Colorado Avalanche: The Old Dudes
(Select) Old Guard
Aka the 3 geezers everyone should know.
Name: Joseph Steve Sakic
Alias: Super Joe, Burnaby Joe
Number: 19
Super Powers: Wicked wrist shot, leading the team in scoring approximately whenever he felt like it.
Joe Sakic was born in Burnaby BC to Croatian immigrant parents, and he is also lovingly called Burnaby Joe. He grew up speaking Croatian and only began to learn English in kindergarten, which probably helped shape his Listen to Everything and Carefully Consider style of captaining. When he was a teen tragedy struck his team, the Swift Current Broncos, when their bus went off the road, killing three of his teammates. Joe stepped up for his team after the tragedy and for many people he became the leader of the team from that moment forward. This is why everyone needs to get with the program and agree that Super Joe is a superior breed of human being.
Uwe Krupp is one of the earliest sources for the Super Joe nickname, commenting that Sakic was like hockey’s Clark Kent. "He’s ordinary Joe until he steps out of a phone booth and it’s like he’s Super Joe."
Patrick Roy echoed him after their 2001 Stanley Cup win, commenting "They talked about Joe’s size for far too long. The important thing is the size of his heart." He once offered to give Raymond Bourque his captain’s C, because that is the sort of guy that Joe is.
15 names were called before his in 1987. I defy you to remember most of the people who went before him. Can’t? That’s because Sakic eclipsed pretty much everyone. He was drafted by the Nordiques weirdly late, mostly because people underestimated him due to his height (5’11") and weight (195lb). But, like Joe enjoys reminding the populace "Heck, Wayne Gretzky was only 170 pounds and he turned out alright, didn’t he?"
Really, a lot about Sakic can be summed up with this Stanley Cup moment where he did the best thing he could do and handed the Cup to Raymond Bourque, who had waited 1,612 regular season and 214 playoff games to lift it.
Yes, this is the billionth time I have posted this video. Do I regret it? No. Everyone needs to watch this video a million times.
Look at Raymond Bourque. I mean, seriously. Look at him. Even the announcers sound stunned in that moment.
Look, see? I can even offer a commercial instead. I can be reasonable.
Joe was captain of the Avalanche/Nordiques for 17 years (16 consecutively, because there was that thing with Mike Hough in 91-92) and a lot of the fans will always think of him sorta like King Arthur: the Once and Future Captain.
His number was 88 when he started with the Nordiques back in the day. Everyone knows he eventually ended up as number 19. He also looks unusually attractive in this photo, and it’s weirding me out a lot.
Umph
Only 4 players have scored more points with a single team. Gordie Howe and Steve Yzerman with the Red Wings, Mario Lemieux with the Penguins and Wayne Gretzky with the Oilers. Joe was seriously like the best clutch player ever, and his wrist shot was legendary.
He was awarded the Conn Smythe in 1996, due in part to the fact that he had never been beyond the second round of the playoffs, and then all of a sudden he was captaining his team to the Stanley Cup finals and, y'know, scoring all sorts of overtime game winning goals. You want Joe on your fantasy team, is what I'm saying.
He won the MVP in the 54th All Star Game, and holds the record for most assists in an All Star appearance - 16.
This is 2001, the year Joe and the Avs won all of the awards (Lester B. Pearson Award [NHLPA MVP] (not pictured), Hart Trophy [NHL MVP], Stanley Cup, and Lady Byng Trophy [sportsmanship])
Also, the Campbell.
Oh, and the President’s Trophy.
Joe has a really awesome ability to pull out a victory based purely on his own conviction that the team shouldn’t be losing and then forcing reality to agree with him. Reality has no chance against him.
In 2002 he scored twice against the US in the gold medal game, helping to end the 50 year drought where Canada did not win men’s ice hockey gold. Apparently that actually happened.
Who is clutch? Joe is clutch.
He seems to enjoy smacking his teammates in the face/head.
Meanwhile Foppa seems to enjoy looking like he’s not sure why this is.
Joe was the only person to play with both Peter and Paul Stastny, officially making him really old. He was mentored by Peter Stastny, then managed to hang around long enough to mentor Paul. Paul has memories of Joe playing with him in the locker room when he was a kid visiting with his dad and uncles.
In various locker room videos you will see a stall enshrined in glass. That would be Joe’s - it’s preserved with jersey and equipment like it used to be.
This is his retirement speech. It’s amazing.
This is the best video, in which Joe is a total badass over the course of his whole career, horrible music is played, Joe indulges in smacking Hejduk in the face, and his wife, Debbie, has an unfortunate Rachel haircut.
Joe and Peter have collectively horrible hair. I blame it on the 90s.
He currently works as an Alternate Governor and Executive Adviser for the Avalanche.
In his free time he enjoys proving to other athletes that there is no way they will ever be as awesome as he is.
Never change, Joe.
Name: Peter Mattias Forsberg
Alias: Foppa, Peter the Great
Number: 21
Super Powers: Shoulder of Destruction, getting people’s hopes up
This is Peter Forsberg. He is flawless and Swedish.
Forsberg was born in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden. This is a relatively small town which produced quite a few really good hockey players. Such as this other dude you might have heard of, Markus Näslund. They're only about ten days apart in age, and their parents worked together when they were kids. They had the same first summer job growing up (working in the Electric plant their parents worked at) and they were essentially inseperable from then until now.
He is Forsberg’s BFF, and they’ve known /played with each other since they were tiny. And had horrible hair.
Keep creeping, Foppa. Keep creeping.
They’re still good friends - Naslund is GM and Forsberg is assistant GM of Modo, and they make commercials where they make fun of each other.
They are really incredibly precious together.
Peter grew up, and in the end was Philadelphia’s number six pick in the 1991 draft.
Hellooooooooo gorgeous baby Swede.
He was considered, at the time, a second round pick who might be lucky to move into the first round, but the Flyers clearly disagreed. Smart Flyers.
During the Lindros Debacle of 1991 he was traded to the Quebec Nordiques. This turned out really well for the Nordiques, and when the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup he was their unchanging value. He stayed with his team in Sweden, Modo, for three years, which made some question why he was drafted so high, if he was going to keep playing in Sweden. Clearly it is because he is flawless and unchanging, duh.
Before he came to the Nordiques, Forsberg was considered by many to be the best hockey player Sweden had produced.
Once he arrived after the lockout Forsberg managed 50 points in 47 games and was only behind Sakic in scoring for the Nordiques. He also grew a beard that made him stop looking 12, which is always a good decision when you can do it right.
