This Day in Hockey History – August 29, 1901 – The Physics of “Little Atom”

Aug 29, 2019

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Aurèle Joliat, born in Ottawa, Ontario on August 29, 1901, grew up to just 5-foot-7 and about 136 pounds (making him one of the smallest skaters in the early NHL). However, the left wing never let his slight build stop him from facing challenges. When he fell off a roof and walked away as a teenager, he showed signs of how he would shake off bigger opponents once he played for the Montreal Canadiens. His refusal to back down despite his size earned him the nicknames “Mighty Atom” and “Little Giant.”

Between 1916 and 1920, Joliat played for the Ottawa New Edinburghs of the Ottawa City Hockey League. In his final year with the team, he lead the league in scoring. Moving on to the Iroquois Falls Papermakers in the Northern Ontario Senior Hockey Association, Joliat pulled off quite the con for the championship game. He accepted $500 to throw the game but instead scored six goals, snuck out, and ran away with the cash after the victory. As punishment for agreeing to the scam, he was suspended for the 1921-22 season. This carried over even when he tried to play for the Saskatoon Sheiks of the Western Canadian Hockey League.

Fortunately for Joliat, on September 18, 1922, the Sheiks traded him (and $3,500) to the Montreal Canadiens in return for the declining but still famous Newsy Lalonde. His 22 points in his first 24 games went a long way to soothing Habs fans unhappy about losing Lalonde.

The best was yet to come. Almost exactly a year after Joliat joined the Canadiens, center Howie Morenz signed with them. Paired together for the rest of their careers, the two became “one of the most potent scoring duos.” During a 1963 interview, Joliat said, “We must have been brothers. We both scored the same number of goals, 270 apiece, and Howie and I were partners for thirteen and a half years.” That first season together, they won the Stanley Cup (over the Calgary Tigers of the Western Canada Hockey League). At the end of the next, Joliat’s 30 goals and 42 points placed him second in the league. The duo won two more Stanley Cup championships together, in 1930 and 1931. Then in 1934, Joliat received the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s MVP. Unfortunately, within months, Morenz was traded.

For one final season, Joliat and Morenz were reunited in Montreal. Sadly, on January 28, 1937, Morenz’s devastating leg injury during a game led to his death on March 8. Joliat was never the same, and he only lasted one more season. According to the bitter Joliat, “Retired? Hell! The Canadiens fired me when the Montreal Maroons folded and some of their players moved over to the Canadiens!”

Still, Joliat ended his career with 270 goals, a record for the Canadiens at the time (until Maurice Richard) and still ninth for the franchise. His goals ranked him third (behind Nels Stewart and Morenz) in the NHL at his retirement. In addition, Joliat had 190 assists for 460 points and even 757 penalty minutes in 655 games.

Wearing a small black cap to hide his bald spot, Joliat had been a scoring sensation. He even potted the first documented empty-netter, on January 21, 1932. Joliat was so well known, in 1935 poet Wilson MacDonald wrote the silly poem “Monsieur Joliat” (in a mocking French accent). It began:

Boston she have good hockey team; 
Dose Senators ess nice.
But Les Canadiens ees bes' 
Dat ever skate de ice.

Morenz he go lak' one beeg storm; 
Syl Mantha's strong and fat.
Dere all ver’ good, but none ees quite 
So good as Joliat.

Among the other verses, the reader learns more about Joliat’s size, speed, and skills. One verse noted:

He's good on poke-heem-check, he is: 
He's better on attack.
He run against beeg Conacher 
And trow heem on hees back.

Then towards the end, MacDonald described watching a particular game.

Dat was a ver' exciting game: 
De score eet was a tie;
An' den dat leetle Joliat 
Get hanger een hees eye.

He tak' de poock at odder goal 
An' skat heem down so fas'
De rest of players seem asleep 
As he was going pas'.

After his playing days, Joliat saw firsthand the player who would surpass his goals record when he refereed Richard’s first game in 1942. Just five years later, in 1947, Joliat became the third Canadiens player inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Still, it took until 1984 for the team to retire his No. 4, by then shared with superstar Jean Béliveau. Skating almost until the end of his life, Joliat died on June 2, 1986, just after the Canadiens won the Cup and a few months shy of his 85th birthday.