Lafleur stays on as Canadiens team ambassador
Guy Lafleur is staying on as an ambassador for the Montreal Canadiens.
The Canadiens said Thursday that the club's career scoring leader has signed a long-term deal to remain one of the team's five public relations ambassadors. He joins Jean Beliveau, Henri Richard, Yvan Cournoyer and Rejean Houle, who all renewed their contracts earlier this year.
Of the five, Lafleur has always been the most outspoken, sometimes criticizing the team for poor play or bad decisions. A few years ago when the Canadiens were struggling to score, Lafleur caused a stir when he said that instead of having first and second lines they had ''four fourth lines.''
He was especially controversial when he had a weekly newspaper column which he has since dropped.
Lafleur was charged last year for obstruction of justice for helping his son, Mark - who was charged with sexual assault - to break a court-imposed curfew. Lafleur was given a one-year suspended sentence and a fine, but the sentence was overturned in an appeals court on Aug. 17.
The 59-year-old Lafleur is scheduled to start a seven-city farewell tour of Quebec on Oct. 29. He has said that those will be his last old-timers games.
Lafleur had 518 goals and 728 assists and won the Stanley Cup five times in 14 seasons with the Canadiens, who drafted him No. 1 overall in 1971. He later played for the New York Rangers and Quebec Nordiques before retiring from the NHL in 1991.
