Talk:Richard Riot

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___ Well fans are better off not caring so much about their teams if they're going to do what those people did. $500,000 damage to the neighbourhood? Looting stores within a 15 block radius? Whether or not the ruling was unfair, the residents in that community were NOT responsible for what the NHL officials decided. 24.65.136.162 (talk) 00:20, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I've never known about this. This is a great story for all hockey fans to read, If only other teams fans cared half as much about their teams.....

If you don't care enough to get the story right ...
... don't edit at all. The following is the verbatim summary of the official inquiry into the incident, submitted at the March 16, 1955, hearing:

"Around the 14:00 of the third period when Boston was a man short, the Canadien goalkeeper was removed in favour of a sixth forward. Richard skated past Laycoe who high-sticked him on the head.  Referee Udvari signalled a penalty to Laycoe but permitted play to continue as Canadiens were still in possession of the puck.  Richard skated around the Boston goal and almost to the blueline when the whistle blew.  Richard rubbed his hand on his head and indicated to the referee that he had been injured.  Suddenly he skated towards Laycoe, who had dropped his stick and gloves, and swinging his stick up with both hands he struck Laycoe a blow on shoulder and face.  The linesmen grabbed the two players and Richard's stick was taken away from him.  Richard broke away from linesman Thompson and picking up a loose stick again attacked Laycoe, striking him over the back ahd breaking the stick.  The linesman seized Richard but he gort away and seizing another stick, attacked Laycoe for the third time hitting him on the back. Linesman Thompson seized Richard once more and forcing him to the ice held him there until a Canadien player pushed Thompson away and Richard regained his feet. Richard then struck Thompson two hard blows in the face which raised a swelling. Richard was finally brought under control and taken to the first aid room where several stitches were required to close a cut on the side of his head. Referee Udvari gave Richard a match penalty for deliberately injuring Laycoe and Laycoe was given a major penalty. Laycoe was ordered to take his place on the penalty bench and when he failed to do so, the referee gave him a ten-minute misconduct penalty. Laycoe claimed that he had been hit first on the glasses that he wore and that he retaliated with the high stick. Richard said he thought linesman Thompson was one of the Boston players."

- Trail of the Stanley Cup, Vol III., Charles Coleman, p. 252-253

There's revisionist history, and there are downright lies, and that's what was put in the article. Ravenswing 05:30, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what your talking about!
I tried reading this article and it used a lot of hockey terms I dont know the meaning to. It also uses nicknames of which i have no idea who it is reffering to. Someone needs to fix this article so that when someone reads it, if they have no experience with hockey knows what it is talking about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.20.1.247 (talk) 06:58, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * There are a great many articles on Wikipedia requiring some technical knowledge to understand.   Ravenswing  02:29, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Campbell quote
Maxim and I've been sparring over the posted text from the press release Clarence Campbell made after the Richard hearing. In an ongoing peer review of the article, Maxim and another editor claim the quote to be a WP:COPYVIO violation. Yet it comes from an official NHL press release on the matter, which is not a copyright violation. In his most recent reversion, Maxim uses the edit summary "WP policy is to assume a work is copyrighted unless proven otherwise." Quite aside from the absurdity of attempting to "prove" a negative, this is not at all the case. WP:COPYRIGHT holds that users do not have to prove, generally, that items are not under copyright. That aside, Maxim's issue (as expressed in the peer review) is that he doesn't like the length of the quote. So stipulated, but no one else had had a problem with it in the four years that quote has been in the article. It is a valid quote, issued as part of a press statement, dealing with the most notable disciplinary case in hockey history, and matches well with Richard's own public statement on the issue, which is likewise printed in its entirety and has been for several years.  Ravenswing  03:43, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hm, funny, if it was copyrighted, how could the Ottawa Citizen extensively quote it?   Ravenswing  03:50, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * What I meant by my last edit summary is that you cannot simply assume that a work is in the public domain -- there has to be a reason for the assumption, and the work being a press release does not cut it, as the copyright on them is not expressly released. The conditions of use of a press release -- whether implict or explicit -- would allow for dissemination via newspaper, and I would be highly surprised if the NHL would take legal action against the WMF for the use. However, Wikipedia should not use copyrighted material no matter what the owner would or would not do. Aside from the copyright status of the press release, the use of it is a bit problematic. The quote would be approximately half of the relevant section, and I feel that it is disproportionate. If the more relevant bits were to be taken, and placed in a quotebox, or used as necessary in the body of section, there would be no problem in my opinion. In short, I feel that there are two problems with Ravenswing's preferred version -- the length and portion of the quotation used is problematic with regards to non-free content guidelines, and secondly, as approximately half of the section, it is disproportionately long.   