Maurice Richard got to the Montreal Forum around three o’clock in the afternoon on this date in 1955, another Friday: he had a statement he wanted to make. Canadiens GM Frank Selke said he didn’t have any objection, so PR director Camille Desroches put the word out to the press. Two days earlier, on the Wednesday, NHL President Clarence Campbell had suspended Richard for the remainder of the regular season as well as the upcoming playoffs. Thursday, a Rocketless Montreal had been hosting the Detroit Red Wings — trying to — when a riot exploded in the Forum, ending the game and spilling out onto city streets in a four-hour frenzy of destruction.

Twenty-four hours later — and 67 years ago tonight — Richard sat in the Montreal dressing room, in front of all the microphones and the reporters, his number-nine sweater hung forlornly on a hanger, in his suit.

He smiled briefly, Gazette reporter Langevin Cote noted, but he appeared tense. “He rubbed his eyes, tugged at his tie, scratched his left ear.” A bell started to ring in the dressing room as he began to read his statement in French, so he had to start again. When he read it in English, He his voice was steady. “He appeared moved,” Cote wrote.

“I will take my punishment and come back next year to help the club and the younger players win the Cup,” he said. “Because I always try so hard to win and had my trouble at Boston I was suspended. At playoff time it hurts not to be in the game with the boys. However, I want to do what is good for the people of Montreal and my team. So that no further harm will be done, I would like to ask everyone to help the boys to win from Rangers and Detroit.”

The damage to businesses and property was still being calculated as Richard spoke: most estimates hovered around $100,000, a $1-million or so in 2022 terms. Thirty-seven men had been charged in the Thursday-night fracas, while a further 25 youths were awaiting trial in Montreal’s Social Welfare Court.

A Montreal city councillor named Adeopat Crompt, meanwhile, was seeking to have Campbell arrested for showing up at the Forum and provoking the mayhem. Mayor Jean Drapeau didn’t quite go that far, but he did ask Campbell to stay away from Sunday night’s regular-season finale at the Forum, when the Red Wings were back in town.

Campbell was duly outraged, but he did stay home. The game went ahead without civil unrest, though it didn’t turn out as the Canadiens would have hoped, with Detroit prevailing by a score of 6-0.

A month-and-a-half later, the Wings beat the Canadiens in the championship series, too, to raise their second Stanley Cup in succession. Maurice Richard did eventually live up to his word in that fraught dressing room: in April of 1956, the Rocket did help his club claim back the Cup in a five-game series win over Detroit.