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News Article
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Posted by MAC@GSH on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 |
DAVID SHOALTS
Globe and Mail Update
TORONTO — There were always two sides to Patrick Roy, who took his place with the greatest players in the game Monday night with his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
There was his famous will to win, an urge that burst into arrogance on occasion, one that fuelled the biggest blowup of his National Hockey League career: his parting with the Montreal Canadiens in December of 1995. But there was also the goaltender's tremendous sense of humour, something he did not always show publicly.
He did yesterday though, as he took the stage with his fellow inductees — former Toronto Maple Leafs and Canadiens winger Dick Duff, who joined Roy in the players category, Calgary Flames co-owner Harley Hotchkiss and the late Herb Brooks, architect of the Miracle on Ice gold-medal U.S. team at the Lake Placid Olympics in 1980, who was represented by his son Dan.
The men were handed hockey sticks and pucks and, at the urging of a band of photographers, tried to flip the pucks into the air and catch them on the blades of their sticks.
Only Duff, a slick forward who won six Stanley Cup championships, could manage the feat, and that was only once. As the group saw the pucks fall to the floor yet again, someone wondered aloud what hockey fans would think.
"What the heck are you guys doing in the Hall of Fame?" Roy said.
Ten years earlier, when Roy was leading the Colorado Avalanche to their first Stanley Cup title, he got off a great riposte to another hockey comedian, Jeremy Roenick. After Roenick and the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Avalanche in the third game of their second-round playoff series, Roenick said: "I'd like to know where Patrick was in Game 3. Probably up trying to get his jock out of the rafters."
Roy, who did not let his still-developing English interfere with his wit, shot right back, "I cannot really hear what Jeremy says because I've got my two Stanley Cup rings plugging my ear."
Roy won the two rings with the Canadiens in 1986 and 1993 and wound up with the Avalanche in 1995 because his pride was badly stung by the Canadiens' head coach at the time, Mario Tremblay. The coach, who had an icy relationship with Roy, left him in goal for nine goals in an 11-1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Dec. 2.
After he was finally pulled, Roy headed directly to club president Ron Corey, whose seat was next to the Montreal bench. With a national television audience watching, Roy said to Corey, "This is my last game in Montreal." Four days later, he was traded to Colorado, where he won two more Cup titles.
Roy remained bitter about his parting, but said a column written by Bertrand Raymond in Le Journal de Montréal on the weekend changed his mind. Raymond quoted Corey as saying it was time for Roy to put the incident aside.
"He's right, it's important for me to move on now, and I really appreciated his comments," Roy said, then added in French: "I turned the page on the Canadiens a long time ago. I think people from Montreal like asking me about it and I understand why. But the only reason I haven't been to [Montreal's] Bell Centre is that I'm busy with junior hockey.
"Of course, I would have liked to leave Montreal under different circumstances. But now looking back, I know I had great years with the Canadiens. I think we brought joy to Habs fans and even probably surprised somewhat with the two Cups we won. That's what I want people in Montreal to remember."
Roy, the owner, general manager and head coach of the Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, does not see himself joining the Canadiens' management. He said the Habs are in great hands with GM Bob Gainey and head coach Guy Carbonneau.
"I like my work in junior, I feel like it's my place," he said. "There's a lot of coaches in junior that dream of making a career in the NHL way more than me. I lived the NHL life and today I'm happy in junior."
What Roy's former teammates remember most about him was his burning desire to win.
"He was the best player that I ever played with over the course of my NHL career and the one that made the biggest impact on our team," Vincent Damphousse, who won the Stanley Cup with Roy in 1993 with the Canadiens, told The Canadian Press. "Patrick was always an excellent goalie, but the one thing with him, the more the game was important, the better he performed. And I think that sticks with everybody he played with. He was very clutch.
"He showed some arrogance when he was in net and even in the dressing room when he knew he could win. That really instilled confidence in his teammates. And that's what happened with us when we won the Cup in '93." |
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Re: The Two Sides of Patty Roy.....
by morrissey26 on Thursday, November 16, 2006
Patty Roy, what a beuty
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