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Film is becoming more and more a medium where people learn about the past. When watching highlight reels of Maurice “The Rocket” Richard or hearing his name mentioned on Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts, I didn't realize there was so much more to his career. Just exactly how much his career meant to the people of Montreal and the province of Quebec, I never fully understood until having seen The Rocket.

This movie was obviously intended for CBC television, as a lot of the dialogue is toned down to accommodate a family audience. The worst thing you hear when the anglophone players try to get under Richard’s skin is “pea soup”, and of course different words were chosen at the time, but this isn’t much of a distraction. This film has a high budget feel to it, and the attention to detail is uncanny. You can tell the director made every effort to replicate the old highlight reels to ensure the accuracy of the pivotal moments of Maurice Richard’s hockey career.

The film puts forward the theory that the NHL was not happy that its best player was a francophone playing for Montreal. Perhaps it wasn't a theory, and was already well known and if that's the case, I had no idea. They tried to pad the stats of the other teams' stars; a journalist in The Rocket mentioning the opposing teams record assists to players who are not even on the ice when a goal is scored. The officials do nothing to protect Richard when he was getting attacked by fists and high sticks. It was much more than meets the eye when talking about the infamous Montreal riot where then NHL commissioner Clarence Campbell suspended Richard for his participation in a brawl against the Boston Bruins where he also punched out a referee. I was always under the impression Richard was just a player who lost his cool despite his talents. But I didn’t know Richard was attacking Campbell through the press because of the way the French Canadian-born players were being treated by the league. Was this a convenient way to get Richard out of the NHL? Perhaps it was.

The film is about a 50/50 split between English and French which just added to the authenticity of the film. Hockey fans will be treated to cameos by Mike Ricci, Vincent Lecavalier and a tongue-in-cheek performance by Sean Avery, playing the role of an enforcer hired by the New York Rangers to hurt Richard. The star of the show, Roy Dupuis, who also played Richard in the Heritage Canada commercials, is excellent. I found myself wishing to know more about Richard's life before & after hockey. They show him briefly working his job as a machinist and meeting his wife when he was 17 years old, but that's about it.

Most Canadian productions carry a stigma of being cheap and second rate, but this is clearly not the case. The Rocket is definitely worth a view, and you might even find yourself rooting for the Montreal Canadiens afterwards if you’re not too careful.