Butch Bouchard, Imposing Pillar of Montreal Canadiens" Defense, Dies at 92 Butch Bouchard, the Hall of Fame defenseman and longtime captain of the Montreal Canadiens, who played on four Stanley Cup championship teams in the 1940s and "50s, died on Saturday in Brossard, Quebec, near Montreal. His death was announced by the Canadiens. Playing for 15 seasons in the National Hockey League, all with Montreal, Bouchard was one of the strongest players in the league. At 6 feet 2 inches and 205 pounds, he was imposing for his era and he had enhanced his physique as a teenager by lifting steel plates attached to railroad ties. Bouchard was not considered a fighter, but that may have been because opposing players dared not tangle with him. "It was like he was chiseled out of stone," his teammate Dickie Moore, a star wing, was quoted saying by Ken Campbell in "Habs Heroes" (2004). He had the biggest shoulders and smallest waist I had ever seen. Bouchard played for the Canadiens" N.H.L. champions of 1944, "46, "53 and "56, when he was in his final season and his eighth as the team's captain. His son Pierre, also a defenseman, played on five Canadiens championship teams in the 1970s. Butch Bouchard played in six All-Star Games and was named to the first-team all-N.H.L. squad for three consecutive seasons in the 1940s. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1966. He teamed with Doug Harvey on defense along with the electrifying forwards Maurice Richard and his brother Henri; Jean Beliveau; Bernie Geoffrion; Moore; and goalie Jacques Plante, all fellow Hall of Famers, as the Canadiens built a dynasty in the 1950s. Bouchard remained around his blue line for the most part, checking onrushing players and passing to set up Canadiens rushes. He once intimidated the entire Detroit Red Wings team, as Beliveau told it. "One night, a fracas started in Detroit, and he went right to the Red Wings" bench, opened the door and chased a player behind the boards," Beliveau wrote in "Jean Beliveau: My Life in Hockey" (1994). Nobody on the Detroit team dared to retaliate, and they certainly had their share of tough customers. Émile Bouchard was born on Sept. 4, 1919, in Montreal. He could not afford to buy skates while a youngster. so, as he once told The Montreal Gazette, "If I couldn't borrow skates or rent a pair, I'd play in the nets with my street shoes on." After playing in junior hockey, where he received his nickname Butch, and in minor league hockey, he joined the Canadiens in 1941. After playing on three Stanley Cup winners, Bouchard was out of the playoffs in 1956 because of a lingering knee injury. But in the final seconds of Game 5 of the final series, with the Canadiens on the verge of winning the Cup, Coach Toe Blake put him on the ice. After the 3-1 victory over the Red Wings, Bouchard carried the Stanley Cup aloft in the finale to his career. He had 49 goals and 144 assists in 785 regular-season games. In addition to his son Pierre, Bouchard is survived by his wife, Marie-Claire; his sons Émile Jr., Jean and Michel; a daughter, Suzanne; and seven grandchildren. After his playing career, he was the president of a junior hockey league in Canada, ran his own downtown Montreal restaurant and was the president of the Montreal Royals, an International League baseball team. In 1970, he saw his son Pierre become a Canadien. Asked about possible pressure as the son of a famous Canadiens player, Pierre Bouchard said in an interview Sunday, "I didn't suffer from that; he didn't put it as a contest for me." But Scotty Bowman, Pierre's coach for most of his time in Montreal, once said how "there's nothing tougher than for a son to come into a town where his father is a legend."