Pittsburgh's "other" number 21
Story by Yinzer Crazy Contributor Harv Aronson. Check out more of his great work at Totalsportsrecall.com
If you are from Pittsburgh and a sports fan you are aware of which athlete wore jersey number 21. If you are a baseball fan, then you most likely knowing the name of the Pittsburgh Pirates player that wore that number on his back. We are talking about the great Roberto Clemente and his number 21 has been retired in Pittsburgh meaning no one will ever be permitted to wear Roberto’s number again while playing baseball for the Bucs.
What some fans may not know with the exception perhaps of a few diehard hockey and Penguins fans is that there is a second athlete who wore number 21, had it retired by the Pens, and was tragically killed long before his time. His name was Michel Briere.
Briere was drafted by the Penguins in 1969 as part of the NHL Amateur Draft. As a third-round pick, he had been playing for the Shawnigan Bruins in Quebec’s junior American Hockey League. In his final season there Briere had incredible stats scoring 75 goals, adding 86 assists for a total of 161 points. The year before in the 1967-1968 season Briere put 54 pucks into the nets and was a part of 105 assists nearly matching his point total of a season later with 159. The Bruins made the post-season that year and in 12 games, Briere was a scoring machine with 11 goals and 16 assists.
Briere’s career began with Malartic National in the Quebec National West Junior Hockey League in 1964. After being drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins Michel Briere had a solid rookie season playing in 76 games and scoring 12 goals while adding 32 assists. The Pens made the playoffs in the 1969-70 season and Briere played in 10 games scoring five times adding three assists. His point total was Pittsburgh’s third-best for the season.
For his rookie season, the Penguins General Manager was Jack Riley who reportedly said before Briere’s first season the kid had asked for a bigger bonus and added the comment “it’s not really that much extra money, because I’ll be playing for the Penguins for the next 20 years.” Perhaps that was a premonition given what was ahead in his life.
On the ice, during the 1970 playoffs, Briere scored the first overtime goal in Pittsburgh Penguins’ playoff history which was not only the game winner but knocked the Oakland Seals out of the playoffs. By Pittsburgh winning that series, it was the team’s first in their brief history. The Penguins would lose to the St. Louis Blues in the semi-finals that season. However, Briere’s stats were the team’s best during the playoff run.
After the season Michel Briere was named team Most Valuable Player but he did not finish in the voting for NHL Rookie of the Year which was won by Tony Esposito. According to scouts of that era, it was forecast that Briere would become a star in the NHL, and he drew comparisons to Phil Esposito and Bobby Clarke.
Riding the high of a successful rookie season Briere’s life was bright. He returned to his native Quebec where he married his childhood sweetheart Michele Beaudoin. The two had a son named Martin. The wedding date was set for June 6, 1970. Tragedy struck on May 15, 1970, when Briere and two friends (Renald Bilodeau and Yvon Fortin) suffered a single vehicle automobile accident during daylight and no weather conditions. The car failed to negotiate a curve in the road and crashed. Briere was driving and had consumed alcohol.
The two other men in the car had minor injuries but Briere was sadly ejected from the 1970 Mercury Cougar as they drove along route 117 in Quebec. Briere suffered major head injuries and to make the story even more tragic, while being transported to the hospital and doubly eerie, is the fact that the ambulance the young hockey player was in hit a bicyclist on the road which caused the man’s death. That unlucky cyclist was also a friend of Briere’s, one Raymond Perreault. Briere was then flown by helicopter to Notre Dame Hospital in Montreal, Canada and despite four brain surgeries, Briere slipped into a coma which he remained for 11 months.
During his stay at Montreal’s Marie-Clarac Rehabilitation Hospital which he entered on March 27, 1971, his team had gone through an entire season with their final regular season game on April 4, 1971, and the Penguins missed the playoffs. Nine days later, Briere passed away. The funeral was in Montreal attended by then head coach Red Kelly as well as General Manager Jack Riley and equipment manager Ken Carson. Back in Pittsburgh a memorial service was held at St. Paul Cathedral where most of the team had attended.
To memorialize Briere during his attempted recovery, Ken Carson carried a Penguins jersey with Michel Briere’s name on the back and the kid’s equipment bag was taken to every game of the 1970-71 season. While Briere’s number 21 was never worn by a Penguins player again, it was not officially retired. That was the case until January 5, 2001, when just nine days after the team owner Mario Lemieux had come out of retirement and he made it official that Briere’s number 21 be retired forever.
The number 21 was also on display on a jersey in the old Civic Arena along with a photo of Michel Briere in the Igloo Club. While Ken Carson was the equipment manager, reportedly he said no player ever asked for jersey number 21 and he added that had anyone asked, Michel Briere’s story would have been told.
To further honor the memory of Michel Briere, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League changed the name of their Most Valuable Player Award to the Michel Briere Memorial Trophy in 1972. As for the Penguins, each year the team’s rookie of the year receives the Michel Briere’s Rookie of the Year Award.
So forever more, in Pittsburgh, no player in baseball will wear the number 21 and in hockey, no Pittsburgh Penguin will ever bore that same number.
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