Saturday night at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Patrick Roy’s trent-trois uniform number will finally take its rightful residency atop the steel rafters, forever.
Roy could have chosen a lot of people to introduce him — or, re-introduce him — to the fans of the Montreal Canadiens as part of his number retirement night. That Roy will have Avalanche president and former general manager Pierre Lacroix do the honor says it all about the relationship between the two men.
Without the other, it’s doubtful either man would have ascended to the heights they did in hockey. When Lacroix was just starting out as an agent, he badly wanted to sign Stephane Roy as a client. A top-scoring forward expected to go high in the NHL draft, Stephane was paid a visit at home by Lacroix.
Roy’s father, Michel, said he could sign his son on one condition: he take on his other son, too — a skinny, unheard-of goalie prospect named Patrick.
Very well, Lacroix thought to himself. It’s the price of doing business. Stephane Roy played 12 games in the NHL, scoring one goal. We all know how the “other son” turned out.
Lacroix made some nice commissions as Patrick Roy’s agent his first eight years as a Canadien. But Lacroix wanted the one thing money couldn’t buy, the thing his client already had gotten twice: his name on the Stanley Cup.
In his second year as an NHL general manager — and first in Colorado — Lacroix knew he was looking at his best chance to make that happen when Roy suddenly was put on the trading block after a falling out with Canadiens coach Mario Tremblay.
Lacroix pulled off the trade, giving up little in return — backup goalie Jocelyn Thibault and lower-tier forwards Martin Rucinsky and Andrei Kovalenko. Lacroix also got a great leader in Mike Keane, too. It remains the biggest hockey heist of all time.
I’ll never forget walking up the stairs at old McNichols Sports Arena, along with Post columnist Mark Kiszla, and shouting up to Lacroix, in his makeshift GM suite, asking whether a deal for Roy was imminent the night before it happened — Dec. 5, 1995.
“Haven’t heard,” Lacroix said.
When we got back to our press-box seats, we could see Lacroix picking up a phone and talking for the next 45 minutes. We didn’t think he was calling Domino’s. Lacroix worked on the trade until it was consummated at 3 a.m., and he and the Avs were rewarded with two Stanley Cups.
If only Lacroix hadn’t picked up that phone, Habs fans might have gotten those two additional Stanley Cups Roy still had in him.
But, as they are finally able to say now in Montreal, “C’est la vie.”
