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Quebec bored with Patrick Roy’s shouting in NHL arenas

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Quebec bored with Patrick Roy’s shouting in NHL arenas
On Saturday night, the Canadiens were crushed by the Boston Bruins. Samuel Montembeault had his worst outing in a long time. But did you hear about it? Not that much, no.

After all, all the attention in the Quebec hockey world is currently focused on Patrick Roy.

Last night, the new head coach of the New York Islanders (it still sounds funny) won his first NHL game since 2016. And the game was covered as a Habs game.

In fact, many local journalists were dispatched to New York for Roy’s first steps in his new role. There were many questions in French for the coach.

TVA Sports even named him the game’s first star. And not everyone liked it.

(Credit: TVA Sports)
Obviously, the novelty effect is intense. It will be all week long, especially as Roy will be in Montreal on Thursday with his new team to face the Flanelle.

Patrick Roy will want to win the game. Martin St-Louis will want to win the game. Geoff Molson, Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes, three men who have said no to Roy at least once in recent years, will also want to win the game.

But before the Canadiens fans applauded him, he managed to get the Islanders fans on his side last night.

After saying he wanted to bring back the passion and desire to see Islanders fans wearing their club jerseys, and after an intense morning training session, Roy won his first game.

But it’s more than that.

During the game, you could see and hear him screaming in the arena. He may have been nervous, and things may have been moving fast for him at first, but it didn’t show too much, as he was comfortable behind the bench.

The players felt his energy and gave it their all. They had no choice, considering Roy was behind the bench yelling at everyone.

The result? Another W for the Islanders.

I think people in Quebec got bored of seeing Roy Patrick behind an NHL bench. Because yesterday’s Islanders coverage had all the makings of a Habs game.

And since the Habs were off, the Islanders had all the space.

Quebec journalists scrutinized the training session. It was reported when he spoke in French. The Islanders’ Franco players were asked about it. Local journalists asked the former Remparts pilot many questions in French. They were tweeting about the game, which was on TV.

In short, the Lane Lambert era, whose dismissal is considered a failure by the players, is over.

Lou Lamoriello hired a Patrick Roy who had changed, who had matured, but he still hired a guy very different from Lambert. He’s tapped into the Habs branch again to find his man.

Lamoriello, who has nothing to lose at his age, expects results. And Roy will have to deliver if his second chance in the NHL is to be satisfactory in everyone’s eyes.

That said, just from the way the players have reacted to Roy’s mention, it’s clear that the first step has been taken: an electroshock has been created and everyone understands the urgency of the situation.

Will it last? We’ll see. Only time will tell.

Roy feels, as he said after the game, that he has an excellent hockey team on his hands. You’d think he wouldn’t have accepted the challenge if he didn’t believe in the club’s potential.

And to see that the Islanders’ freshly shaven coach is back in the NHL is good for Quebec. And so much the worse for the Ontarians, who missed the boat on this one.

By the way, I made a little joke about his beard and I’d like to get back to it. Let ‘s crank it up a bit on this Monday morning.

Am I the only one who thinks the comments about his beard go too far? Am I the only one who doesn’t think it’s normal to talk so much about his lack of facial hair?

Should it be mentioned? Absolutely. It’s an old Lou rule and to see that Roy has shaved is interesting.

That said, from the way some people talk about it, it sounds like Roy was known for his beard and made the biggest sacrifice in the world by agreeing to shave his precious. His beard wasn’t his personality!

It wasn’t Joe Thornton who agreed to shave: it was Roy. Roy is a guy we’ve seen with a beard (including in the 2023 playoffs with the Remparts), but we’ve also seen him freshly shaved, at times, during his stint with the Avalanche, from 2013 to 2016.

I just think the fact that he was preferred to Gerard Gallant should get more attention than his facial hair… but maybe that’s just me.

But hey. In the end, we’ll get used to seeing him in Islanders colors (a photo like the one in the tweet above is striking, I think), but seeing him back in the NHL is good news.

And he won’t need to push his way into a bay window (as he did in his early days in Colorado) to be seen.


In gusto

– Jason Kelce supported his brother yesterday in Buffalo. He even managed to overshadow Taylor Swift’s presence.

– The Chiefs’ victory confirms that the following four clubs still have a chance of winning the Super Bowl.

– It hasn’t been easy for him.

– Stéphane Waite agrees with Islanders hiring. [98.5 FM]

– Jonathan Roy is proud of his father.

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