Maxim (talk)  04:00, 31 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't recall the NHL or the Campbell family causing an uproar over the usage of the quote. It should remain in the article. GoodDay (talk) 04:02, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Regardless of their causing an uproar or not, a quote of this size falls afoul of non-free content guidelines (the portion used also becomes relelvant due to its size), and it is disproportionately long, as it would take up roughly half a section.  Maxim (talk)  04:05, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Why not collapse the quote? I believe there's a way to do it. GoodDay (talk) 04:07, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Using a collapsebox won't solve either problem -- the quote is still in the article.  Maxim (talk)  04:09, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * So, Richard's quote is in the article too. GoodDay (talk) 04:10, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not problematic like Campbell's quote because it's much smaller and doesn't take up half the section. If relevant excerpts of Campbell's quote were used in the article body, or in a quotebox, that would be better than having it make up half of a section.  Maxim (talk)  04:13, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The Montreal Gazette published the release in its entirety, which runs 1200 words, about five times the size of the excerpted sections. That being said, of course it's going to take up much of the section concerning the hearing of which it is the sole official record.  So what?  The purported problem with its size is solely that you don't like long quotes.  There is not a single bit of the MOS that discusses the maximum length of quotes or the percentage of a section they're permitted to occupy.   Ravenswing  04:14, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * MOS doesn't go into depth on quotation as far as I know, but WP:NFC gives more guidance -- "Extensive quotation of copyrighted text is prohibited." and "Excessively long copyrighted excerpts." is cited as an unacceptable use of non-free text. At about 250 words and half a section, it falls afoul on both counts.  Maxim (talk)  04:22, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Since you're no longer against its inclusion, I'd say collapse it. GoodDay (talk) 04:16, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * A collapsebox is not a solution, it would still be in the article. I remain against its inclusion in its current amount and proportion.  Maxim (talk)  04:22, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I fail to understand why, now that you're no longer objecting on copy-right reasons. GoodDay (talk) 04:25, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm objecting on WP:NFC reasons -- so the same copyright reasons remain... I don't see where I've stated otherwise..?  Maxim (talk)  04:27, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see. Well, I'm still puzzled about your objections. Perhaps if someone (who knew how) would contact the NHL & get their permission for usage, things would be settled. GoodDay (talk) 04:29, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * So long as the quote is properly sourced, and it is made clear that it is indeed a quote, I don't really see it being against WP:NFC. It's not like the entire release is being reproduced; rather, just a section of the original document has been inserted into the article. That being said, I would agree with Maxim's assertion that the quote is disproportionately long, and frankly, I don't see how the direct quote benefits the article any more than a paraphrased version of it would. So, in short, I don't see a copyright issue, but I do think it might be a tad long in terms of simple article formatting. – Nurmsook!  talk...  06:06, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I asked for other opinions here.  Maxim (talk)  05:06, 31 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Personally, I am not concerned about the copyright so much as I am not a big fan of such an extensive quote length. IMO, shorter is better.  Pulling out one or two key sentences from the quote would serve the same purpose. Resolute 06:18, 31 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I believe the following passage from Quotations is instructive: "Long quotations crowd the actual article and remove attention from other information. Many direct quotations can be minimised in length by providing an appropriate context in the surrounding text." Also see the section on fair use on that page. I do not believe the exact wording used by Campbell is necessary to understand the event, and so for conciseness I would prefer a summary. Isaac Lin (talk) 07:09, 31 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I would be minded to keep the quote. We're told that the suspension was considered "unjust and severe", to the extent that there was a riot, that is the very subject of the article.  Given that there is that level of controversy about the suspension, I think it is appropriate and in the public interest (and in Campbell's interest) for the other side of the story to be presented as clearly as possible -- and that is done most clearly and most fairly by reporting Campbell's own words.
