Patrick Roy wins Cup of Dignity

Michel Roy details his son Patrick Roy's postseason quest for his third Stanley Cup in the book 'Patrick Roy: Winning. Nothing Else.'

Chapter 25: The Cup of Dignity

The Avalanche began the postseason against the Vancouver Canucks, who had trailed them by 25 points in the general standings. Patrick Roy was concerned about the losing mentality afflicting his new organization during its final seasons in Québec City. The Nordiques hadn't gotten past the first round of the playoffs since 1987. Their captain, Joe Sakic, had never gone beyond that stage in his NHL career. Yet, the Avalanche had the potential to go far. Patrick wanted to help the team get out of its rut, but he still didn't feel he was at his best. He was worried about that.

The teams traded victories in their first two meetings in Colorado. Patrick was dissatisfied with his work. He was having difficulty concentrating for the entire game. He would catch himself checking the scoreboard for the results of other games to see how the Canadiens were shaping up in their series with the New York Rangers.

The day before game three in Vancouver, he called me to talk about the problem. I didn't really know what I could say that would help him, but since the problem involved concentration, I suggested that he constantly keep his eyes on the puck and follow it even when it was in the other team's zone. I figured that would keep his mind from wandering.

In game three, he shut out the Canucks in front of their own supporters and the Avalanche won 4-0. The next morning, he called me in Chicago, all fired up. "Hey, Dad! It worked!" The Avalanche went on to eliminate the Canucks in six games. Patrick was relieved, but he believed he hadn't been the one who'd made the difference in the victory, as he was accustomed to do in the playoffs.

In the next series, as fate would have it, the Avalanche was pitted against the Chicago Blackhawks. So I had a chance to see Patrick a few times, for supper at my house or for breakfast at the Drake Hotel, where the players were staying. Patrick was more relaxed. Getting past the first round, he believed, would be a shot in the arm for the Avalanche, and the team would improve as they moved on in the post-season. It would need to; the Blackhawks would be a formidable test.

The two evenly matched squads headed for Chicago after trading victories in their first two meetings in Denver. It was a closely fought series in which four games went into sudden death. All told, the two squads played 76 minutes and 26 seconds of overtime. The Blackhawks were a solid outfit with Ed Belfour in the net, Chris Chelios and Gary Suter on the blue line, and gifted scorers like Jeremy Roenick, Tony Amonte, Bernie Nicholls and Éric Dazé up front.

In Chicago, the two teams split overtime victories, with the second game ending in the third period of extra time. In the first overtime period, Chicago's Jeremy Roenick could have ended the game when he broke in alone on the Avalanche goal. But Sandis Ozolinsh hooked him from behind and he couldn't make a play. No penalty was called though the referee could easily have awarded a penalty shot to the Hawks' stellar center. The play and the referee's leniency provoked some verbal sparring between the two stars ("PR" vs. "JR") while the interviewer acted as a mediator.

"The reason why he kind of slowed down is because he knew that I was ready for his forehand shot. I don't think he would have beaten me," said Patrick.

"There should have been a penalty shot, there is no doubt about that," replied Roenick. "I like Patrick's quote that he would have stopped me. I wonder where he was in game three [Roenick had beaten Patrick on a breakaway], probably getting his jock out of the stands, out of the United Center rafters."

Asked by a journalist to comment on Roenick's last remark, Patrick said with a big smile, "I didn't really hear what Jeremy said because I had my two Stanley Cup rings plugged in my ears." Patrick's rejoinder made the rounds of North American media. He later admitted that Mike Keane had whispered the line to him.

Chicago failed to win another game. The Avalanche took the series by four games to two. When the last game ended, the journalists kept their ears tuned in as Patrick and Roenick shook hands. "He told me that he respected me," said Patrick. "You know, our little run-in was just words. It's part of the game. He played very well in this series. Jeremy is a great competitor."

Six days later, the Avalanche started the Western Conference final in Detroit against the powerful Red Wings. During the regular season, the Wings had left their closest rivals in the dust -- they finished 27 points ahead of the third-place Avalanche. Patrick failed to register a single triumph in five matches with them. His record included two crushing defeats, one with the Canadiens and the other with the Avalanche. Yet, Patrick remained confident despite these gloomy results. He felt reassured because two of Detroit's wins had been by the slimmest of one-goal margins. That gave him reason to be confident. Of course, there'd been the 7-0 blowout, but the team had shaped up since then.

