MONTREAL -- Nearly 2,000 mourners bade a tearful farewell to Roger Doucet by singing the bilingual, altered version of the national anthem which gained the former nightclub singer recognition from coast-to-coast.
Supported by her two eldest sons, Peter and Paul, Doucet's wife of 32 years, Geraldine, wiped away tears and stood erect through the 40-minute funeral service to sing out 'we stand on guard for rights and liberty,' the words Doucet added to the national anthem.
Doucet, 62, caused a national debate by replacing the anthem's repetitious 'we stand on guard for thee' in 1978 during one of his regular center-ice appearances at the opening of Montreal Canadiens hockey games.
Mrs. Doucet, who remained at her husband's side throughout his fight against a brain tumor, had substituted for Doucet in singing engagements at the Montreal Forum for the Canadiens and at the Olympic Stadium for the Montreal Alouettes.
Doucet died of a malignant tumor Sunday after lingering in a coma for six days.
Mrs. Doucet wept openly as she embraced her husband's coffin before pallbearers hoisted the casket into a waiting hearse flanked by a motorcycle police escort.
Hundreds of office workers on their lunchbreak lined the sidewalks to catch a glimpse of the funeral cortege while dozens watched from office windows high above the scene.
Doucet's oak casket, draped in a Canadian flag, was led by the Royal Canadian Legion Black Watch Pipers' Band to the Montreal Forum where some 50 employees came out into the street to offer a quavering version of 'O Canada' before the funeral procession left for a private cremation ceremony.
As well-wishers filed silently into Montreal's oldest English Catholic church, St. Patrick's Cathedral, they were greeted by the strains of a recording of Doucet and his wife performing a celebration mass.
'It was a gift to have known Doucet. We were blessed not only by his music but with his life,' said Father David Cray in a eulogy. 'We have often asked ourselves why sickness would befall a man who was so loved and so successful.'
Jean Beliveau, a friend of the Doucets and a hall-of-fame Canadiens center, gave one Bible reading during the service.
Doucet had been in hospital since the end of June when he was admitted for tests to determine the cause of weakness and fatigue which followed a operation for removal of a tumor in April 1980.
Doctors subsequently said the seven-hour operation had been unsuccessful in completely removing the mass and that radiotherapy and chemotherapy had not checked its growth.
In lieu of flowers the Doucet family asked for donations to be directed to the Roger Doucet Humanitarian Fund, earmarked for research into malignant brain tumors as well as humane care of the sick
