Came across this, from the Nordiques first WHA season and wanted to share it.
First of all, thank you very much for sharing this! I think I had a thread, a couple years ago, asking about Maurice Richard's very brief tenure as Nordiques' coach in 1972 and it died on the vine, so my guess is that not many know much about it, so brief was it.
As
kaiser matias said, Richard looks very uncomfortable addressing the full room and even reading the starting line-up. He seemed more comfortable at the start when he (and another coach... Maurice Filion?) brought Jacques Blain in to tell him he'd made the club, but maybe in front of a crowd, Richard froze up a bit, I dunno. It's also interesting that Richard speaks in French to the team before the game. It appears their first-year line-up was almost entirely French-Canadians (one exception being Brit Selby, who lasted only 7 games before being traded).
Speaking of Jacques Blain, he was already 25 years old here, having never made the NHL, and having been in the EHL for three or four years. The stats show he scored 1 goal and 11 points (on defense) for the Nordiques this inaugural season, but then he never played major-pro hockey again, so I presume he just failed to make the club again the next season. (I note that in 1985-86, for just one season, he was head coach of the Laval Titan, featuring players such as Vince Damphousse, Jocelyn Lemieux, and Sylvain Lefebvre.)
The young, back-up goalie of those first-year Nords was Richard Brodeur. Their leading scorer was defenseman J.C. Tremblay, who'd just jumped ship from the NHL. Tremblay went on to play until he was 40, right to the end of the WHA (he won 2 'Murphy' awards, as the WHA's top defenceman).
Finally, I adore 'Canadiana' like this from the late-60s to early-80s. I personally think that was a very special time in Canadian history, never to be equaled (even though nearly all of it predates my memories), for reasons I won't go into here. This is a precious time-capsule. Thanks again!