Patrick Roy was afraid of elevators. He almost always took the stairs, and airplane bathrooms required many minutes of mental preparation for him to enter. Along with claustrophobia, Roy hated scary movies.
But on the ice, Roy never had any fear. It is why he will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday in Toronto, the third former Avalanche player to receive hockey’s highest honor.
“I think I always felt that I was warrior,” Roy said Wednesday in a conference call. “I’m not going to say that I went to war, and I hope I don’t take any respect from those people because they were special people that went to the war. But I think I always tried to be a warrior on the ice and prepare myself. I never take anything for granted, and really try to perform as well as I could. It’s something that I felt that whatever I had to do I was trying to do it for the team.”
Roy, 41, joins Jari Kurri and Ray Bourque as former Avs players to be inducted into the Hall. These days, Roy is busy as coach and part-owner of the Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, a team he took to the Memorial Cup championship in his first year as coach last season.
Roy retired from the Avalanche in 2003 as the NHL’s all-time wins leader (551) and is the only NHL player to have won three Conn Smythe Trophies as the playoffs’ most valuable player. He did it in three different decades – in the years 1986, 1993 and 2001.
He had the QMJHL’s schedule rearranged so he would miss only one Remparts game for his induction, a testimonial to his passion.
“Junior is my thing now. A lot of people ask me if I was thinking about going at the NHL level. It’s not something that I look at at this moment,” Roy said. “I doubt it’s something I would do. At this moment I don’t feel I’m ready for the NHL level. I think there are guys that are more ready than I am.
“In my work I still have to adjust in games, I’m a little slow, and those are things that I want to get better at. I think junior is the perfect place to be. And working with players from 16 to 20, it’s a perfect fit. I have a chance to share my past. There’s players that dream to play at the NHL level, and I really, really enjoy doing it.”
Roy fondly recalls eight-plus seasons with the Avalanche. Some NHL pundits thought his career was on the downside when the Avs acquired him from Montreal on Dec. 6, 1995, but he went on to win two Stanley Cups and won more than 30 games in each full season he played in Colorado.
“All (those) years in Denver, seeing the support the fans were giving us, seeing how fast they were getting associated with the players and seeing the team win the Stanley Cup,” Roy said. “If you were there the first time we won in ’96 compared to 2001, it was amazing how fun it was to be part of (those) parades.”
