Marc Tardif

Born in Granby, Quebec, Tardif played two seasons with the Montreal Junior Canadiens of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. The Montreal Canadiens - in the final year the National Hockey League team had the privilege to do so - invoked its right to select two French Canadian players first and second overall to pick Tardif in the first round, second overall, of the 1969 NHL Amateur Draft. Tardif spent most of the 1969–70 NHL season with the American Hockey League (AHL) Montreal Voyageurs, one of the leading scorers on a team studded with future NHL stars, including Jude Drouin, Guy Charron, Guy Lapointe and Pete Mahovlich. He made the Canadiens for good the following season, playing credibly for the eventual Stanley Cup champions. In 1972, Tardif scored 31 goals.\n', ' In 1973 Tardif signed with the Los Angeles Sharks of the World Hockey Association. He was the Sharks\' leading scorer that season, and was named to play for Team Canada in the 1974 Summit Series the following fall. The Sharks, however, finished with the league\'s poorest record, and moved to Detroit, where Tardif played brilliantly before a trade to the Quebec Nordiques.\n', ' In Quebec, Tardif became one of the league\'s preeminent stars. He finished the 1974–75 WHA season with 50 goals, and added a league-leading 10 goals in the playoffs en route to the AVCO Cup finals against the eventual champion Houston Aeros. The next season, he led the WHA in goals, assists and points by wide margins and became only the second professional player to score 70 goals in a single season, while the Nordiques rampaged to 50 wins. Tardif\'s playoffs were cut short after he incurred serious head injuries in an attack by Calgary Cowboys enforcer Rick Jodzio, leading to one of the first cases where a hockey player was charged in a court of law for assault.\n', '