He is even older than he was when he came to the Nordiques and yet he still looks 12 without that beard.
Internet, I am very bitter that this is the only image I can find of Forsberg’s Calder.
He was selected to the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, where he scored this goal for Sweden:
It’s a totally iconic image, and similar plays almost always draw comparisons to this one. Eventually Sweden made a stamp out of it, making Forsberg the first hockey player on a Swedish postage stamp.
Mats Sundin is the only other Swedish player with a stamp. I didn’t care enough to see what it looks like.
He was the flag bearer for Sweden in the 2010 Olympics. This is not a photo of that, but it is a photo of him with a tiny Swedish child and a flag, which is almost the same thing.
Sakic has echoed many analysts in calling Peter Forsberg "probably the most complete player in the game". Jeff Odgers once commented "He’s willing to battle for his ground and for his team and that is certainly something that teammates take notice of."
Speaking of Sakic, he allowed this photo shoot to take place when they came to Colorado, for which I am grateful/appalled. I wonder how many soft core porn shoots they had to search before they found those outfits.
Peter Forsberg has won approximately all the awards.
The Stanley Cup in 1996
(Please ignore that Footer getting groped in the background is totally the best part of this photo)
And in 2001
Gold in the Olympics in 1994 and 2006
The Viking Award (top Swedish player in North America) 3 times - in 96, 98, and 99.
The Hart and the Art Ross in 2003
Two golds in the World Championship, and a ton of silver and bronzes in World Juniors and other World Championships.
He’s a member of the triple gold club twice over. You read that right. Twice over. Previous to his attempted comback, Forsberg never registered a negative +/- on the ice. This is how he earned the title of Flawless Like Forsberg ™
One time the Avs were losing to the Panthers of all teams - and 5-0 at that - and Peter Forsberg was like "Fuck that shit" and decided that the Avs were gonna win the game even if he had to do it almost entirely by himself. He went on to score a hat trick and assist every other goal. They went from 5-0 halfway through the second to winning 5-7.
However, if you were to ask him about it, Forsberg wouldn’t see it that way. He’s quiet to the point of being shy when asked about his influence in games.
He has also had all of the injuries. He’s missed an entire regular season, and large chunks out of several others. He’s had shoulder injuries, shoulder surgery, concussions, a hip pointer, broken ribs, an inexplicable ruptured spleen, surgery on his wrist, a broken hand, bursa sac removal, and a couple foot surgeries. It was ultimately his foot problems that forced his retirement.
Forsberg played a hard, physical game where his shoulders were feared far and wide across the league, and probably a lot of his injury came because he never softened his game as he aged - he kept playing his own unique game even though he ultimately suffered for it. I admire him a lot for that. He was also super unselfish - the most important thing was a goal, not who got it. He’s currently number four in all time assists, despite missing a lot of games over his career. If you have to play against Peter Forsberg Adam Deadmarsh recommends you do one thing: go and change, and let someone else play against him. Basically other players would do everything they could to hip check, poke check, straight out cross check him, and he would just keep going like they didn’t exist. And then the Shoulder of Destruction would come into play and he’d flatten them.
For instance, one time Bob Probert tried to check Peter Forsberg, and Peter Forsberg was like "Um, no" and laid him out. Then Probert was an asshole who suckerpunched him, so Adam Foote got involved.
Don’t mess with Peter the Great.
Sometimes he makes weird commercials with other hockey players, although I admit I do now want to go to this restaurant, so good job whoever thought of this.
It’s possible that he is a serial killer. He has the perfect stare to be a serial killer.
Except when he looks like he could star in the Ice Capades version of Lord of the Rings.
Don’t even pretend you wouldn’t go to that show if it existed.
And then there are the moments he looks like he should be doing some type of hair and beauty product advertisements, because he is that mind numbingly, unnaturally attractive.
While still looking vaguely serial killery, idek.
Odds are he’d be pretty bad at serial killing, if this is his idea of a fight.
He owns a few horses and is involved in harness racing back in Sweden. You may believe that he is wearing a hideous coat, but you would be wrong. Peter Forsberg is simply so flawless that our pitiful little brains cannot yet comprehend how awesome his coat is. We would need to evolve more before we could hope to judge him.
Holy mother of Loki yes
After the lockout the new salary cap rules meant that Forsberg left the Avalanche, and somehow ended up in Philadelphia. It was soul crushing when it happened, but in retrospect it was two of my favorite things together, like puppies and sunshine. Or sugar and cyanide.
He was their Captain for a short period of time. He also wore the C for that stupid North America vs. The World All Star Game. I am still bitter this game didn’t end with Sakic and Forsberg holding hands singing "We Are the World".
While he was in Philly this happened:
I have no clue what is going on, and if I didn’t have a photo I wouldn’t believe it happened. I love how his level of crazy eye has gone up by a million.
Flawless Like Forsberg.
From 2008-10 he did a lot of recuperating and a little bit of playing for Modo with Naslund, and then glorious news came. Forsberg was coming back to the Avalanche.
He seemed really upbeat and excited about returning.
And then after two away games this happened.
The man couldn’t control his own tears when he tried to explain that sometimes trying hard isn’t good enough. If he’d wanted to retire an Avalanche all he would have had to do was sign the paper - instead he came back and he tried to contribute. This was the only time he ever, in his whole career, registered a negative +/- score. Unfortunately his body gave out before his desire to play did. It’s sad, but it’s also somewhat right that it should happen that way - I’d never want to see him leave because he didn’t care anymore.
Here, have Paul Stastny talking about Peter Forsberg. It’s the second most precious Av gushing about the first most precious Av, what’s not to love?
The Avalanche media had a field day with his retirement. They made this really nice video about his career highlights. (For some reason the Altitude website won’t embed the actual video, just a recap of an old game so have a link instead)
Peter Forsberg’s Top 10 Plays
He went golfing with Joe before his retirement ceremony. It was adorable.
The best part of his retirement ceremony was when he informed his fiancée that - no pressure - if they had a son, he would grow up to wear the blue and burgundy.
Then there’s how he’s so intensely shy about getting that level of attention, and they decided the best way to deal with that was to force him to make a complete circuit of the stadium. Because aversion training works, or something.
Previous to this ceremony I was completely prepared to believe that Stan Kroenke did not actually exist, and was only photoshopped into images. I’m still not 100% convinced. It might just be Avatar technology.
Afterwards he talked about his future.
He’s doing a lot of work in the US trying to get the NHL to move some of their games to a time that’s more prime time in Europe. It’s called Let Europe Watch, and there’s a nice video on youtube. This is amusing for a guy who admits he never really cared if he played in the NHL when he was younger.