 * In my view, also, the quote works well in the context of the article. The article is not a quote farm -- it is not dominated by quotes.  This is the only quote of this length, and at 8 lines long it's not a particularly big chunk of the article; and it does squarely address the central issue of why the action that triggered this riot was considered necessary.  In particular, given that context, I do not believe that there is "crowding of the article", nor in my view does the quote unduly "remove attention from other information". The quote is succinct, and makes a number of points.  Paraphrasing the quote would not make the points as succinctly or as authentically, and would probably also be less readable.  I therefore don't see a problem against our style guidelines, nor against article readability.
 * As regards copyright there's certainly no legal problem here. Given the context, a quote of this length is not unusual -- you'll find quotes of this length every day in books and newspapers.  Legally, there's clear public interest in accurately relaying Campbell's view; and since the statement was released by Campbell intentionally for the widest distribution precisely to facilitate that, our legal copyright taking in using it here is negligible.
 * I came here because of an appeal made at WT:NFC for input. Having reviewed the quote, I find no legal problem with the quote, neither for us nor for our downstream reusers.  Nor do I find a stylistic problem.  Given the overall length of the article, the quote does not dominate, but comes over as an efficient and accurate way of presenting the important matter of Campbell's position.  In the context of this particular case therefore, I see no apparent grounds for any strong objection here. Jheald (talk) 11:09, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Jheald who has said it far better than I could, so I will leave it at what he said. -DJSasso (talk) 12:31, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm certainly minded to rework the quote; unlike which Charles Coleman printed and from which I excerpted, the Montreal Gazette published Campbell's entire statement, which is a great deal longer. The wording is slightly different in a couple spots: Coleman uses the turn of phrase "probationary lenience," where the Gazette uses "probation or leniency." Given that the Gazette published the full text of Campbell's statement the next day, where Coleman published a excerpt fourteen years later, I'm thinking the Gazette probably has the more accurate version.
 * That being said, of course I agree with Jheald's POV. Campbell's statement - not, after all, Richard's actions - is the provocation for the Riot.  A brief paraphrase of it strips away the severity of his language, which locals found so objectionable ... as the same edition of the Gazette indicates, in publishing several dozen "man in the street" quotes from Montreal residents.   Ravenswing  18:12, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I think I'm going to have to concede here that my opinion is in a minority... so: the quote might as well be put back in, but from a purely stylistic perspective, outside of WP:NFC guidelines, it would be nice if the quote were to be shortened, or at least that it wouldn't take up so much of the section.  Maxim (talk)  20:30, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * What about chopping the quote down like this:

After the hearing NHL president Clarence Campbell made the following statement: "I have no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the attack on Laycoe was not only deliberate but persisted in the face of all authority and that the referee acted with proper judgment in accordance with the rules in awarding a match penalty. I am also satisfied that Richard did not strike linesman Thompson as a result of a mistake or accident as suggested. There is singularly little conflict in the evidence as to important relevant facts. Assistance can also be obtained from an incident that occurred less than three months ago in which the pattern of conduct of Richard was almost identical, including his constant resort to the recovery of his stick to pursue his opponent, as well as flouting the authority of and striking officials." Due to Richard's record of previous violent incidents, Campbell suspended him for the rest of regular season and all of the playoffs. He further justified the actions by stating that previous incidents were treated more leniently because they did not result in serious injuries to the opposing player. The suspension&mdash;the longest ever handed out by Campbell&mdash;was considered by many in Montreal to be unjust and severe. No sooner had the judgment been handed out that the NHL office (then in Montreal) was deluged with calls from enraged fans.
