MONTREAL -- The Montreal Canadiens jersey was on the left of the church altar Friday afternoon, beside several floral arrangements, two framed photographs, a single flickering candle and one red and one white rose laid atop the polished wood urn containing the ashes of Don Johns.
Sitting in the very last row of Beaconsfield United Church, every pew filled as were the extra chairs that had been set out, was Réjean Houle, the Canadiens' alumni director.
The large floral arrangement sent by the Canadiens, at the foot of the altar, was a fragrant, colorful tribute, but that alone would not be enough for Houle. He had driven across the island of Montreal on a day off to pay his respects to Johns, a defenseman who played one game for the Canadiens in 1966.
Johns, 79, an alumnus of the New York Rangers, Canadiens and Minnesota North Stars, died in a Montreal-suburban hospital on July 8. On Friday, family and friends assembled in a church not far from his home to celebrate his life and his love of hockey.
On Oct. 10, 2009, 10 former Canadiens players gathered in the Centennial Plaza at Bell Centre to mark the 100th anniversary as a National Hockey Association and NHL team. The 10 had played 6,839 games wearing the 'CH' jersey - 6,838 not counting Johns.
Yet that one game, played at the Montreal Forum on Jan. 5, 1966, made Johns an important piece of the Canadiens' past, a member of the family as valued as any Hockey Hall of Famer who had played hundreds more.
Among 760 others, the name of Johns is engraved on a hulking monument that anchors the Bell Centre square honoring a century of the Canadiens. It has since moved from the west side of the arena, where it was unveiled, to the east.
On the south face is the name of every man who played even a portion of one game for the Canadiens through their first 100 years, from the 1909-10 season through 2008-09. Careers laid end to end, the 761 played 100,497 regular-season games.
The alphabetical tribute begins with Reg Abbott, a center in 1952-53 who wore No. 4 for all three of his games before the jersey was assigned the following season to a rookie named Jean Béliveau. It ends with Dainius Zubrus, a forward who played 139 games from 1998-2001.
Don Johns appears nine names from the bottom of the fifth of 11 columns; there are 70 names in each of the first 10 columns, 61 in the last. Johns is between Rosario Joanette (center, two games, 1944-45) and Allan Johnson (forward, two games, 1956-57).
"I'm glad they don't list the players' number of games," Johns joked when we spoke that day. "It's very special to be on that monument. At this time of my life, it's very enjoyable to have a small bit of recognition for the years I played hockey.
"I was surprised that Réjean Houle called me when the Canadiens started planning the 100th anniversary. We spoke at a reception he invited me to and ever since then I've been included in some of the events. It's been very nice. They're a first-class organization."
The No. 25 Canadiens jersey Johns was given for the monument ceremony -- his number for his single game, worn by four different players in 1965-66 -- was the only one he owned. It was the first Montreal sweater he'd pulled on in almost 44 years, the same one that was placed beside the altar on Friday.
Johns began his career during the early 1950s with the junior Canadiens, choosing Montreal over Toronto when the former arranged for his schooling and hockey.
A native of St. George, Ontario, he moved on to play two seasons for Winnipeg of the Western Hockey League, where he was claimed by the New York Rangers in the June 1960 intraleague draft.
For five seasons, he shuttled from the Rangers, usually paired with the great Harry Howell, to minor-league professional clubs in Springfield, Massachusetts; Baltimore; Buffalo and St. Louis, playing 148 NHL games for New York along the way.
The Rangers traded Johns to the Chicago Black Hawks (then two words) in February 1965, though he never played for Chicago, and four months later he was traded to Montreal for Bryan Watson.
Johns was assigned to the senior-league Quebec Aces for 1965-66 and finally was summoned by the parent Canadiens to play against the Black Hawks on Jan. 5, on the blue line with Jacques Laperrière, Ted Harris, Jean-Guy Talbot and Terry Harper.
The Canadiens, with eight future Hockey Hall of Fame players in the lineup, lost 4-2 to an opponent that featured Glenn Hall in goal (36 saves), Pierre Pilote and Moose Vasko on defense, and Bobby Hull, Ken Hodge and Phil Esposito up front.
"I played pretty well, in my estimation," Johns said of his call-up appearance, filling in for injured defenseman Jean-Claude Tremblay. "I remember stopping a couple of Chicago rushes that came down against me."
But Johns learned after the game that his mother had died and he made hasty arrangements to return to St. George. Without a phone number for Canadiens general manager Sam Pollock or coach Toe Blake, he called Frank Carlin, his GM in Quebec, to explain the situation.
"Frank said, 'You know you'll never go back to the Canadiens if you leave,' " Johns recalled. "I just told him, 'I have no choice.'"
There was nothing sinister about it; this simply was how the six NHL clubs operated with talent deeply stockpiled in the minors.
Johns finished the season in Quebec, played another in 1966-67, then was sold to NHL expansion Minnesota in October 1967. He played four games with the North Stars and won an American Hockey League title with Rochester, then won and a WHL championship with Vancouver in 1969 before retiring to a career in sales in Montreal.
It was here that he and Carol Myers, his high school sweetheart to whom he would be married for 58 years, would raise Michael and Kimberly, who gave the couple four grandchildren.
Don and Carol would attend a Canadiens game or two each season, invited by Houle to mingle in the alumni lounge that often was crowded with the team's legends.
On Friday, Johns was remembered by his son as a fun-loving family man who had a playful competitive streak a mile wide. Referring to his father being immortalized on the Canadiens' monument, Michael said, "His love will forever be etched in our hearts."
During the 40-minute service, Reverend Shaun Fryday spoke to Johns's involvement in the church, saying no job was too small for him to tackle, calling him a solid guy with a generous heart.
In the back of the church, before the couple hundred in attendance adjourned to a reception downstairs, Houle remembered the 2009 Bell Centre monument unveiling and the two single-game Canadiens who were on hand that day.
"There was Don and goalie Jean-Guy Morrissette," Houle said, speaking of the goalie who played 36 minutes in one game in 1963-64.
"Jean-Guy died a couple years after the ceremony, and when I attended his funeral in Victoriaville (Quebec), his Canadiens sweater was at the altar, too. It was the same at the funeral of Tod Campeau, who played for us a little (42 games) in the 1940s. It's amazing how proud these men were of their short time with the Canadiens."
What was unspoken by Houle was this: when you play even one shift for the Canadiens, you are embraced by the team and considered a member of the organization forever.
On Friday, a life well lived and a career of 153 NHL games was celebrated, Johns's 60 minutes wearing the Canadiens logo having for decades been enough to burn the CH on his heart.
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