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During yesterday’s game, Uber Eats hit a homerun with its new advert featuring Patrick Roy and Mario Tremblay, the coach who let him rot in goal on December 2, 1995 until it was 9-1 for the Red Wings before pulling him. I don’t think I need to tell you all about the incident, suffice to say that the crowd booed Roy after a routine save and once he was pulled from the game, he went to see Ronald Corey behind the bench to tell him he had played his last game with the Habs.
Since then, the former Habs goaltender had not really spoken to Tremblay, they fell in the “do not invite to the same party” category. TVA Sports’ Dave Morissette showed his interview with Roy last night after the game and asked him what had happened on that fateful day and how he felt about all that.
It was a rather interesting interview to watch and I think everyone learnt something they didn’t know. Personnally, I had no idea that on the day of that game against the Red Wings, tensions had begun to build up. That night, Tremblay was about to take on his mentor Scotty Bowman for the first time as a coach and he wanted to look good, he was nervous. To make things even worse, Vincent Damphousse had overslept at home and had arrived at the Forum just in time for warm-up. As for Stephane Quintal, he had been a healthy scratch the game before and was holding his stick a little too tight. He ended up being on the ice for 4 of the Wings’ first period goal.
At the end of the first, the Canadiens were down 5-1 and Tremblay did ask Roy if he was ok to carry on with the game, and Roy replied that he was, and he wasn’t giving up. Unfortunately, things went from bad to worse in the second and when the fans booed Roy after a routine save, something snapped in the goalie’s head and he raised his hands in derision.
At 9-1, when he was finally pulled, he returned to the bench and the look that he exchanged with his coach was filled with anger…That’s how he ended up telling Corey he had played his last game with the Habs. When Morissette asked him what he could have done differently he said: “Well, I could have just sat down and swallowed my pill for a start.”. Clearly, 26 years on, Roy has matured and while he still has a fiery character, he’s had time to reflect on the events: “You know, things you do when you are in your thirties are not necessarily things you’d do today. It’s the athlete’s pride that takes control, it’s not your logical side. As an athlete, I felt I had been disrespected.”.
Talking about what lead up to the incident, Roy said that he had had an awful start to the season and that he felt personally responsible for Jacques Demers’ dismissal. He even added that at the start of that season, he couldn’t even stop a beach ball, I think it’s the first time I hear Roy say something like that about himself. To make matters worse, he had heard that he had almost been traded to the Avalanche and that a deal had been in place, he even knew that Nolan and Fiset were coming the other way. In a way, he felt like a separation was coming and it got to him.
A couple of days after the incident, when he spoke to Rejean Houle and he told him that the situation was beyond repair and that he would be traded; Roy left the Forum crying in his car. He’s grateful that Houle traded him to a team that was a contender but even joining such a great team, Roy still had some mourning to do. He says that at times, in his first road trips with the Avs, he had cry in the plane’s lavatory. Obviously, the Canadiens were a huge part of Roy’s life and he loved his team.
Tonight, at l’Antichambre, Chantal Machabée will interview both Patrick Roy and Mario Tremblay together, that could also be interesting to watch (on RDS at 7:30 PM). It’s definitely good that Roy is now at peace with the incident and that he’s now matured enough to not only talk about it but accept his part in it. In fact, one could say that he’s gained some wisdom and that mending broken bridges may just be yet another step before becoming a member of the Habs’ organization once again… After all, as I reported in my blog last month, Roy now has an agent and may be looking to come back to the NHL, you can read it here
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