On Monday evening, Claude Lemieux stood at center ice inside Montreal’s Bell Centre, torch in hand, as 21,000 fans rose to their feet and roared his name. He was all smiles. Three days later, he was gone.

A legend the hockey world is now mourning

Claude Lemieux, 60, passed away this week, and the hockey world is reeling. Over a 21-season NHL career, he was one of the most clutch performers of his generation — leading the Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils, and Colorado Avalanche to four Stanley Cup championships. He ranks among the top ten playoff scorers of all time. To those who watched him play, he was, without question, one of the greatest to ever do it.

The honor he never received — and never forgot

Despite everything he accomplished, Lemieux was never inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. And according to those closest to him, that absence was a wound that never healed. “He always lived this as an injustice, a heavy burden to bear,” said Réjean Tremblay, a longtime Montreal hockey columnist who knew Lemieux for 30 years. “The sense of rejection ran deeper than one might have imagined. He took it very hard.”

Friends say the pain of rejection was something Lemieux had carried since the very beginning of his career — dating back to 1985, when he was sent down to the minor leagues after his first NHL season. The blow was so crushing that he reportedly smashed his car’s windshield and drove it, broken, 100 miles rather than accept the demotion.

The wave of love that may have reopened old wounds

The image of Lemieux carrying the torch at the Bell Centre — beaming, surrounded by adoring fans — has taken on a heartbreaking new meaning. Tremblay offered a painful theory about that final public appearance. “It’s possible that surge of love, that wave of love on Monday evening, triggered an emotion that was too intense,” he said. “It might have reawakened old pains, old suffering.”

Those who knew him say he had been struggling in the period leading up to his death, though his family had no indication of what was coming. “They didn’t expect that at all. They never saw it coming,” said close family friend Colombe Lacroix. “He’s been going through a difficult time. He was depressed. It’s so devastating. Everyone is upside down.”

Making the loss even more devastating, it was his 30-year-old son Brendan — himself a hockey player — who discovered his father. Lacroix described Brendan as “completely destroyed.” During his final trip to Montreal, Lemieux had made a point of bringing his two eldest sons along, and visited his own parents for what would be the last time.

A legacy that deserved more

Claude Lemieux was a four-time champion, a warrior, and one of the most consequential players in NHL playoff history. The sport he gave everything to never gave him its highest honor in return. And for a man his friends described as deeply sensitive to rejection, that silence may have spoken louder than any crowd ever could.