In my youth, Jean Béliveau was my idol.

Growing up in Winnipeg in the days of the Original Six, in which each broadcast featured either Toronto or Montreal, just about everybody was either a Maple Leafs or a Canadiens fan.

For me the choice was easy. I loved the Habs because of that elegant statuesque centreman who always had the puck and who played the game with incomparable skill. No one could handle the puck like him, no one could dish it to wingers like him, no one could deke a goalie out of their jockstrap like him.

A friend used to joke that unlike all the other skaters, he played the game wearing white gloves, and that if he ever got into a fight, he’d removed the gloves one finger at a time, like a gentleman of breeding and taste.

Big Jean was always unfailingly polite, courteous and considerate whenever he was interviewed. He played the game like a gentleman among brutes.

I got the chance to meet Le Gros Bill, as he was known, in of all places, Israel.

Béliveau was twice named honorary chef de mission of the Canadian Maccabiah team and  on one of the trips, I interviewed him. He talked about the Games and how he enjoyed doing something he never had the chance to do during his lengthy playing career – walk into a stadium dressed in Canada’s red and white, representing his country.

Béliveau  retired at the end of the 1971 season, winning his 10th Stanley Cup, but too late and too old to play for Team Canada at the 1972 Summit Series against the Soviet Union. Not being able to represent Canada was something he regretted.

We talked about the Maccabiah Games and naturally, he touched all the right bases and said all the right things.

Then I asked him about his Habs (by then, I was no longer a fan) and he talked about changes they’d made and how their season was looking good, but I wasn’t paying attention to much of what he said. It didn’t really matter. I was talking hockey with Jean Béliveau! How great was that?

Then I told him my story. When I was a kid, I had a table hockey game. In those days, the little metal players were the Maple Leafs in blue on one side, and the Canadiens in red on the other.

Naturally, I always played the Habs side, and we kids also did the play by play during the game. Where my friends might say it’s Dave Keon at centre and Frank Mahovlich on the wing, I named my centre Jean Béliveau, my wingers Jean Béliveau, my defencemen were Béliveau, even my goalie was Jean Béliveau.

“You know Paul,” he said. “When I was a boy, I had a table hockey game too. And my players were Elmer Lach and Toe Blake…”

I said, “Mr. Béliveau, we’re so much alike. So how come you ended up in the NHL and I ended up playing hockey at one o’clock in the morning?”

He smiled a broad smile, and didn’t say anything. Too polite to put me in my place.

But I made Jean Béliveau smile. Small payback for all the joy he provided a little boy from Winnipeg watching him play the game as only he could play it.