WASHINGTON, D.C. –Roy wocks! Roy wules. Ray to go, Patrick. Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest hockey goalie in the rorld.
The puck left Ray Borque’s stick and Patrick Roy, edgy and impotent at the other end of the ice, could see it would be wide of the net. And there, like some kind of blessed punctuation mark, was Peter Forsberg’s stick.
Past Olaf Kolzig, past Olie the Goalie, the puck leapt and so did Roy, a small hop, a larger one, bouncing up into the arms of his teammates who were already on the ice before the red light came on, out to touch Roy, to share the moment, the night and the history.
“That was fun to watch the puck go in,” said Roy, all smiles and damp hair, a man who had measured himself against the best of all time and was now himself the measurement.
They are all now chasing this man from Quebec, all those padded and masked defenders of the crease, as if they have not been for 16 years, from the time he first pulled on that maternity shirt of a jersey they all wear, from when he first showed the quickest knees in hockey and changed a generation of goaltenders, now copies of the original.
“To me the thing has been playing for the Stanley Cup,” said Roy, who has drunk from the scared jug three times, “but of course this is special because it is not one year but a career to play for.”
It is the fate of goaltenders to get credit for winning hockey games when all they can do is not lose them. And this one, in front of a house filled to underflowing, Roy allowed enough goals to lose—Patrick the Hatrick—and still he won.
The Avs gave the game back with an aimless second period and then had to play like a bag full of ferrets to catch up and win in overtime.
Roy could have lost with seconds left when a shot he did not see banged off his pads harmlessly. And a penalty in overtime gave the Avs a man advantage for as long as they would need it.
“And when we had 4-3 on the power play and I am thinking maybe this is my night,” Roy said.
The event did not consume the locally curious, nor entice any significant politician, incumbent or ambitious, to drop by the MCI Center.
You would have thought that the leftovers from the Million Family March might have padded the house.
But the nation’s capital had other things to do, debates to watch or baseball to inspect, rejection again for a member in Congress to sulk about. But all the important people were here, Roy’s teammates, his family, Gary Bettman, the NHL commissioner, who handed Roy a set of golden shears to cut down the nets he had defended.
They had preprinted celebratory caps for the Avs to wear, dully functional depicting Roy’s achievement but without an ounce of poetry. The NHL had a postgame video ready, with congratulations from, of all creatures, Stone Cold Steve Austin as well as Mike Myers and Gordie Howe. Roy was already a Jeopardy trivia question, asked and answered by Alex Trebek.
If it had not been here, it would have been elsewhere, and where it should have been, of course, is Denver. Had the Avs lost, Roy would have been in the nets in Columbus, a town with a hockey tradition about as long as a lady finger.
Roy said he wanted it over as soon as possible, didn’t want to drag his family through game after game. Understandable and admirable, but this deserved a better frame, this deserved home love, which will now have to come before Friday’s game at the Pepsi Center.
Amateurish, really, the whole business. Only Roy kept his dignity and poise throughout this sort of tardy schlock. A fumbling call of congratulations came from Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien, who seemed still disturbed that Roy no longer played for Montreal.
“We are proud of you,” said Chretien. “You broke the record. Good for you.”
Good for him, indeed. Good for all of us. Good for hockey. Good for sports. Roy is as fine an ambassador of what is good in games as can be found. He is a man of pride and confidence and skill who will honor his individual achievements without forfeiting his sense of team
In less time than it took for his hair to dry, Roy was reasserting the next goal, to win a Stanley Cup for Borque.
“It is important for all of us to make that commitment,” Roy said. “To get in a better position for the playoffs, to have a Game 7 in Denver.”
When Roy is wight, he’s wight.