MONTREAL — Patrick Roy knows this isn’t just another game.
That’s why he cancelled the New York Islanders‘ morning skate at the Bell Centre and why he won’t meet with local reporters at the arena until 4:15 p.m. when it’ll be too late for any of us to make too much out of whatever he has to say about his long-anticipated return to the city in which his legend was born.
“I don’t want it to be about me,” the former Canadiens legend told Islanders beat reporters after running his team through practice in New York on Wednesday. “I want it to be about the Islanders. We’re going there to win a hockey game. We’re not going there to win for the coach, it’s for our team, and that’s the reason I don’t want us to go that morning skate. They’re going to ask questions about me, they’re going to say this and that, and I don’t need this, and they don’t need that.”
Fair enough.
But this game, which went from being one nobody circled on their calendar a week ago to one nobody will be able to keep their eyes off on Thursday, is about Roy. And with good reason.
This is a town where hockey history matters. You could argue it matters more here than it does anywhere else in the hockey world. And Roy’s chapter in Montreal history hasn’t fully been closed.
It began with his fairytale debut in a Canadiens uniform, as a gangly teenaged goaltender who followed his first 48 appearances in the regular season with 20 majestic ones in the playoffs to help the team win its 23rd Stanley Cup.
Roy came oh so close to delivering the 24th three years later — narrowly missing in the 1989 Cup final — and was unquestionably the main reason it fell back into Canadien arms in 1993, and those pages of his chapter in blue, blanc et rouge were remarkable.
The next ones, less so.
Except for the last one, which still resonates and has many people around these parts believing what was written cursed the organization and mired it in its current 31-year Cup drought.
Roy haunted the Canadiens after Dec. 2, 1995, the day that led to his trade out of town after coach Mario Tremblay humiliated him by leaving him in the net for nine goals in an 11-1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings on home ice. He won eight of 11 games against the Canadiens as a member of a Colorado Avalanche team he inevitably won another two Stanley Cups with.
He lost just once in Montreal and tied twice, but one thing was the same every time he came: The story was about him.
It took on another dimension after Roy hung up his skates, when the acrimony over his unceremonious departure largely dissipated in 2008 with the Canadiens not only finally welcoming him back into their family but immortalizing his legend by making his No. 33 the 15th number in franchise history raised to their rafters.
“Tonight, I’m coming home,” Roy said after watching his jersey get retired.
He was back a few times after that as Avalanche coach between 2013 and 2016, and he’ll write another page of his chapter in Montreal Thursday as he stands behind the Islanders’ bench for the very first time — and certainly not the last time — at the Bell Centre.
No matter how much Roy will want for the attention to be on what’s happening on the ice, it’ll be squarely on him for much of the night, and he knows why.
“It’s always special going there,” Roy said before the Islanders flew to Montreal. “They retired my jersey. I had 10 good years there, three Stanley Cup finals, two Stanley Cups. Yeah, it is special going there. The fans always have been great to me. It’s a great hockey town. It’s like on Long Island, great fans, great hockey town. It’s cool to be part of that.”
As Roy aims to get the Islanders back on track following Tuesday’s loss to the Vegas Golden Knights, the Canadiens — who are desperate to dig out of a three-game slump that’s seen them outscored 19-7 — know they’ll be sharing a lot of the spotlight in their building.
The atmosphere should be electric.
“Is it going to be cranked up a notch because of Patrick coming back?” asked Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis on Wednesday.
“My guess is yes,” he told reporters after running his team through practice in Brossard, Que.
He knows this game offers a chance for Quebecers to congratulate Roy for this latest accomplishment, which came way later than many people in the province thought it should after Roy abruptly walked away from the Avalanche as his contract was expiring.
They lobbied over the years for him to leave his hometown Quebec Remparts to take over as Canadiens general manager, and for him to take over as head coach at times when others who held the position over the last seven years languished, and many of them will descend upon the Bell Centre Thursday intent on making this game more about Roy than any of the 40 players on the ice.
The Islanders, who are being kept from the building until later in the day, know.
“It should be amazing,” French Canadian Jean-Gabriel Pageau said to reporters in New York before the Islanders made their way to Montreal. “I think we’ll just try to enjoy the moment with him.”