"We’ll see if we can get our act together and scrape together a tiny hockey team going forward."
- Henrik Lundqvist, in reference to the upcoming births of baby Lundqvist, Sundin, and Forsberg.
I am suggesting the Avalanche trade the rights to the whole team in order to draft him/her. I have no doubt that Foppa and Nicole can produce a truly superior breed of Swede.
Recently he was at a Flyers game. And while I am happy to see him I am forced to wonder why he is not coming to all the Avs games.
Landeskog would probably score a hat trick just to impress you, Foppa. We need that.
COME BACK TO US, PETER THE GREAT. COME BAAAAAACK.
Name: Patrick Edward Armand Roy
Sometimes referred to as Patrick Jacques Roy for reasons that escape me.
Alias: Saint Patrick, Patty, *insert Roo-wahsome pun here*
Number: 33
Super Powers: Super Butterfly, smashing TVs
Patrick Roy is, depending on who you ask, one of the best goalies to have played or the best goalie to have played. Clearly I lean towards the second of those two statements. His last name is not Roy, it is closer to 'rh-WAH', Americanized to WAH, or if you're from Detroit, just 'WAH-wah'. He is a former Canadian ice hockey goalie and currently the head coach and VP of Hockey Operations for the Colorado Avalanche, and anyone who’s just hearing about him needs to take a quick trip to the Hall of Fame. We’ll wait for you here
Done?
Okay, awesome.
Patrick won a ridiculous number of awards, which include:
A Calder Cup
5 William Jennings Trophies
4 Stanley Cups
3 Conn Smythes
3 Vezinas
A Memorial Cup
The Jack Adams
He is the proud recipient of 3 Conn Smythe trophies (awarded to the MVP of the playoffs), in three separate decades, with two different teams which is something no one else has ever done. Patrick has been more valuable in the playoffs than any other player ever
He went to the All Star Game 11 times, led the league in shutouts and goals against twice, and was the 6th player to have his jersey retired by more than one team.
Patrick was born the same day as Mario Lemieux, which may or may not prove astrology correct. He began playing goal at the age of seven. He grew up as a Nordiques fan, but fate ensured that he was selected 51st overall by the Montreal Canadiens in 1984.
Rumors are swirling that he is biding his time for a team to relocate to Quebec City so that he can coach them. I would much rather he come here and be our coach but he never had the loyalty that Joe did unless Adam Foote came back, too.
EDIT: In May of 2013 Patrick Roy was hired as Head Coach and VP of Hockey Operations. One of his first moves was hiring Adam Foote as a defense development consultant, because of course it was.
Patrick was only 20 when he won the Conn Smythe in 1986, WHICH IS BADASS, and it was shortly afterwards that he got the nickname "St. Patrick". I guess that’s what happens when you lead your team to the Stanley Cup your rookie year when absolutely no one was expecting you to win. The nickname was partially his almost miraculous level of play and partially the weird connection he had to his goalposts. It was clearly not a reference to his physique.
Patrick was incredibly superstitious, and part of that was talking to his posts and thanking them for helping him when a shot rang off them. He also use to skate backwards towards the net and then spin around really quick because he apparently believed that made the net shrink. He never gave interviews the day of a game, and had a worrying obsession with his teammate's underwear. His skates could not touch the red or blue lines on the ice, and he'd skip over them. He took 'weird goalie' to interesting, unexplored levels.
Patrick Roy is credited for popularizing the modern butterfly style of goaltending, or as Semyon Varlamov puts it "I think he was the first goalie he was who started to play the butterfly style. That's what I think. Um, I think it's true?" Which is not true, because of Glenn Hall, but that's fine. The success was largely because Patrick worked with François Allaire for 10 years to refine goalie pads, allowing them to be smaller and more durable, so it was safer for goalies to butterfly instead of remaining upright. It was a unique partnership and project, and to all the goalies that are now wearing 6lb pads instead of 9lb pads? You're welcome.
Patrick was beloved by the Canadiens, except for those moments when he wasn't. Like on December 6th, 1995. After he allowed 9 goals on 26 shots. The fans, being irritated, decided to let him know how they felt and started booing the saves he did manage. Patrick, being Patrick, decided to let them know how he felt by over dramatically throwing his arms up in victory. When he was finally pulled he stomped around the bench like an angry goalie velociraptor before ending up in front of the Canadien's owner and declaring "This was my last game for Montreal", or whatever the French equivalent of that sentence would be.
His biography tries to give a version where he's slightly less of a pain in the ass (a recurring theme of his biography) but whatever the actual chain of events he ended up in Colorado along with Canadiens's captain Mike Keane who had really done nothing to deserve it. He got another Stanley Cup out of it, though, so stop complaining.
Once Patrick was part of the Avs organization he began rooming with Adam 'Footer' Foote, which resulted in one of the most loltastic bromances the Avalanche have ever seen. Footer was initially scared of Patrick, particularly when he used their first room together to explain to him how he failed at two-on-one. It was December in Toronto and Adam decided to escape and buy Christmas gifts with some of the other guys.
Patrick proceeded to give him money and ask him to buy him some underwear.
Why exactly this is remains up for debate. Did he forget to pack some? Is underwear shopping some sort of strange ice breaker? Is he just insane? Whatever the reason, he sent him off with "Just like the ones you wear, Footer, that’ll be fine."
Footer was kinda horrified by this, but he did it because he was in awe of Patrick, or maybe just that he was too scared to say no. At least the rest of the team decided that Footer buying Patrick some underoos was just another day in the life of people who room with goalies (ngl, I would totally watch a reality show called "People Who Room With Goalies". Get on that, NHL.)
The next day they won against the Leafs, and Patrick decided to make a weird situation weirder by winking at Footer in the dressing room after the game.
"I couldn’t figure out what that wink meant. Either he liked those underwear or the way I played the two-on-one." Sources are mysteriously silent as to whether Patrick continued to wear Foote’s underwear.
Speaking of winks, Patrick does amazing ones. Especially when he’s chirping the hell out of his opponents.
On the road it is traditional that the senior most player is allowed to control the remote. "The only way Foote could watch his favorite TV shows was to start a pillow fight and win it, which he succeeded in doing more often than not". Let us absorb the image of Patrick Roy losing a pillow fight for a few moments.
Good?
Okay, moving on. Rumor has it that he liked to watch Murder She Wrote, because when Foote let him have the remote during the playoffs that’s what he left the TV on. Except Patrick decided that play acting a game on his bed and narrating it at the top of his lungs was an even better way to relax. Goalies *sigh*
One time he teamed up with Foote and replaced Paul Kariya's bed with a crib. He thanks Footer for being his English teacher when he first came to the US, and the two of them are still very close.
