At least four major athletes have carried the handle of “Rocket” during their careers.  I wonder who the real holder of this title is? Hmm.
Raghib ‘Rocket’ Ismail? He was a star football player in college, the Canadian Football League and the NFL, made millions, and promptly went broke after losing his fortune with bad investments in restaurants, movies and phone [...]

Arnold Palmer, the Maurice Richard of golf, shows Maurice Richard, the Arnold Palmer of hockey, a good way to grip a club circa 1960. Arnold and the Rocket were in New York where both were honoured as Athletes of the Decade in their respective sports by the S. Rae Hickok Co.

I’m going on a little trip in a few weeks and needed to jazz up my wardrobe a little. You know, put on something nice when I go out for dinner and all that? So I pulled out all the stops and got what I think is just perfect. I found a guy in Minnesota who makes [...]

  
After scoring his 500th goal in 1957, the Rocket appeared on the long-running CBC show Front Page Challenge, answering the panelists’ questions from behind their backs as they tried to guess who he was. After the question and answer part, Rocket came out and chatted for about ten minutes with the panel who, on this night, included cranky old skinflint Gordon [...]

  When Wayne Gretzky retired, the entire league, every team, agreed the proper thing to do was to retire jersey no. 99 permanently so no other player would ever wear it.
 
This is absolutely reasonable. Gretzky deserves this honour. He was Gretzky, for goodness sakes.
 
But there’s another number out there that deserves the same royal treatment. [...]

Jean Beliveau was in Vancouver this weekend and gave a really nice interview with The Province’s Jim Jamieson. I thought you might like it. 
 
Q: What does the 100th anniversary of the Canadiens mean to you?
A: I find myself to be very fortunate to be part of it; I’ve been with them since Oct. 3, [...]

   Last year I had nice, long chat on the phone with Doug Harvey Junior. He’s 58 now, and he told me great stories about how the Rocket, Moore, Beliveau and all the boys would come over to the house. He told me about going to games at the old Forum and having to wait with [...]

Oh, I suppose there’s lots to talk about as we wait another few days before the Habs’ involuntary holiday ends and they finally play hockey again, if they remember how.
 
There’s the big election in the states involving John McCain and Barack Obama, of course.
 
There’s the news that the Canadiens have six players on the all-star [...]

This is an ad from a 1940’s newspaper I found years ago. As you can see, prices were somewhat less than they are today. 
Imagine, the Rocket, Elmer Lach, Toe Blake, Teeder Kennedy, Howie Meeker, Turk Broda – all the boys, for 75 cents.
 

 It’s not everyday one gets to meet their hero.
 All my life I wanted to meet the Rocket. He came to Orillia when I was a kid, but I was in the stands as he skated around the ice, waving to the crowd, and I never got near.
 As a boy I’d write to him, and several times [...]