Fisher dies at 80, shot 'unforgettable moments' as Canadiens photographer

MONTREAL -- Here’s what you need to know the loyalty and affection for the Montreal Canadiens of Bob Fisher, the team’s retired longtime official photographer who died peacefully on April 9 following an illness at age 80:

It was May 24, 1986, in Calgary, and the Canadiens were on the brink of winning the Stanley Cup. In his first season with the team, Fisher was certain on this night that Montreal was going to win Game 5 against the Flames to claim their 23rd championship.

So certain that, before the game, Fisher had firm instructions for veteran trainer Eddy Palchak.

“I told Eddy: ‘I want you to have Bob Gainey’s teeth nearby,’ ” Fisher remembered in conversation. “I didn’t want Bob to look (gap-toothed) like he did in 1976.”

From left: Canadiens captain Bob Gainey, athletic therapist Gaetan Lefebvre, Larry Robinson with the Stanley Cup overhead and Mats Naslund after Montreal’s championship-clinching win in Calgary on May 24, 1986.

The hometown Flames made it close enough in the late stages of the 4-3 Canadiens victory that Palchak told Fisher to vacate the bench area lest he be a jinx. But at the final siren, amid the celebration that preceded the Stanley Cup presentation, Palchak waved Gainey over and gave him his teeth from a glass of water.

On Saddledome ice a few moments later, defenseman Larry Robinson joyfully thrust the trophy over his head. Gainey grinned on the left, with a full smile, with Mats Naslund beaming on the right.

Athletic therapist Gaetan Lefebvre, who'd kept an aching Robinson on skates for the playoffs, dove into the scene. And Fisher dropped to the ice, beneath two dozen photographers milling about, and called to Robinson to look down. The dramatic result forever remained one of his favorites among the many thousands of Canadiens images he shot.

The Canadiens honored Fisher’s memory before their 4-3 shootout loss to the Chicago Blackhawks at Bell Centre on Monday with a short tribute and a moment of silence. Many didn’t recognize his face on the scoreboard, but they very well knew of his iconic work.

Bob Fisher’s first official Canadiens team photo, a portrait of the 1985-86 Stanley Cup-winning club. The Conn Smythe Trophy voted to the most valuable player of the postseason, won by goalie Patrick Roy (front row, far left), is beside the Cup.

The team marked Fisher’s death with a post on social media:

“The entire Canadiens organization is saddened to learn of the passing of former team photographer, Bob Fisher. Above all, Bob was an exceptional man -- warm, kind and professional -- who used his incredible photography talents to immortalize a number of unforgettable moments in Canadiens history.

“During his nearly 25-year career with the team, Bob documented two Stanley Cup victories as the team's official photographer, and his infectious smile will forever be remembered by all those fortunate enough to know him.

“The organization extends its most sincere condolences to his family, including his two children, Marc and Julie, as well as his loved ones. Thank you for all the wonderful memories, Bob.”

Montreal Canadiens great Henri Richard playfully jabs Gordie Howe with an elbow at a March 2007 gala at Bell Centre, $1 million raised for children’s hospitals in the name of Canadiens icon Jean Beliveau.

Respecting Fisher’s wishes, a public funeral or memorial service will not be held.

Early on a Monday morning in late October 2009, Fisher was on Bell Centre ice looking at the empty risers that awaited the 2009-10 Canadiens for the first of two team photos he would shoot for the franchise’s centennial season. A second would be taken after the March 3 trade deadline.

“This is the most historic picture I've ever done," Fisher said, admitting that nerves had kept him awake most of the night before. “This is (essentially) the team that will be playing on Dec. 4, the Canadiens’ 100th birthday.

“People are going to talk about this picture 50 years after I’m dead. They’ll ask: ‘Who was there in the centennial season?’ Well, this is the team.”

Bob Fisher’s shot of Montreal coach Jean Perron and captain Bob Gainey with the Stanley Cup, and Fisher’s “Gainey as Superman” Canadiens Magazine cover that he believes landed him his job as team photographer.

