Topic: Marcel Dionne

Marcel Elphege "Little Beaver" Dionne (born August 3, 1951) is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey centre who played 18 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Detroit Red Wings, Los Angeles Kings and New York Rangers. Marcel Dionne was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1992.

Dionne was drafted in the first Round (second overall) by the Detroit Red Wings in the 1971 NHL Entry Draft. Before joining the NHL, he played for three years in the Ontario Hockey Association with the St. Catharines Black Hawks. His team was involved in one of the most infamous events in Canadian junior hockey during the 1971 Richardson Cup.

The Black Hawks and Quebec Remparts faced off in a Richardson Trophy series that was intense on many levels. Besides the strong rivalry between Anglophone and Francophone hockey teams and Canadian citizens in general, there was unfinished business between Marcel Dionne and the Remparts' coach Maurice Filion. Dionne had been coached by Filion in 1968 as a member of the Drummondville Rangers of the former Quebec Junior Hockey League. When the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League formed in 1969, Dionne departed to play in the OHA, which was seen as a higher-calibre level of competition, to hone his skills. Filion vowed revenge against Dionne's OHA team. This rivalry was further fueled by the desire of Francophone nationalists to have a Canadian champion from a Quebec team in a Quebec-based league.