Patrick Roy is really, painfully cocky. We love him for it. During the 1995-96 playoffs Jeremy Roenick of the Blackhawks protested that he didn’t get a penalty shot against Roy in game 4 of the playoffs, and Patrick insisted he would have stopped it. Roenick reminded him that he hadn’t stopped his breakaway in game three, saying "It should have been a penalty shot, there's no doubt about it. I like Patrick's quote that he would've stopped me. I'd just want to know where he was in Game 3, probably getting his jock out of the rafters in the United Center maybe."
Patrick Roy, being Patrick Roy, replied thusly:
Another classic is how, after Game 3 in the 1996 Stanley Cup playoffs, Patrick was questioned about the rats that showered down after he allowed two goals.
As you may have noticed, Patrick has some anger and authority problems. Aside from his blowup at Canadien’s coach Mario Temblay that resulted in his trade (and which carried on for many years with Temblay taking him apart during radio broadcasts), Patrick was also arrested on suspicion of domestic violence but was cleared of all charges. He once smashed all of the video equipment with a hockey stick after his backup was awarded the win on a game where Patrick was out of net for 1:30 during the powerplay when the Avs scored their go-ahead goal. And then there’s the approximately millions of fines he’s racked up since he started owning/coaching his sons on the Quebec Remparts. He's been fined twice and both his sons have been suspended. At this point I think the only thing he hasn't been fined for is streaking (please, dear lord, let that not happen).
Patrick does great crazy eyes.
He also wanted to fight pretty much all the Red Wings goalies ever. This animosity started in Dec. 1995 because the Wings were the ones who kept scoring all over him, and then it sorta . . . exploded thanks to Claude Lemieux being an idiot and the constant scrapping for first place that the two teams did.
This is also the origin of the Patrick Roy obsession: you do not come into Patrick Roy's house. Ever.
He has a pretty legendary passive aggressive snark fest that went on for quite a few years with Martin Brodeur. Basically it goes that Roy was selected to be the starting goalie for Team Canada at Nagano and according to Brodeur no one else was even given a chance to try for it. And they were really civil, all "Well, this is Patrick's last chance to play for Canada" and "Martin has been so gracious letting me have this last opportunity" but it started something between them. Ever since then when they met in the playoffs it was a lot of snarking about who let in the most goals and such. Their wives even got into it during the 2000-2001 playoffs, and it was hilarious. Martin loves to make vague comments about how he considers the butterfly an inferior style of goaltending (and since Roy is credited with pioneering the modern butterfly that can be seen as a knock down on him as well) and how it's just a trend. And then when Patrick retired he was asked who the next best goaltenders would be, and he said "Roberto Luongo of the Panthers and Jean-Sebastien Giguere of the Mighty Ducks". When he was called on it he had some excuse about how Brodeur didn't need to be mentioned because he was already the best, but it turned into this passive aggressive snark fest between the two of them that springs up any time they're mentioned in the same sentence. It's pretty hilarious, actually. /soapbox
Brodeur has since surpassed his games played, career shutouts, and most wins, but there's pretty much no way he can touch his playoff record. This is an argument Brodeur and Roy fans have a lot, and it's all been said but my opinion on this debate should be pretty clear.
There is a very nice video about Patrick nearing the wins record here, but embedding was disabled by someone who clearly does not share joy easily.
I enjoy watching him get carried around like a French Canadian pharaoh by his two favorite D-Men
What? What'd I do? What red line?
If you were looking for a player to put into the Hockey Hall of Fame for worst hair, that would be Patrick. He's apparently got some sort of gene that makes him blind to the hideousness of most of his haircuts.
When he's a kid he can't be blamed too much for it, because '70s.
But then he starts to grow up and has to take responsibility for it
This is a thing that happened.
Sometimes his hair makes me fear for humanity.
What, you might ask, is so horrible about his hair? Jagr had a mullet for god’s sake, you might say. And you would be right. However, Jagr eventually realized that mullets are never a good life choice, whereas retirement has only meant Patrick has more time in which to cultivate horrible hair
Someone please get him a new hobby.
He makes up for his atrocious hair with what is, without a doubt, the absolute hottest goalie stare ever to have entered the world of hockey. St. Patrick's stare is iconic.
Yes, please.
There is very little chance that his horrible hair is infectious
Holy shit this family produces some fine guys.
Goalieeeees. Goalies and headbumps.
Here we have Patrick doing . . . something. It's pretty impressive.
Patrick retired in 2003, and the Avalanche retired his number that year
The Avs have a proud tradition of gifting their retired numbers with terrible, terrible paintings.
Patrick returned to Quebec, where he began coaching the Remparts, the QMJL team he also owned and acted as GM for. The team proceeded to win the Memorial Cup that first season.
When you are Patrick Roy, why wait?
The Canadiens retired his number in 2008.
On May 20th, 2014 Patrick Roy returned to the Colorado Avalanche as head coach, somehow wrangling himself the position of VP of Hockey Operations in the process. From the beginning he and Joe Sakic set to changing the Avalanche back to the team they were, dropping dead weight contracts like Zanon and Jones, and bringing in former Av Alex Tanguay and several defensemen to shore up the blue line.
He also buried some hatchets with Chris Osgood.
Highlight comes at 10:35, where Patrick admits that during the infamous rivalry he was main goal was to “kick the shit of [Osgood].”
In the first game of the season Patrick put himself square into the hearts of his team and fans by doing his best HULK SMASH impersonation against Anaheim’s Bruce Boudreau with the glass partition playing the reluctant role of Loki.
Needless to say he got himself a hefty fine with that one. It can only be assumed that he paid it entirely in quarters, fired out of a t-shirt canon, because that is all of the fucks Patrick Roy has to give.
He has also continued his grand tradition of giving the media endless things to make sound bytes out of.
He traveled with his team from one of the worst records in the league the year before, to being the Central Division champions, with their best regular season record to date. After failing at the playoffs Patrick still managed to improve his hardware with a Jack Adams trophy for best coach.
I leave you with these final words from douchehat Avalanche beat writer Mark Kiszla:
. . . The most arrogant, cockiest, unbeatable SOB I've ever seen […] has to be Roy. To say the Duke of Denver (Elway) stands second to Roy is meant as no slap at the Bronco's quarterback. It is rather a reconfirmation of how fortunate Colorado is for the gift of St. Patrick. Right here and now, we are watching the greatest goalie who ever was.