To that point in Canadiens history, probably a dozen photographers had taken team portraits but the vast majority has been done by only four: James Rice, Tom Arnott, David Bier and then Bob Fisher.

Arnott’s assistant at the Arnott Rogers Batten advertising agency in the mid-1960s was a young Fisher, who was shooting portraits and fashion for the studio.

Fisher recalled carpenters driving a van onto Montreal Forum ice, unloading powerpacks to fuel the flashes. They’d then take a long roll of light blue paper and unroll it as a background, clamping it along the glass at one end of the rink.

Bob Fisher’s iconic 1974 wide-angle photo taken behind the Canadiens’ Montreal Forum bench. Players from left: Rick Chartraw, Guy Lapointe, Serge Savard, Pete Mahovlich, Guy Lafleur, Bob Gainey, Yvon Lambert, Henri Richard and Murray Wilson. Larry Robinson is seen on the ice in front of Lambert.

Fisher, who lit his team photos much like his mentor did a half-century earlier -- though with backlighting, then unique in NHL team photography -- was responsible for syncing flashes to Arnott's large 8x10 camera in an era before remotes.

Bier took over in the early 1970s, Fisher by now having embarked on his own studio career. He returned to the Forum for a lens test in 1974, shooting a dramatic behind-the-bench wide-angle classic. Like Gainey-Robinson-Naslund a decade later, it would be one of his career favorites.

Fisher signed his first of nearly 20 one-year contracts as the team's official photographer in 1985-86. He won his first contract, he believed, thanks to the Canadiens Magazine cover he shot of Gainey peeling his shirt open like Superman to reveal a CH logo'd T-shirt.

Bob Fisher captured Guy Lafleur getting a kiss from his mother, Pierette, in December 2010 at the Montreal legend’s final charity game at his hometown arena in Thurso, Quebec.

The team won its second-most recent Stanley Cup in Fisher's “rookie” season and he perched for four hours in a Hydro-Quebec bucket on Montreal’s Ste. Catherine Street to shoot the championship parade.

"I was very insecure," he said, "I had to fight for my contract year after year. My son paid me the nicest compliment, saying: ‘You must be pretty good because they keep hiring you year after year.’ ”

Fisher shot countless images for the Canadiens -- practices, games, player and management portraits and myriad special events. In the early 1990s, he conceived a famous series of the club’s Hall of Famers with the rows of miniature Stanley Cups representing their career winnings.

But in 2009, all paled for Fisher next to the centennial team photo, which would take 20 to 30 hours of fine-tuning before a giant version would be displayed outside the dressing room, prints and digitals used by the marketing department.

“We have the Canadian flag, the Quebec flag and this, the Canadiens flag,” Fisher said. “In my heart, that’s what it’s always been.”

Bob Fisher photographed four Montreal Canadiens legends and the Stanley Cup, which they won as players with the team a combined 35 times, in the Bell Centre dressing room as part of 2009 centennial celebrations. From left: Henri Richard, Guy Lafleur, Jean Beliveau and Yvan Cournoyer.

He shot his last team photo with an estimated $60,000 worth of equipment, including a $36,000 Hasselblad H3D2 digital camera and lens kit that recorded images in stunning clarity. The centennial team would be only the third Montreal group photo shot digitally.

As he always did, he chose one “victim,” in this case goalie Jaroslav Halak, to heckle in a bid to keep the mood light.

And then he ended the historic 12-minute shoot as he had every one before it.

“I say to the team, 'I love you,' " he said. "And I do. From the age of 14, when I started taking pictures, my dream was to be the Canadiens' official photographer. It came true when I was 40. Never give up on your dreams.”

Deep in retirement, Fisher still carried a pocket digital camera, snapping anything he enjoyed.

“I never know,” he said. “The next photo I take might be the most important of my life.”

Top photo: Bob Fisher at work against Bell Centre glass on Dec. 10, 2009.