Runaway Future

Oh you crazy Chicoutimi fans. The same classy folks who treated Ted Nolan, quite possibly one of the friendliest I’ve met in my short time in this crazy industry, as a second class person. Yes, Sags fans were up to some antics again when the Remparts came into town on Friday.

About 50 fans of the home team obstructed the Remparts from boarding their own bus after the game (a 3-2 Sags win in the shootout). So Patrick Roy, who’s the co-owner/coach of the Remparts is on the other side of the little Chicoutimi demonstration line. He gets off the bus and proceeds to get into a shoving match with a Sags official who was sent out to try to disperse the out of line fans. You know what happens next? Assault charges for Monsieur Patrick.

And now? Patrick’s reconsidering his place in junior hockey, both as a coach and as an owner. And he blames the media.

When I was in Moncton for the Mem. Cup, one of the more interesting side stories for me was the French Media. Two languages, two faces, always seem to be plotting. They’re smug, but it is not without reason. They’re cutthroat and at the top of their game. The French language is a beautiful thing and from that beauty, you see that almost stereotypical passion in the French people. The passion overflows, into their writing. I never saw the French Media as reporters, but writers, they knew the story and how to mold it.

Patrick Roy is viewed as both a Saint and a Demon with the province and so with the media. They talk out of both sides of their mouth, on one hand viewing him as heir apparent for the Canadiens GM position when Gainey leaves, on the other scoffing him as all talk and such a big ego and head that he could never hold such a vaunted mantle. He does have a big head and just like the media, there’s two sides to him.

As much as he says he wanted to avoid the media circus, he craves it. The spotlight is him, it always is, he wants it, needs it. At the Memorial Cup, the big story was never Esposito or Bourdon or Ryder or Brule. It was Roy and his comments on everyone else. He prodded, poked, joked and insulted. The media loved him and hated him. Some even went as far as saying it was all an act, to shield his own players from the national spotlight so they could focus on hockey. Either way, the Remparts walked away with the National championship.

Now Roy is saying he is tired with it all and might even be looking for a way out. Alas.

This isn’t the last of St. Patrick.