Elmont, New York | Patrick Roy has left no one indifferent since his arrival on Long Island. It’s the least we can say.
• Read also: Patrick Roy with the Islanders: 5 dates to remember between now and the end of the season
• Read also: Daniel Brière on the hiring of Patrick Roy: “A guy like him is good for the NHL”
• Read also: Islanders: Patrick Roy would have hired his former assistant with the Remparts Benoit Desrosiers
Sunday, after his first practice with the team, then during his first game against the Dallas Stars, everyone was only happy with the intensity Roy showed.
Photo AFP
Anyone who hasn’t followed the hockey man for five years was impressed by the intensity of the 15-minute morning workout he held before his first game. He hit the ice with his stick, shouted his instructions and encouragement to his players, was involved and physically invested in each of his explanations.
It captured the imagination, and we can understand it: this is not the norm in the NHL. In fact, it’s not in the QMJHL either!
But this is the norm for Patrick Roy.
What people saw of him on Sunday morning with the Islanders was no different from what he did with the Remparts on an ordinary Tuesday morning in January in the middle of the regular season. Whether in 2018 when he arrived with a young and rebuilding team, or in 2023 as the team prepared to win a championship. And I can confirm it to you, since I was there almost every day.
Patrick Roy demonstrated the same passion during his time with the Remparts that fans discovered about him on Sunday.
Photo Stevens LeBlanc
“It wakes you up!”
Assistant coach with the Remparts last year, Simon Gagné can also attest to this and, he, experienced it from the inside.
“I’ll always remember training camp last year. The first practice was the rookie players and it was Ben [Desrosiers] and me who led the practice. Then it was the veterans and Pat took to the ice with all his intensity and it left an impression on me. He speaks loudly, he is engaged, he whistles with his mouth. It wakes you up, it hits you! Guys don’t have a choice to be awake and ready every morning.”
Gagné also smiled when he saw the images of the training as well as the exercises proposed by Roy.
“The first drill they did was a zone exit drill that we did almost every practice. And when he told the players: “we have to be good in this aspect”, he was right because he also repeated it last year. We were constantly hitting the nail on the head and taking the puck almost out of our zone last season,” he recalls.
Photo taken from the Twitter account @
His great accomplice of several years, Nicole Bouchard, also recognized the intense man and driven by a flame that has never gone out, even if he is now 58 years old.
“I looked at the images and, apart from finding it weird to see him in blue and orange, I didn’t see any change: he was the same guy we saw over the last five years with the Remparts and even before.”
A little crazy
Slice of life: On a personal level, the last 48 hours have been a bit crazy.
At 3:46 p.m. on Saturday, the Islanders announced that they had fired their head coach, Lane Lambert, and had replaced him with Patrick Roy. I must admit that I needed to re-read two and three times, and to make sure that it was not false news like so much circulating these days.
The rest was a whirlwind: the official press briefing at 5:30 p.m. with Roy and Lou Lamoriello and the scramble to find a flight for the next morning so as not to miss Roy’s first match, behind the bench. the team in the evening.
Enough to increase adrenaline and cortisol levels!
In the end, everything went well.
So I can’t even imagine how crazy it must have been for Roy himself. Well settled in his second home in Florida, he enjoyed life on the golf courses. Then Lou Lamoriello called him, he wanted to meet him and he was going to travel to do it. What followed was an in-person meeting, then a call a few days later to officially offer him the position of head coach of the Islanders. Roy didn’t hide it: the last few hours were stressful and exhausting for him.
“I’m going to sleep well tonight!” he said, all smiles, after the Islanders’ 3-2 overtime victory on Sunday evening.
Photo AFP
From her television, Nicole Bouchard saw the nervousness in Patrick Roy.
“He looked calm but, as I know him, he was nervous. At the start of the match, I thought he was pretty red! He had a lot of pressure on his shoulders, but as soon as the puck fell on the ice, we saw the same guy who had been with us for five years and even before.”
Photo AFP
Hope is reborn
We shouldn’t get carried away too quickly, but we have no choice but to recognize that Roy made a success of his first impression. It is not uncommon to see a new coach arrive in a team and for this new voice to have a galvanizing effect on the entire locker room.
We felt it on Sunday evening while listening to the players’ post-match comments.
How long will this honeymoon last? No one can answer this question.
But Gagne knows one thing: Roy won’t give up until he succeeds in making this team what he thinks it can become. Exactly as he did last year with the Remparts.
“Pat is going to hit the nail on the head, but he’s going to give a rope to the guys who are good offensively and they’re going to respect him for that. Just because he’s in the NHL doesn’t mean that’s going to change. Last year, he kept telling players that it was important to have confidence in himself and the process. In the end, we beat the best team in Canada in the Memorial Cup final,” he recalls.