Lemieux family mourns two-time Cup champion who appeared at Bell Centre days before his death
Lemieux family mourns two-time Cup champion who appeared at Bell Centre days before his death
Claude Lemieux, a two-time Stanley Cup champion and one of the NHL's most combative forwards across a career spanning more than two decades, died Thursday. He was 60. His death came just days after he appeared at Montreal's Bell Centre on Monday, where he carried a torch during a ceremony ahead of the Canadiens' Game 3 Eastern Conference final matchup against the Carolina Hurricanes - dressed in his No. 32 red and blue Canadiens sweater and visibly in good spirits as he carried a flame across a darkened rink.
Tributes spread quickly across the hockey world in the hours following the announcement. His daughter, Claudia Lemieux, addressed her father's death on Instagram after reposting a tribute from the New Jersey Devils. "No words to express the level of devastation we feel. I love you forever daddy. Forever your only girl," she wrote. His son Brendan, who himself spent roughly a decade in the NHL - most recently with Carolina during the 2023-24 season - shared a photograph featuring three generations of the Lemieux family. "I love you dad! My son's favorite person is going to watch from above for a while. We will see you," he wrote.
Lemieux grew up in Mont-Laurier in western Quebec and made an immediate mark on Canadiens history as a rookie in 1986, scoring a decisive backhander over Hartford goaltender Mike Liut's glove in Game 7 of the second round. He went on to win the Stanley Cup on two separate occasions during his NHL career. Former NHL center Doug Gilmour, who faced Lemieux across several playoff series, captured the forward's divisive appeal in a single sentence: "He was a pain in the a-- to play against, but you wanted him on your team."
In December 2025, Lemieux had been honored at Colorado's Ball Arena as part of the Avalanche's 30th anniversary celebration of their 1995-96 championship season, one of several occasions in his later years when he returned publicly to the sport he defined through physical, relentless play. No details regarding cause of death were included in tributes shared by the family or the clubs who honored him.
