the car and walked towards the new arena. It was his first time seeing it, the Jonquire Sports Palace. He hadnt been back home in a very long time. His breath hung in the air like a heavy fog. Boy, it brought back memories, 80-year-old memories. Walking smartly into the arenas large lobby, he was received as a conquering hero.

When the moment came, he stood back smiling, excited, arms crossed. He pumped his fist as if to say, Yeah, go-ahead, baby! and watched Saguenay mayor Jean Tremblay and event chairman Rjean Laforest pull back the cloth sheet that unveiled a large bronze statue of himself created by artist Jrmie Giles. Soaking in appreciative applause, the moment was surreal and almost made him speechlessbut he did have a few words to say.

I cant tell you what a special feeling it is to be here with you and to come back home to the region of my youth where I spent many hours growing up on the other side of the tracks in Knogami, he said in French, a language he had rarely used since moving away 66 years prior. Though he was a little rusty with some of the words of his mother tongue, his rolling pronunciation hadnt betrayed him.

How often I crossed those tracks in the bitter cold to watch the mens senior hockey team from the snowbanks of the old Jonquire outdoor arena. My feet would be frozen by the time I walked all the way home. How appropriate that we are in an arena in Jonquire. To be honoured with such a special remembrance is warming to my soul on a cold Qubec winter morning.

He thought of Annie and wished she were here. They had celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary the spring before. She was his soul mate. They had done everything together, through thick and thin. She wanted badly to come, but her health wouldnt permit her to make the 1,200-kilometre trek. But she was there with him in spirit.

To all of you here, my French family, from the bottom of my heart, thank you! It is wonderful to be home, a place that holds special meaning for me. A part of me will remain here in stone for a very long time, but please know that a part of my heart will always be here.

I have won Norris Trophies, a Stanley Cup, had my no. 3 retired to the rafters of the arena in Chicago, but this night and this honour is right up there with them. I am truly humbled. I stand proud and say: Thank you, Knogami! Thank you, Jonquire! Thank you to the whole Saguenay region!

The whooping cheers were thunderous from the people crowded into the arena lobby. Afterwards, they came up to him one by one, to shake his hand, to congratulate him, to tell him how proud they were that he was one of their own. He didnt know most of them, but they sure knew who he was.

Later that evening, before a major junior game in the same arena, the crowd was told of his legacya Stanley Cup with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1961, Norris Trophies as the NHLs best defenceman in 1963, 1964, and 1965, the retired no. 3 hanging in the rafters of Chicagos United Center in 2008, and the election to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1975. And he was one of theirs.

As he came out onto the ice wearing his no. 3 Chicago sweater, a banner was unveiled in his honour and he dropped a ceremonial puck prior to the beginning of the game. They thought they knew him but they didnt. They only knew a little bit of his remarkable story; a journey too filled with memories, laughter, hurt, pain, and yes, glory, to completely tell in a Friday-night sound bite.

Only he knew what it had taken to overcome every obstacle, and there were many, in attaining his goals. He thought of the many miles he travelled, the personalities he met during his journey in becoming one of the greatest defencemen of all time.

No, they couldnt possibly know his life, and what a life it had been.

It was a remarkable journey. Ill have to tell that story some day, Pierre Pilote often thought.

Though today they are known as the Chicago Blackhawks, during Pierre Pilotes hockey career and until 198586 the teams name was the Black Hawks and they are referred to in that way throughout this book.

CHAPTER 1

The Knogami Kid

Today, the sprawling City of Saguenay is comprised of the amalgamated towns of Chicoutimi, Knogami, Jonquire, and Arvida, but in the 1800s, they were all small, growing towns.

The vast pristine, virgin lands, abundant lakes, rivers, and forests of northern Qubec were ideal for the lumber industry, and the Saguenay region had always relied on it. Powered by a 27,000-horsepower hydroelectric dam on the nearby Sable River, the pulp and paper industry ran the town at the start of the twentieth century.

The town of Jonquire, named after the Marquis de La Jonquire, governor of New France from 1749 to 1752, was founded in 1847. Knogami, situated on the northern shore of the lake that bears its Innu name, meaning Long Lake, was originally part of the town of Jonquire. Though detached in 1911, they were really joined at the hip.

In the late 1800s, young Albert Pilote moved with his family to the Saguenay region as his father looked for employment in the lumber industry. He grew up, met and fell in love with a local Innu girl named Madeleine Dallaire, who was born on the shores of Lac St. Jean at the Innu reserve near Roberval, north of Knogami. Not to be mistaken with the Inuit of the far north, this Innu band was also known as les Montagnais, or the Inuatsh of Pekuakami.

After marrying in June 1906, the couple moved to Knogami where Albert secured work at the paper mill. Though it appeared that they severed all ties with the band, his bride would be known as mystical, a medicine woman who informally carried on her many traditional herbal cures and practices.

From the beginning, Madeleine ruled while Albert, a quieter and meeker partner, succumbed to her direction and whims around the house. Their brood soon grew to six daughters and four sons, including one Paul mile Pilote, born on April 4, 1908.

By the time he was 14, Paul began working at Price Brothers, as a log sorter and loader in the large holding area that surrounded the pulp and paper mill. The holding pond was fed by a mile-long, water-fed shoot that carried the cut logs or pitoune as the French called them, from as far away as Lac Saint Jean. Paul used a long gaff to sort and guide the logs onto a large conveyor belt which carried them into the mill to be ground into chips.

Paul eventually advanced in the mill, only to discover a situation within the company that was prevalent throughout industrial Qubec in this time period: the English had better, higher paying jobs than the unskilled French labourers. Paul looked past his early frustrations. He needed the job and wouldnt make any waves, not just yet.

Paul met Maria Gagn, daughter of Adeos Gagn, a widowed lumberman from the Gasp region who had moved his family to the Saguenay in search of steady work. Marias mother had died when she was 12 years old and Maria became the instant surrogate mother to her other siblings and assumed the unpleasant task of cooking at her fathers lumber camp.