Looks like Stephane Roy knew what he was talking about after all.
His brother, Hall of Famer Patrick Roy, finally was named as the new head coach of the Colorado Avalanche after days of speculation.
It’s a hiring that should energize a disaffected fan base, and stabilize a position that has seen five changes in the past 10 years.
But Roy faces a tall challenge, and not just the obvious task of making a winner out of a roster that, for the moment, is overly reliant on young talent and lacks the depth to match up with the top teams in the Western Conference.
SI.com’s Adrian Dater, writing in the Denver Post, said that Patrick Roy will be announced as the next head coach of the Colorado Avalanche.
“They’re discussing the final details of an arrangement. Colorado is going to be very happy. Patrick is looking for a new challenge,” said Stephane Roy, the younger brother of the Hall of Fame netminder.
From the Post:
If Roy is hired, it would cap a whirlwind last few days, after which [Avalanche vice president of hockey operations Joe] Sakic said he was in no hurry to name a new coach. But Sakic acknowledged to The Post and to KKFN 104.3 FM that Roy was a candidate, and told KKFN: “I love Patrick. He was probably the greatest goalie that ever played. There’s a guy who was a winner. That’s all he wanted to do. I know he’s done a tremendous job with his junior team in Quebec and for sure he’s a guy that you would consider, yeah.”\
Roy was offered the Avs’ coaching job in 2009, but turned it down, citing his family as a top reason. But his sons, Jonathan and Frederick, who once played under him with the QMJHL’s [Quebec] Remparts, are no longer there, and Roy has said he would consider an NHL job if it were offered.
Hall of Fame defenseman Scott Stevens knew full well the motivational value of a big hit — in games or practice — while serving as the captain of the Devils’ three Stanley Cup championship teams. (Photo by Lou Capozzola/SI)
Unless the owners and players restart negotiations, the closest that NHL fans may come to their favorite sport this season is by reading a book. If you are still stumped about what to give the fans in your life this holiday season, you might select one of these, or from our earlier list of gift books.
Wearing The C: Hockey’s Highest Honor, by Ross Bernstein. Triumph Books, 272 pages. $22.95 — The question of leadership among players has always been an essential part of hockey, often discussed and cited as a key reason why teams win or lose. “Putting a C on natural leaders,” Scotty Bowman says in this book, “is what sets average teams apart from the great ones.” There are different reasons why a player is selected to be a captain — some inspire and instill confidence with words in the dressing room and on the bench, some lead by example on the ice, some get the C on their sweater by virtue of their playing talent, some by virtue of their physical play — and this book explores all of that and more. Here’s SI.com’s photo gallery of its top 10 NHL captains of all time.
To Red Light’s dismay, Gump Worsley only ranked 20th in the new edition of Without Fear: The Greatest Goalies of All Time, even though he won four Stanley Cups during his career. (Charles Hoff/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
The holiday season is already upon us, which you no doubt noticed a couple of weeks ago. The question is: what do you buy a hockey fan during this sad December, this festival of darkness in NHL arenas with no peace on the CBA front and good will in short supply?
You can’t buy tickets to games that are not being played. If you are of the mind that you’re not going to pay a penny to the owners or players as long as there’s a lockout (or even longer if you’re part of the Just Drop It movement), you’re not buying any NHL merch, either.
If Michel Therrien does not adapt to the current NHL game, his next stint in Montreal will end as unhappily as his first one did. (Photo by Paul Chiasson/AP)
The curiosity stems in part from Therrien’s penchant for installing a passive defensive system on the teams he coaches. Both the Canadiens players and their fans groused at Jacques Martin’s passive approach to the game and it’s pretty obvious that when teams wait for the opposition to make errors and then counterpunch, they don’t have much success in the NHL anymore. The Kings and Devils reached the Cup final because they abandoned that style of hockey. The Bruins and Canucks, last year’s finalists, did as well.