The Forwards The Defense and Goalies
Aka the 3 geezers everyone should know.
Name: Joseph Steve Sakic
Alias: Super Joe, Burnaby Joe
Number: 19
Super Powers: Wicked wrist shot, leading the team in scoring approximately whenever he felt like it.
Joe Sakic was born in Burnaby BC to Croatian immigrant parents, and he is also lovingly called Burnaby Joe. He grew up speaking Croatian and only began to learn English in kindergarten, which probably helped shape his Listen to Everything and Carefully Consider style of captaining. When he was a teen tragedy struck his team, the Swift Current Broncos, when their bus went off the road, killing three of his teammates. Joe stepped up for his team after the tragedy and for many people he became the leader of the team from that moment forward. This is why everyone needs to get with the program and agree that Super Joe is a superior breed of human being.
Uwe Krupp is one of the earliest sources for the Super Joe nickname, commenting that Sakic was like hockey’s Clark Kent. "He’s ordinary Joe until he steps out of a phone booth and it’s like he’s Super Joe."
Patrick Roy echoed him after their 2001 Stanley Cup win, commenting "They talked about Joe’s size for far too long. The important thing is the size of his heart." He once offered to give Raymond Bourque his captain’s C, because that is the sort of guy that Joe is.
15 names were called before his in 1987. I defy you to remember most of the people who went before him. Can’t? That’s because Sakic eclipsed pretty much everyone. He was drafted by the Nordiques weirdly late, mostly because people underestimated him due to his height (5’11") and weight (195lb). But, like Joe enjoys reminding the populace "Heck, Wayne Gretzky was only 170 pounds and he turned out alright, didn’t he?"
Really, a lot about Sakic can be summed up with this Stanley Cup moment where he did the best thing he could do and handed the Cup to Raymond Bourque, who had waited 1,612 regular season and 214 playoff games to lift it.
Yes, this is the billionth time I have posted this video. Do I regret it? No. Everyone needs to watch this video a million times.
Click to viewLook at Raymond Bourque. I mean, seriously. Look at him. Even the announcers sound stunned in that moment.
Look, see? I can even offer a commercial instead. I can be reasonable.
Joe was captain of the Avalanche/Nordiques for 17 years (16 consecutively, because there was that thing with Mike Hough in 91-92) and a lot of the fans will always think of him sorta like King Arthur: the Once and Future Captain.
His number was 88 when he started with the Nordiques back in the day. Everyone knows he eventually ended up as number 19. He also looks unusually attractive in this photo, and it’s weirding me out a lot.
Umph
Only 4 players have scored more points with a single team. Gordie Howe and Steve Yzerman with the Red Wings, Mario Lemieux with the Penguins and Wayne Gretzky with the Oilers. Joe was seriously like the best clutch player ever, and his wrist shot was legendary.
He was awarded the Conn Smythe in 1996, due in part to the fact that he had never been beyond the second round of the playoffs, and then all of a sudden he was captaining his team to the Stanley Cup finals and, y'know, scoring all sorts of overtime game winning goals. You want Joe on your fantasy team, is what I'm saying.
He won the MVP in the 54th All Star Game, and holds the record for most assists in an All Star appearance - 16.
This is 2001, the year Joe and the Avs won all of the awards (Lester B. Pearson Award [NHLPA MVP] (not pictured), Hart Trophy [NHL MVP], Stanley Cup, and Lady Byng Trophy [sportsmanship])
Also, the Campbell.
Oh, and the President’s Trophy.
Joe has a really awesome ability to pull out a victory based purely on his own conviction that the team shouldn’t be losing and then forcing reality to agree with him. Reality has no chance against him.
In 2002 he scored twice against the US in the gold medal game, helping to end the 50 year drought where Canada did not win men’s ice hockey gold. Apparently that actually happened.
Who is clutch? Joe is clutch.
He seems to enjoy smacking his teammates in the face/head.
Meanwhile Foppa seems to enjoy looking like he’s not sure why this is.
Joe was the only person to play with both Peter and Paul Stastny, officially making him really old. He was mentored by Peter Stastny, then managed to hang around long enough to mentor Paul. Paul has memories of Joe playing with him in the locker room when he was a kid visiting with his dad and uncles.
In various locker room videos you will see a stall enshrined in glass. That would be Joe’s - it’s preserved with jersey and equipment like it used to be.
This is his retirement speech. It’s amazing.
This is the best video, in which Joe is a total badass over the course of his whole career, horrible music is played, Joe indulges in smacking Hejduk in the face, and his wife, Debbie, has an unfortunate Rachel haircut.
Joe and Peter have collectively horrible hair. I blame it on the 90s.
He currently works as an Alternate Governor and Executive Adviser for the Avalanche.
In his free time he enjoys proving to other athletes that there is no way they will ever be as awesome as he is.
Never change, Joe.
Name: Peter Mattias Forsberg
Alias: Foppa, Peter the Great
Number: 21
Super Powers: Shoulder of Destruction, getting people’s hopes up
This is Peter Forsberg. He is flawless and Swedish.
Forsberg was born in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden. This is a relatively small town which produced quite a few really good hockey players. Such as this other dude you might have heard of, Markus Näslund. They're only about ten days apart in age, and their parents worked together when they were kids. They had the same first summer job growing up (working in the Electric plant their parents worked at) and they were essentially inseperable from then until now.
He is Forsberg’s BFF, and they’ve known /played with each other since they were tiny. And had horrible hair.
Keep creeping, Foppa. Keep creeping.
They’re still good friends - Naslund is GM and Forsberg is assistant GM of Modo, and they make commercials where they make fun of each other.
They are really incredibly precious together.
Peter grew up, and in the end was Philadelphia’s number six pick in the 1991 draft.
Hellooooooooo gorgeous baby Swede.
He was considered, at the time, a second round pick who might be lucky to move into the first round, but the Flyers clearly disagreed. Smart Flyers.
During the Lindros Debacle of 1991 he was traded to the Quebec Nordiques. This turned out really well for the Nordiques, and when the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup he was their unchanging value. He stayed with his team in Sweden, Modo, for three years, which made some question why he was drafted so high, if he was going to keep playing in Sweden. Clearly it is because he is flawless and unchanging, duh.
Before he came to the Nordiques, Forsberg was considered by many to be the best hockey player Sweden had produced.
Once he arrived after the lockout Forsberg managed 50 points in 47 games and was only behind Sakic in scoring for the Nordiques. He also grew a beard that made him stop looking 12, which is always a good decision when you can do it right.
He is even older than he was when he came to the Nordiques and yet he still looks 12 without that beard.
