Maurice ‘The Rocket’ Richard, the Montreal Canadiens player who shot to national super-stardom in the 1940s, will bring even more hockey to the nation this NHL playoff season with the spring rollout of The Rocket (titled Maurice Richard in Quebec).

On April 21, an English-subtitled The Rocket will open on an unprecedented 115 screens in English Canada – the biggest national movie release of a French-Canadian film in the history of its distributor, Alliance Atlantis.

AA’s biggest previous release of a French-language Quebec film in English Canada was Les Invasions barbares, which was shown on 39 screens. The Rocket opens opposite the Ontario-shot Silent Hill, which will launch on some 200 screens across the country.

The Rocket, which chronicles Richard’s career up until the notorious 1955 riot caused by his NHL suspension, has already made over $4 million in Quebec, and stands to earn more with a French re-release on 35 screens set to coincide with the English debut.

Producer Denise Robert says she’s confident English Canadians will adore The Rocket.

‘They will respond to a guy who comes from nowhere and becomes a hero. That kind of story can travel,’ she says.

The Rocket also scored high with test audiences, says Jim Sherry, AA’s president of Canadian theatrical distribution. The picture is handled by Alliance Atlantis’ distribution spin-off, Motion Picture Distribution LP.

‘It’s telling an amazing story about a true Canadian hockey legend,’ says Sherry. ‘It’s a perfect companion piece to the playoffs.’

AA won’t reveal the cost of the marketing campaign or how much it expects The Rocket to earn at the box office, but Sherry says the company is putting its full resources behind the film – on a similar scale to the recent release of David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, which made $4.5 million.

The Rocket’s target audience is 24- to 54-year-old men, he says. It’s already been promoted during the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics, but a heavier marketing blitz – with funding help from Telefilm Canada – began on April 10 with TV, radio and print promotions. The company also invited 1,000 people to a Toronto preview screening and a party at the Hockey Hall of Fame .

Since Alliance Atlantis ‘couldn’t take for granted Maurice Richard’s celebrity status in English Canada,’ it embarked on a massive information campaign about ‘The Rocket,’ in schools and junior hockey leagues, says Sherry.

The Friday before the film is released, CBC will premier a ‘making-of’ documentary entitled The Rocket. The documentary will also be shown on Rogers Pay-Per-View starting April 15.

The film is set to run for two to six weeks at Cineplex theaters across the country.