It’s a cruel world in which goalies live. The numbers may tell us they haven’t been this good since the days of Georges Vezina, George Hainsworth, Tiny Thompson and Frank Brimsek but — then as now — gaudy regular season stats are meaningless when the playoffs roll around. The Blues’ Brian Elliott may have posted eye-popping numbers between October and the first round, like a 1.56 goals-against average and .940 save percentage, but in his last three games against the Kings, his performance has been abysmal and will likely leave a lasting impression.
Owner Geoff Molson’s command performance at his Thursday press conference should give Canadiens fans some hope, but much needs to be done to restore Montreal’s proud old franchise. (Oliver Jean/Reuters)
The Montreal Canadiens will set a franchise record for most losses this season and could finish last in the Eastern Conference for the first time, so it was expected that GM Pierre Gauthier would be out of a job. The timing is curious, though, with five games left in the regular campaign. But during a season when Gauthier fired an assistant coach minutes before a game, traded a player during a game, and dismissed the head coach on a game day, it is perhaps fitting that the GM himself was relieved of his duties when he was.
Habs fans want Patrick Roy to be Montreal’s next coach or GM, but his connection to Quebec City, where he’s the owner/bench boss of the junior Remparts, makes his return unlikely. (Leon T. Switzer/ Icon SMI)
For a few years now, every time NHL executives have been questioned about the possibility of the league returning a team to Quebec City, they’ve responded the same way: There are no teams available right now, and even if there were, the absence of a suitable arena makes it unlikely. But all that changed on Sunday when the city’s mayor and a corporate executive signed a long-anticipated deal on a new building. Ground is scheduled to be broken this fall and the arena will be ready in the fall of 2015.
That’s not an insignificant date. It coincides with the expiration of the lease that keeps the New York Islanders at Nassau Coliseum. Of course, it’s also possible that the team now known as the Phoenix Coyotes will be ready at that time to move into the new Quebecor Colisee. The new Nordiques (or whatever they will be called) will have played the intervening three years in the old Pepsi Colisee, which is scheduled to get $7 million in emergency improvements starting this spring.
Of course, the Coyotes could move elsewhere, or maybe not move at all. And it’s possible that Quebec City’s new arena will not have an NHL tenant when it opens. But considering the delirious return of the NHL to Winnipeg last year, not too many people believe the league will forego a chance to create more delirium as soon as it can.
Pat Hickey of The Montreal Gazette had this very cogent observation on coaches like the Capitals’ Dale Hunter who make the leap from junior hockey to the NHL. Hickey brought up Hunter as an example to those who are calling for Patrick Roy, who is currently coaching and running the major junior Quebec Remparts, to eventually become the Montreal Canadiens’ head coach.
“If you want a preview of what Roy might be like as a head coach look at Dale Hunter’s early struggles in Washington,” Hickey wrote. “Hunter may turn out to be a great coach, but he’s learning that coaching millionaires isn’t the same as coaching teenagers in junior who are motivated to reach the next level. The parallel is especially important here because Hunter and Roy had similar situations in the junior ranks.
“In addition to being coaches, they were owners and had control over personnel decisions. Much of their success stems from the fact their junior teams are in major markets and have the financial wherewithal to recruit and sign players, divert players headed to U.S. colleges and manipulate the draft.”
Roy is a link to better times, a Habs hero who is considered the favorite among the team’s fans to take the Montreal job during the offseason. He certainly can coach, having won the Memorial Cup but, as busy as he’s been with the Remparts, he’s not familiar with today’s NHL. Fans who hope he’d be able to come right in and immediately straighten out the Canadiens should perhaps look at his old Nordiques rival Hunter and be careful what they wish for.
Randy Cunneyworth, the Canadiens’ interim coach is probably glad to be on a six-game road trip as it takes him out of the firestorm his hiring sparked in Montreal. (Photo by Brian Jenkins/Icon SMI)
Fewer and fewer things in this world make sense, it seems, especially at first glance. The real essence of stuff often lies beneath the surface, requiring examination and context to become clear. The appointment of Randy Cunneyworth as coach of the Montreal Canadiens and the outcry among Quebec’s Francophone majority because he cannot speak French qualifies as one of those things. Read More…