Internet, I am very bitter that this is the only image I can find of Forsberg’s Calder.
He was selected to the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, where he scored this goal for Sweden:
It’s a totally iconic image, and similar plays almost always draw comparisons to this one. Eventually Sweden made a stamp out of it, making Forsberg the first hockey player on a Swedish postage stamp.
Mats Sundin is the only other Swedish player with a stamp. I didn’t care enough to see what it looks like.
He was the flag bearer for Sweden in the 2010 Olympics. This is not a photo of that, but it is a photo of him with a tiny Swedish child and a flag, which is almost the same thing.
Sakic has echoed many analysts in calling Peter Forsberg "probably the most complete player in the game". Jeff Odgers once commented "He’s willing to battle for his ground and for his team and that is certainly something that teammates take notice of."
Speaking of Sakic, he allowed this photo shoot to take place when they came to Colorado, for which I am grateful/appalled. I wonder how many soft core porn shoots they had to search before they found those outfits.
Peter Forsberg has won approximately all the awards.
The Stanley Cup in 1996
(Please ignore that Footer getting groped in the background is totally the best part of this photo)
And in 2001
Gold in the Olympics in 1994 and 2006
The Viking Award (top Swedish player in North America) 3 times - in 96, 98, and 99.
The Hart and the Art Ross in 2003
Two golds in the World Championship, and a ton of silver and bronzes in World Juniors and other World Championships.
He’s a member of the triple gold club twice over. You read that right. Twice over. Previous to his attempted comback, Forsberg never registered a negative +/- on the ice. This is how he earned the title of Flawless Like Forsberg ™
One time the Avs were losing to the Panthers of all teams - and 5-0 at that - and Peter Forsberg was like "Fuck that shit" and decided that the Avs were gonna win the game even if he had to do it almost entirely by himself. He went on to score a hat trick and assist every other goal. They went from 5-0 halfway through the second to winning 5-7.
However, if you were to ask him about it, Forsberg wouldn’t see it that way. He’s quiet to the point of being shy when asked about his influence in games.
He has also had all of the injuries. He’s missed an entire regular season, and large chunks out of several others. He’s had shoulder injuries, shoulder surgery, concussions, a hip pointer, broken ribs, an inexplicable ruptured spleen, surgery on his wrist, a broken hand, bursa sac removal, and a couple foot surgeries. It was ultimately his foot problems that forced his retirement.
Forsberg played a hard, physical game where his shoulders were feared far and wide across the league, and probably a lot of his injury came because he never softened his game as he aged - he kept playing his own unique game even though he ultimately suffered for it. I admire him a lot for that. He was also super unselfish - the most important thing was a goal, not who got it. He’s currently number four in all time assists, despite missing a lot of games over his career. If you have to play against Peter Forsberg Adam Deadmarsh recommends you do one thing: go and change, and let someone else play against him. Basically other players would do everything they could to hip check, poke check, straight out cross check him, and he would just keep going like they didn’t exist. And then the Shoulder of Destruction would come into play and he’d flatten them.
For instance, one time Bob Probert tried to check Peter Forsberg, and Peter Forsberg was like "Um, no" and laid him out. Then Probert was an asshole who suckerpunched him, so Adam Foote got involved.
Don’t mess with Peter the Great.
Sometimes he makes weird commercials with other hockey players, although I admit I do now want to go to this restaurant, so good job whoever thought of this.
It’s possible that he is a serial killer. He has the perfect stare to be a serial killer.
Except when he looks like he could star in the Ice Capades version of Lord of the Rings.
Don’t even pretend you wouldn’t go to that show if it existed.
And then there are the moments he looks like he should be doing some type of hair and beauty product advertisements, because he is that mind numbingly, unnaturally attractive.
While still looking vaguely serial killery, idek.
Odds are he’d be pretty bad at serial killing, if this is his idea of a fight.
He owns a few horses and is involved in harness racing back in Sweden. You may believe that he is wearing a hideous coat, but you would be wrong. Peter Forsberg is simply so flawless that our pitiful little brains cannot yet comprehend how awesome his coat is. We would need to evolve more before we could hope to judge him.
Holy mother of Loki yes
After the lockout the new salary cap rules meant that Forsberg left the Avalanche, and somehow ended up in Philadelphia. It was soul crushing when it happened, but in retrospect it was two of my favorite things together, like puppies and sunshine. Or sugar and cyanide.
He was their Captain for a short period of time. He also wore the C for that stupid North America vs. The World All Star Game. I am still bitter this game didn’t end with Sakic and Forsberg holding hands singing "We Are the World".
While he was in Philly this happened:
I have no clue what is going on, and if I didn’t have a photo I wouldn’t believe it happened. I love how his level of crazy eye has gone up by a million.
Flawless Like Forsberg.
From 2008-10 he did a lot of recuperating and a little bit of playing for Modo with Naslund, and then glorious news came. Forsberg was coming back to the Avalanche.
He seemed really upbeat and excited about returning.
And then after two away games this happened.
The man couldn’t control his own tears when he tried to explain that sometimes trying hard isn’t good enough. If he’d wanted to retire an Avalanche all he would have had to do was sign the paper - instead he came back and he tried to contribute. This was the only time he ever, in his whole career, registered a negative +/- score. Unfortunately his body gave out before his desire to play did. It’s sad, but it’s also somewhat right that it should happen that way - I’d never want to see him leave because he didn’t care anymore.
Here, have Paul Stastny talking about Peter Forsberg. It’s the second most precious Av gushing about the first most precious Av, what’s not to love?
The Avalanche media had a field day with his retirement. They made this really nice video about his career highlights. (For some reason the Altitude website won’t embed the actual video, just a recap of an old game so have a link instead)
Peter Forsberg’s Top 10 Plays
He went golfing with Joe before his retirement ceremony. It was adorable.
The best part of his retirement ceremony was when he informed his fiancée that - no pressure - if they had a son, he would grow up to wear the blue and burgundy.
Then there’s how he’s so intensely shy about getting that level of attention, and they decided the best way to deal with that was to force him to make a complete circuit of the stadium. Because aversion training works, or something.
Previous to this ceremony I was completely prepared to believe that Stan Kroenke did not actually exist, and was only photoshopped into images. I’m still not 100% convinced. It might just be Avatar technology.
Afterwards he talked about his future.
He’s doing a lot of work in the US trying to get the NHL to move some of their games to a time that’s more prime time in Europe. It’s called Let Europe Watch, and there’s a nice video on youtube. This is amusing for a guy who admits he never really cared if he played in the NHL when he was younger.