Barry Melrose, the Los Angeles Kings' former coach, had lost to Patrick and the Canadiens in the 1993 final. He knew what the goalie was capable of doing. Now an ESPN commentator, Melrose declared, "Patrick hasn't played well against Detroit this year but that was the regular season and it's a different Patrick Roy now, a different Colorado Avalanche also; they are a much more confident team. What I love about Patrick is that he doesn't give any soft goals in the playoffs and that can make the difference. He knows he hasn't played well against Detroit and the press will bring it up every night. Patrick will use this to motivate himself; that's how that man works. The more they will challenge him, the better he will become."

And as Randy Holtz, a Rocky Mountain News staff writer wrote in a feature article, there was so much more than his play on the ice.

There is that charisma, that nebulous human virtue not easily defined or described that can pull his teammates to the top, make them believe in themselves and make them give their best to achieve victory.

When Roy walks into a room, eyes instinctively follow him. It is an almost regal thing, an almost kinglike bearing, a manner and posture that suggest calm and control and confidence.

Indeed, there was a new wind blowing. To everyone's surprise, the Avalanche eked out a 3-2 overtime victory in the opening game in Detroit. "If the Wings had played against us [the Canadiens] like they're playing in the playoffs so far," said Patrick after the game, "I don't think that they would have led 9 to 1 after two periods, on December 2, 1995. I don't think that Detroit are playing as well as they wish and I think that we [the Avalanche] are playing our best hockey so far. We believe we have a good chance to beat them and we'll have to show them that tomorrow afternoon in the second encounter."

As he had done so often in the playoffs, Patrick had given himself a challenge. And as he had done so often in the playoffs, he met the challenge, making 35 saves and blanking the Wings in a 3-0 triumph in game two. Much to Scotty Bowman's dismay, the Wings were in trouble.

In Denver, however, it was the Wings' turn to rain on the home fans' parade, upsetting the Avalanche by the score of 6-4. Patrick confessed to former Canadiens' defenseman Brian Engblom, then an ESPN commentator, that he had found it hard to get up for the match. For some inexplicable reason, he had felt too relaxed, and his concentration wavered during the game. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that he underperformed. But he made up for it in the next game with 29 saves in a 4-2 victory. Trailing by three games to one, the Wings now had their backs to the wall.

As expected, the Wings won in Detroit, but they were unable to resist the Avalanche's final surge two days later in Denver. The powerful Red Wings, who had caused Patrick's exile to Colorado, were eliminated. He had outdueled his excellent rival, Chris Osgood.

Patrick is sure he overheard Scotty Bowman sigh during an interview later on: "If I'd only known . . ."

Meanwhile, in the Eastern Conference, the Florida Panthers, defying all logic, eliminated the Philadelphia Flyers, the runner-up in the overall standings, and ousted the Pittsburgh Penguins, despite the presence of Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr. The success of the Panthers, now viewed as a Cinderella team, was largely due to the skillful coaching of Doug MacLean and the solid play of their experienced goalie, John Vanbiesbrouck. Hockey fans recalled the trench war in the 1986 series between Patrick and Vanbiesbrouck, who was then with the New York Rangers. In the 1996 quarter- and semifinal, he had been an unsolvable enigma for the Flyers and the Penguins.

The Stanley Cup final featured two teams from cities without a long-standing hockey tradition. The Avalanche were in their first year in Denver -- the Rockies had played there without much success from 1976 to 1982 -- and the Panthers toiled in a climate that would never have spawned a winter sport like hockey.

Nevertheless, due to the scope of the event, and also due to the presence of numerous European players on both teams, the final series would be telecast to as many as 140 countries around the globe. Teams of commentators from Japan, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Russia and Germany were on site to describe the action and transmit it live to their respective countries in the middle of the night.

In the United States, though the series was on TV, 16,000 Avalanche supporters crammed into the McNichols Sports Arena to watch the game on a giant screen so they wouldn't miss a bit of the action in the games played in Miami. In Canada, no fans were more excited than the hockey lovers in Québec City. Nostalgic, sad and perhaps a trifle frustrated, they would be following the slightest progress of their former beloved Nordiques.

This ultimate series could have been dubbed the "rats' final," much to the chagrin of the National Hockey League authorities. The vilified little rodent had become the Panthers' talisman early in the regular season after an unforeseeable event. Just before Florida's inaugural game against the Calgary Flames, a fair-sized rat with a long tail wreaked havoc in the Panthers' dressing room at the Miami Arena. While his teammates were screaming and hopping all over the place, assistant captain Scott Mellanby screwed up his courage and crushed the intruder's skull with a hockey stick. He then went on to score two goals in a 4-3 victory against the Flames.