 * I'm proposing to cut the quote there because the part that was cut out was generally not as strongly worded, and so it could be just as well be covered by normal prose.  Maxim (talk)  03:13, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Photo caption
I do not believe that this edit implies that Richard provoked the riot. The current caption is somewhat circular and not very illuminating; it is more useful to give an indication of why the riot is known as the Richard riot. I prefer an alternate wording that helps shed some light on the situation. Any suggestions? Isaac Lin (talk) 02:25, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
 * What about "The suspension of Maurice Richard eventually led to the riot."? Or something in that general direction? "Maurice Richard's suspension eventually led to the riot."?  Maxim (talk)  02:38, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Truth be told, there's a straightforward way to learn why the riot is known as the "Richard riot" - read the article. Compelling the caption to do it makes very little sense. Suggesting that Richard provoked the riot or that his suspension "led" to it has an air of inevitability that is speculative.  Many players - even other Quebecois players in that time period - have been suspended without a riot ensuing.   Ravenswing  04:00, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I suppose this is a situation where the KISS principle takes over, instead of trying to be overly specific.--Mo Rock...Monstrous (leech44) 04:15, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree that it makes little sense. I am sympathetic to calls for people to read articles (I have seen an argument on adding more description to a hatnote, even though the result was essentially a repetition of the first sentence of the article), but I think a concise note summarizing Richard's relationship to the riot is reasonable, to identify the importance of having the photo present in the article. I also disagree that an air of inevitability is being given; it is just a matter of the chronological timeline. Richard's action is the starting point of events. The 1993 Stanley Cup Riot was not an inevitable result of the 1993 Stanley Cup victory, but nonetheless the outcome of the 1993 finals triggered the riot. isaacl (talk) 05:08, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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majority vs minority
Regarding [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Riot&diff=930154201&oldid=929764270&diffmode=source this edit]: Can someone with access to the sources for the sentence in question examine if the terms majority and minority were being used in context of Quebec or Canada? isaacl (talk) 20:03, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Pursuant to the above
Another issue to ponder: the terms "French Canadian" and "English Canadian" seem a little grotty today. In one sense they're inaccurate; for example, one might be led to assume that "English" Canadians are from England, or at least of English descent, whereas in fact that's a laughable assumption. (Clarence Campbell, to name one, was a Scottish Canadian, but somehow also an "English Canadian" in the article.) The same contradictions plague the term "French" Canadian. They also just sound like something my grandparents would say. Current style is "francophone" and "anglophone" - terms that cut to the chase and avoid irrelevant assumptions. Perhaps we should update those terms in the article. Laodah 19:40, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Mmm, but the current style is inaccurate: those refer to people who speak those languages, not their ethnicity. I'm aware that it's been common practice for several decades for vocal factions to push for nomenclature change every few years out of a premise that the current version is objectionable -- good grief, the prevalent polite term used to refer to "non-caucasians of African descent" in my country has flipped six times in my lifetime alone -- but it's no more silly to describe someone with Great British descent as "English" as to so name this the "English Wikipedia," when only one native English speaker in ten comes from England.   Ravenswing      04:07, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * As a sidenote: the primary dividing line for Quebec culture today is indeed more linguistic than ethnic, with the high success of Quebec language policy integrating immigrants into francophone culture. Of course, ethnic cultural differences are overlaid on top of this. But in Richard's time, these two dimensions largely coincided. isaacl (talk) 04:44, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with the premise that there is an implication that an English Canadian is descended from people from England. Furthermore, at the time of events in the article, most Quebecers who identified with French Quebec culture were descended from people from France. The terms are really denoting the difference between French Quebec and English Quebec/rest of Canada society. Today, although Quebec francophone society continues to be distinct in many ways, it has more cross-pollination with Quebec anglophone society, particularly in Montreal as more families participate in both. And post-language laws, Quebec francophones encompasses many immigrants from around the world. So I don't think a change to using francophone/anglophone would accurately reflect the context of the time. In short, they sound like things your grandparents would say because the events occurred during their youth. isaacl (talk) 04:32, 19 October 2020 (UTC)