"We’ll see if we can get our act together and scrape together a tiny hockey team going forward."
- Henrik Lundqvist, in reference to the upcoming births of baby Lundqvist, Sundin, and Forsberg.
I am suggesting the Avalanche trade the rights to the whole team in order to draft him/her. I have no doubt that Foppa and Nicole can produce a truly superior breed of Swede.
Recently he was at a Flyers game. And while I am happy to see him I am forced to wonder why he is not coming to all the Avs games.
Landeskog would probably score a hat trick just to impress you, Foppa. We need that.
COME BACK TO US, PETER THE GREAT. COME BAAAAAACK.
Name: Patrick Edward Armand Roy
Sometimes referred to as Patrick Jacques Roy for reasons that escape me.
Alias: Saint Patrick, Patty, *insert Roo-wahsome pun here*
Number: 33
Super Powers: Super Butterfly, smashing TVs
Patrick Roy is, depending on who you ask, one of the best goalies to have played or the best goalie to have played. Clearly I lean towards the second of those two statements. His last name is not Roy, it is closer to 'rh-WAH', Americanized to WAH, or if you're from Detroit, just 'WAH-wah'. He is a former Canadian ice hockey goalie and currently the head coach and VP of Hockey Operations for the Colorado Avalanche, and anyone who’s just hearing about him needs to take a quick trip to the Hall of Fame. We’ll wait for you here
Done?
Okay, awesome.
Patrick won a ridiculous number of awards, which include:
A Calder Cup
5 William Jennings Trophies
4 Stanley Cups
3 Conn Smythes
3 Vezinas
A Memorial Cup
The Jack Adams
He is the proud recipient of 3 Conn Smythe trophies (awarded to the MVP of the playoffs), in three separate decades, with two different teams which is something no one else has ever done. Patrick has been more valuable in the playoffs than any other player ever
He went to the All Star Game 11 times, led the league in shutouts and goals against twice, and was the 6th player to have his jersey retired by more than one team.
Patrick was born the same day as Mario Lemieux, which may or may not prove astrology correct. He began playing goal at the age of seven. He grew up as a Nordiques fan, but fate ensured that he was selected 51st overall by the Montreal Canadiens in 1984.
Rumors are swirling that he is biding his time for a team to relocate to Quebec City so that he can coach them. I would much rather he come here and be our coach but he never had the loyalty that Joe did unless Adam Foote came back, too.
EDIT: In May of 2013 Patrick Roy was hired as Head Coach and VP of Hockey Operations. One of his first moves was hiring Adam Foote as a defense development consultant, because of course it was.
Patrick was only 20 when he won the Conn Smythe in 1986, WHICH IS BADASS, and it was shortly afterwards that he got the nickname "St. Patrick". I guess that’s what happens when you lead your team to the Stanley Cup your rookie year when absolutely no one was expecting you to win. The nickname was partially his almost miraculous level of play and partially the weird connection he had to his goalposts. It was clearly not a reference to his physique.
Patrick was incredibly superstitious, and part of that was talking to his posts and thanking them for helping him when a shot rang off them. He also use to skate backwards towards the net and then spin around really quick because he apparently believed that made the net shrink. He never gave interviews the day of a game, and had a worrying obsession with his teammate's underwear. His skates could not touch the red or blue lines on the ice, and he'd skip over them. He took 'weird goalie' to interesting, unexplored levels.
Patrick Roy is credited for popularizing the modern butterfly style of goaltending, or as Semyon Varlamov puts it "I think he was the first goalie he was who started to play the butterfly style. That's what I think. Um, I think it's true?" Which is not true, because of Glenn Hall, but that's fine. The success was largely because Patrick worked with François Allaire for 10 years to refine goalie pads, allowing them to be smaller and more durable, so it was safer for goalies to butterfly instead of remaining upright. It was a unique partnership and project, and to all the goalies that are now wearing 6lb pads instead of 9lb pads? You're welcome.
Patrick was beloved by the Canadiens, except for those moments when he wasn't. Like on December 6th, 1995. After he allowed 9 goals on 26 shots. The fans, being irritated, decided to let him know how they felt and started booing the saves he did manage. Patrick, being Patrick, decided to let them know how he felt by over dramatically throwing his arms up in victory. When he was finally pulled he stomped around the bench like an angry goalie velociraptor before ending up in front of the Canadien's owner and declaring "This was my last game for Montreal", or whatever the French equivalent of that sentence would be.
His biography tries to give a version where he's slightly less of a pain in the ass (a recurring theme of his biography) but whatever the actual chain of events he ended up in Colorado along with Canadiens's captain Mike Keane who had really done nothing to deserve it. He got another Stanley Cup out of it, though, so stop complaining.
Once Patrick was part of the Avs organization he began rooming with Adam 'Footer' Foote, which resulted in one of the most loltastic bromances the Avalanche have ever seen. Footer was initially scared of Patrick, particularly when he used their first room together to explain to him how he failed at two-on-one. It was December in Toronto and Adam decided to escape and buy Christmas gifts with some of the other guys.
Patrick proceeded to give him money and ask him to buy him some underwear.
Why exactly this is remains up for debate. Did he forget to pack some? Is underwear shopping some sort of strange ice breaker? Is he just insane? Whatever the reason, he sent him off with "Just like the ones you wear, Footer, that’ll be fine."
Footer was kinda horrified by this, but he did it because he was in awe of Patrick, or maybe just that he was too scared to say no. At least the rest of the team decided that Footer buying Patrick some underoos was just another day in the life of people who room with goalies (ngl, I would totally watch a reality show called "People Who Room With Goalies". Get on that, NHL.)
The next day they won against the Leafs, and Patrick decided to make a weird situation weirder by winking at Footer in the dressing room after the game.
"I couldn’t figure out what that wink meant. Either he liked those underwear or the way I played the two-on-one." Sources are mysteriously silent as to whether Patrick continued to wear Foote’s underwear.
Speaking of winks, Patrick does amazing ones. Especially when he’s chirping the hell out of his opponents.
On the road it is traditional that the senior most player is allowed to control the remote. "The only way Foote could watch his favorite TV shows was to start a pillow fight and win it, which he succeeded in doing more often than not". Let us absorb the image of Patrick Roy losing a pillow fight for a few moments.
Good?
Okay, moving on. Rumor has it that he liked to watch Murder She Wrote, because when Foote let him have the remote during the playoffs that’s what he left the TV on. Except Patrick decided that play acting a game on his bed and narrating it at the top of his lungs was an even better way to relax. Goalies *sigh*
One time he teamed up with Foote and replaced Paul Kariya's bed with a crib. He thanks Footer for being his English teacher when he first came to the US, and the two of them are still very close.