Two games later, after another Panthers victory, the fans tossed two plastic rats onto the ice. Soon there were 25 . . . then 50 . . . and 100. In the series against the Penguins, the rat patrol, on hand to pick up the plastic rodents thrown after every Florida goal, estimated that an average of 2,000 rats were thrown onto the ice per game. A few merchants, such as Annie's Costumes and Magic Boutique, sensed a good business opportunity and ordered thousands of rats for the final.

It was, in fact, the most spectacular aspect of the final, as the Avalanche gobbled up the Panthers in four straight games. In the first period of the inaugural game in Denver, Patrick had to hold the fort while his teammates shook off the rust from a six-day break after eliminating Detroit. But the Avalanche eventually got rolling and won two games at home by the scores of 3-1 and 8-1. The show was then on the road to the Miami rat trap.

Before game three, Patrick said, "If the Panthers score, I'm not going to hide in my net, I'm telling you. I'll stand up there and get hit by the rats; I don't care. I have too much pride to hide in the net." It was his way of punishing himself if he gave up a goal and his way of motivating himself, too.

He surrendered two goals in the first period alone, and hundreds of rats rained down on him. Then he shut out the Panthers in the next two periods, forestalling another rat attack. More important, the Avalanche won 3-2 and stood one game away from the Cup.

I previously mentioned that the detestable practice of firing plastic rats on the ice was the most spectacular aspect of the Stanley Cup final. But that's not really true. The most comical perhaps, but not the most spectacular. In fact, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had already announced that the practice would be banned the next year. Just scooping up the little beasts from the ice unduly delayed the game.

No. The most spectacular event was the magnificent contest between Patrick and Vanbiesbrouck in game four. It was one of the most stunning netminding duels in NHL history.

Patrick didn't wait for Bettman's plan to be implemented. He had decided to put an end to the rat show. How would he manage it? Quite simply, he would shut the door on the Panthers. He wouldn't allow them any goals. This way, the fans would keep their plastic rodents for themselves.

On Radio Canada's La Soirée du Hockey, host Jean Pagé began the program in the following way:

"It's hurricane season here in Miami, but the only thing that the Florida Panthers want to avoid is to be swept in four straight games by the tornado that is the Colorado Avalanche. To them, it's a question of pride, a question of honor. They want to win this evening's game. That's what we'll see in a few moments in this fourth game of the Stanley Cup final. However, facing the Florida Panthers players is a wonderful hockey machine led by an extraordinary athlete, goalie Patrick Roy. He came to our studio at about 6:30 pm to chat about this and that, pass the time and relax. And believe me, he had fire in his eyes. The series could definitely be wrapped up tonight."

Easy to say, but Vanbiesbrouck and his teammates were determined; they weren't about to give up without a struggle.

After three periods of regulation time, the score was 0-0. After four periods, it was still 0-0. After five periods, still 0-0. It wasn't until 4:31 of the sixth period, at 1:06 a.m., that defenseman Uwe Krupp broke the deadlock with a shot from the blue line that beat Vanbiesbrouck. The residents of Krupp's birthplace, Cologne, Germany, must have leapt out of their beds or spilt their coffee. It was the 56th Avalanche shot fired at Vanbiesbrouck. Patrick had stopped 63 shots by the Panthers, recalling his game three exploits in the 1986 semifinal against the Rangers, when he had also faced Vanbiesbrouck. On top of that, he had shut out his opponents in the last eight periods (a total of 152 minutes and 12 seconds of play), while making 88 consecutive saves in the process.

Realizing the rodents no longer served any purpose, the 14,703 exasperated fans hurled the remaining beasties onto the ice. That didn't prevent Patrick and Mike Keane from setting off the celebrations with an emotional hug. They had come a long way together. "We looked at each other and said nothing," Keane recalls. "There was nothing more to say. Patrick worked so hard to get there. We were on a mission, he and I, as soon as we left Montréal. That Cup is the most beautiful thing!"

When they shook hands, Patrick and Vanbiesbrouck didn't talk much longer. "There wasn't much to say," Vanbiesbrouck said. "He was pretty anxious to grab the Cup, and I was kind of anxious to get out of there."

Then, on a rink only partially clear of plastic rats, Gary Bettman awarded Colorado captain Joe Sakic the two most prestigious awards of the NHL playoffs: the Conn Smythe Trophy and the Stanley Cup.