“Go help Scotty, he’s in real trouble!”
That was the cry from the fourth story window by Floyd Curry, the Montreal Canadiens assistant general manager, to a group of people at the ground level. Serge Savard, limping across the parking lot with blood pouring down his leg, cried out, “Too late! He’s gone! He’s gone!”
It was March 9, 1972. The Montreal Canadiens had just completed a road win against the St. Louis Blues, easily defeating them 5-1 on goals by Yvan Cournoyer, Pete Mahovlich, Guy Lafleur, and two by J.C. Tremblay. It was their eighth win in a row. The 1971-72 season was one of big change for the Canadiens, starting with the retirement of icon Jean Béliveau, then the arrival of Lafleur, and the appointment of long-time Sam Pollock associate Scotty Bowman as head coach, having just completed a four-year NHL coaching apprenticeship with the very same St. Louis Blues.
After the game, the Canadiens checked into the Hilton Inn across the road from the airport prior to flying back to Montreal the next day. At 1:48AM, the fire alarms began to sound. A fire had broken out in the hotel on the fourth floor where Bowman and Curry were staying. Bowman was on the phone at the time and stepped out into the hallway to see what was going on. He was immediately hit with a huge burst of black billowing smoke, and was thrown aback into his room, closing the door behind him. He called out to Curry who was staying across the hall, and sat down in a chair to think about what he should do next. Realizing that there was no way of making it to the staircase, he got up, grabbed a chair, and smashed the window with it. Stepping out onto the narrow decorative edge, he looked down at the pool below.
“I’m going to jump!” cried out Bowman, while Canadiens’ trainer Bob Williams and Réjean Houle urged him to wait. “What are my chances? Can I make four floors?” Houle had just arrived, running around the building at the behest of Curry who was screaming for help, but also notifying people that Bowman was on the other side.
By the time the St. Louis firemen had arrived, the scene was already one of panic and chaos. The firemen stood frozen, not knowing where to start, as guests across the fourth floor were smashing out windows trying to escape, same as Bowman and Curry. It was the Canadiens players, having already evacuated from their second floor rooms, who reacted first. Pierre Bouchard, Dale Hoganson, Savard, Marc Tardiff, and Tremblay grabbed flashlights and axes from the firemen, and rushed into the burning building.
“I can’t breathe, I can’t see,” said Hoganson, who attempted four times to enter Bowman’s room through the thick smoke. “I can’t last five seconds in the room. I felt the bed. He’s not in it. I don’t know where the hell he can be!” The players repeatedly tried and failed to extract their head coach from the room. Bowman meanwhile was laying down flat on the ledge outside, unaware of the rescue effort inside.
“Break the windows!” someone cried out, in order to clear out the thick billowing smoke from the hallway. Bouchard put his foot through one window, and Savard did the same to help clear some air for Curry. Thankfully, Bouchard was wearing knee-high cowboy boots, but Savard wasn’t so lucky, opening up a major gash on his leg as he kicked through the window pane. The players all ran outside, seeing that it was impossible to gain any further access due to the worsening smoke.
On the outside, Williams and Houle grabbed a ladder from a firetruck, and used it to reach the third floor under Bowman. Bowman had to jump down to the third floor balcony, and Williams then placed Bowman’s feet on the ladder, and helped him down to the ground below, where Bowman, his face blackened and shaking from the ordeal, collapsed down to the ground. Curry descended soon after with an elderly man whom he had rescued from the smoke-filled hallway and pulled him into his room. On the ground, Curry was relived to see Bowman, having assumed that Bowman was “a goner”.
Tremblay was a volunteer firefighter back in his hometown, and had the proper training and wherewithal to begin evacuating other residents of the fourth floor down the ladder as well. In all, he climbed up and down four times. Next to him, Guy Lapointe and Lafleur also put up ladders, and began doing the same. “He saved my life,” said a trembling woman who had just been brought down to safety by Lapointe. On Lapointe’s final ascent up the ladder, he smashed the window of another room, only to come face-to-face with a firefighter wearing a gas mask staring back at him. The professionals had finally arrived, to Lapointe’s total surprise. Jacques Laperrière, on the second floor, was sleeping through all the commotion and fire, and was awoken by a firefighter banging on his door and taken outside.
Down below, Bowman had gathered himself, refused any medical attention, and began doing roll call of the players to make sure that everyone was accounted for. Many of them were across the street at a local coffee shop when the alarm rang out, others were out on the town and missed the fire, and curfew. Late arriving players were asking what had happened, and Bowman quipped “It’s a fire sale… luggage, topcoats, and certain hockey players.”
“The firemen. What was wrong with them?” later said a still shocked Savard. “They didn’t want to go up the ladders, they didn’t want to go to Scotty’s room. I thought he was dead. I panicked and kicked the window. It took two hours and five shots to sew me up.” Eighteen stitches were needed to close the gash, thanks to a two-inch slab of glass that remained in his leg. Further shards were discovered lodged in his ankle several months later during evaluation of an unrelated injury. Seven people were hospitalized, one in serious condition from smoke inhalation, but there were no deaths, thanks to the quick thinking of some Canadiens players.
The cause of the fire was an inebriated guest who fell asleep with a lit cigarette. Once the fire was under control and people began re-entering the hotel, Tremblay and Lapointe were praised endlessly by guests. “Maybe I’m a future fireman like my father,” said Lapointe, whose family has served in the Montreal fire department for years. Tremblay did not stick around to receive the adulation. “Where did he go? How can I thank him?” asked an older woman who was carried down by ladder by Tremblay. “We have nothing but praise for those Canadiens hockey players,” said John Stuller, the chief of police. “They really helped us.”
The Montréal Firefighters‘ Association honoured the six principle players involved in the rescue efforts for their bravery and heroism about a week later. Tremblay, Bouchard, Lapointe, Hoganson, Savard, and Houle, each received honorary captain helmets following a Canadiens practice.
The Canadiens did not win the Stanley Cup that season, but they did the following season, and four more times that decade. The Canadiens dynasty of the 70s is often considered the greatest team of all time, but it is scary to think what could have been lost that day if not for the quick-thinking and decisiveness of those players. In rescuing their head coach, they also rescued their legacy before it could even be written.
“I heard some of them say if it was me, they would have poured on gasoline,” joked darkly Toe Blake.