Patrick Roy is really, painfully cocky. We love him for it. During the 1995-96 playoffs Jeremy Roenick of the Blackhawks protested that he didn’t get a penalty shot against Roy in game 4 of the playoffs, and Patrick insisted he would have stopped it. Roenick reminded him that he hadn’t stopped his breakaway in game three, saying "It should have been a penalty shot, there's no doubt about it. I like Patrick's quote that he would've stopped me. I'd just want to know where he was in Game 3, probably getting his jock out of the rafters in the United Center maybe."
Patrick Roy, being Patrick Roy, replied thusly:
Another classic is how, after Game 3 in the 1996 Stanley Cup playoffs, Patrick was questioned about the rats that showered down after he allowed two goals.
As you may have noticed, Patrick has some anger and authority problems. Aside from his blowup at Canadien’s coach Mario Temblay that resulted in his trade (and which carried on for many years with Temblay taking him apart during radio broadcasts), Patrick was also arrested on suspicion of domestic violence but was cleared of all charges. He once smashed all of the video equipment with a hockey stick after his backup was awarded the win on a game where Patrick was out of net for 1:30 during the powerplay when the Avs scored their go-ahead goal. And then there’s the approximately millions of fines he’s racked up since he started owning/coaching his sons on the Quebec Remparts. He's been fined twice and both his sons have been suspended. At this point I think the only thing he hasn't been fined for is streaking (please, dear lord, let that not happen).
Patrick does great crazy eyes.
He also wanted to fight pretty much all the Red Wings goalies ever. This animosity started in Dec. 1995 because the Wings were the ones who kept scoring all over him, and then it sorta . . . exploded thanks to Claude Lemieux being an idiot and the constant scrapping for first place that the two teams did.
This is also the origin of the Patrick Roy obsession: you do not come into Patrick Roy's house. Ever.
He has a pretty legendary passive aggressive snark fest that went on for quite a few years with Martin Brodeur. Basically it goes that Roy was selected to be the starting goalie for Team Canada at Nagano and according to Brodeur no one else was even given a chance to try for it. And they were really civil, all "Well, this is Patrick's last chance to play for Canada" and "Martin has been so gracious letting me have this last opportunity" but it started something between them. Ever since then when they met in the playoffs it was a lot of snarking about who let in the most goals and such. Their wives even got into it during the 2000-2001 playoffs, and it was hilarious. Martin loves to make vague comments about how he considers the butterfly an inferior style of goaltending (and since Roy is credited with pioneering the modern butterfly that can be seen as a knock down on him as well) and how it's just a trend. And then when Patrick retired he was asked who the next best goaltenders would be, and he said "Roberto Luongo of the Panthers and Jean-Sebastien Giguere of the Mighty Ducks". When he was called on it he had some excuse about how Brodeur didn't need to be mentioned because he was already the best, but it turned into this passive aggressive snark fest between the two of them that springs up any time they're mentioned in the same sentence. It's pretty hilarious, actually. /soapbox
Brodeur has since surpassed his games played, career shutouts, and most wins, but there's pretty much no way he can touch his playoff record. This is an argument Brodeur and Roy fans have a lot, and it's all been said but my opinion on this debate should be pretty clear.
There is a very nice video about Patrick nearing the wins record here, but embedding was disabled by someone who clearly does not share joy easily.
I enjoy watching him get carried around like a French Canadian pharaoh by his two favorite D-Men
What? What'd I do? What red line?
If you were looking for a player to put into the Hockey Hall of Fame for worst hair, that would be Patrick. He's apparently got some sort of gene that makes him blind to the hideousness of most of his haircuts.
When he's a kid he can't be blamed too much for it, because '70s.
But then he starts to grow up and has to take responsibility for it
This is a thing that happened.
Sometimes his hair makes me fear for humanity.
What, you might ask, is so horrible about his hair? Jagr had a mullet for god’s sake, you might say. And you would be right. However, Jagr eventually realized that mullets are never a good life choice, whereas retirement has only meant Patrick has more time in which to cultivate horrible hair
Someone please get him a new hobby.
He makes up for his atrocious hair with what is, without a doubt, the absolute hottest goalie stare ever to have entered the world of hockey. St. Patrick's stare is iconic.
Yes, please.
There is very little chance that his horrible hair is infectious
Holy shit this family produces some fine guys.
Goalieeeees. Goalies and headbumps.
Here we have Patrick doing . . . something. It's pretty impressive.
Patrick retired in 2003, and the Avalanche retired his number that year
The Avs have a proud tradition of gifting their retired numbers with terrible, terrible paintings.
Patrick returned to Quebec, where he began coaching the Remparts, the QMJL team he also owned and acted as GM for. The team proceeded to win the Memorial Cup that first season.
When you are Patrick Roy, why wait?
The Canadiens retired his number in 2008.
On May 20th, 2014 Patrick Roy returned to the Colorado Avalanche as head coach, somehow wrangling himself the position of VP of Hockey Operations in the process. From the beginning he and Joe Sakic set to changing the Avalanche back to the team they were, dropping dead weight contracts like Zanon and Jones, and bringing in former Av Alex Tanguay and several defensemen to shore up the blue line.
He also buried some hatchets with Chris Osgood.
Highlight comes at 10:35, where Patrick admits that during the infamous rivalry he was main goal was to “kick the shit of [Osgood].”
In the first game of the season Patrick put himself square into the hearts of his team and fans by doing his best HULK SMASH impersonation against Anaheim’s Bruce Boudreau with the glass partition playing the reluctant role of Loki.
Needless to say he got himself a hefty fine with that one. It can only be assumed that he paid it entirely in quarters, fired out of a t-shirt canon, because that is all of the fucks Patrick Roy has to give.
He has also continued his grand tradition of giving the media endless things to make sound bytes out of.
He traveled with his team from one of the worst records in the league the year before, to being the Central Division champions, with their best regular season record to date. After failing at the playoffs Patrick still managed to improve his hardware with a Jack Adams trophy for best coach.
I leave you with these final words from douchehat Avalanche beat writer Mark Kiszla:
. . . The most arrogant, cockiest, unbeatable SOB I've ever seen […] has to be Roy. To say the Duke of Denver (Elway) stands second to Roy is meant as no slap at the Bronco's quarterback. It is rather a reconfirmation of how fortunate Colorado is for the gift of St. Patrick. Right here and now, we are watching the greatest goalie who ever was.
The Forwards The Defense and Goalies