A day before Patrick Roy’s NHL playoff coaching debut, he was asked about Nathan MacKinnon’s Halifax Mooseheads upsetting his Quebec Remparts two years ago in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League playoffs.
The Remparts won the first three games of the series against the Mooseheads in MacKinnon’s rookie season, only to have the Mooseheads reel off four-straight for the unlikely series victory. On Wednesday, Roy described MacKinnon in that series as being “very dominant.”
“So, was that good play by Nate or bad coaching?” a member of the Denver media asked.
“Can I say bad goaltending?” Roy said with a laugh.
It ended there, at least from Roy’s standpoint. Phoenix Coyotes prospect Louis Domingue, who was Roy’s goaltender in that series, responded via Twitter in an exchange with the Remparts’ beat reporter, Kathleen Lavoie.
Translated, those tweets read:
“Congratulations to Patrick Roy one more time! What a class act. I’m capable of accepting blame when the hat fits…
“But to denigrate and attack me publicly for three years in addition to intimidating and humiliating (me). I’m ending my silence!”
“Patrick Roy intimidated me verbally day after day. Never came to help me. By far and away one of the worst people I’ve ever met.”
Domingue followed up on Thursday with another tweet.
“I have a lot of respect for what he accomplished as a goaltender. But nobody knows what I lived through. Good luck to the Avalanche in the playoffs!”
Domingue received support from Peter Delmas, who played half a season in Quebec in the 2009-2010 season, which was Domingue’s first of three years with the Remparts.
Roy has been known to be somewhat merciless when it comes to those who take up his former profession. During the 2006 MasterCard Memorial Cup, Roy called out the Moncton Wildcats goaltender by saying, “Josh Tordjman, up until now, is playing above his head and is ripe to break.”
Then-Wildcats head coach Ted Nolan responded to the psychological warfare by saying Roy “quite simply has no class.”
Whether Roy was joking or simply being blunt on Wednesday, he seems to forget his status as a goaltending legend only makes his words sting young goaltenders that much more.
DEFENDING CHAMPS AGAINST THE ROPES?
The Halifax Mooseheads-Val-d’Or Foreurs series took an obvious narrative prior to the series’ commencement.
A duel between two of junior hockey’s top marksmen, Jonathan Drouin and Anthony Mantha, headlined the semifinal series. And yet, this series is suddenly about the goalies and the defending Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and MasterCard Memorial Cup champion Mooseheads against the ropes just two games in.
Val-d’Or stole home-ice from the Mooseheads with back-to-back wins at the Halifax Metro Centre on the weekend. For those counting at home, that’s one more loss than the Mooseheads had in last year’s championship run.
The Foreurs found success with quick starts and a smothering defensive game. They led 2-1 and 3-1 after the first period of each game, leads they never relinquished.
“When you come into Halifax, this building is so tough to play in – the crowd, the energy,” Foreurs defenceman and former Moosehead Randy Gazzola told Willy Palov. “What we tried to do is take that energy out right away with quick goals, hard plays and fortunately it went our way.”
Drouin registered a point in each loss to bring his point streak to 24 while Mantha has a goal and two assists in the series so far. The more telling stat is in goal. Zachary Fucale was beat on eight-of-41 shots while Antoine Bibeau turned aside 60-of-64 shots.
With games three and four in Val-d’Or on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Mooseheads’ chances of a repeat are becoming rather daunting.
ROCKETS, ‘HAWKS ENGAGE IN MODERN DAY CLASSIC
Fans across Canada were treated to one of the best junior games of the season in game one of the Western Hockey League’s Western Conference final on Friday Night Hockey. The Rockets overcame a 3-0 first period deficit en route to a physical and entertaining 5-4 victory.
Good starts appear to be an ominous sign in this series. The Rockets then scored a 2-0 lead after one, only to have it evaporate as the Winterhawks scored the final four goals of the game in a 5-3 win to tie the series.
This series has a bit of everything with potent offence, strong goaltending and a physical edge. It’s the heavyweight fight junior hockey enthusiasts envisioned before the playoffs began and in some ways, brings shades of the 1980s, fire wagon hockey.
This series is expected to go the distance, while the East final between Edmonton and Medicine Hat is taking the early shape of a quick series as Edmonton leads 2-0. An Edmonton and Portland win would mean the WHL would have a third-straight finals between the Oil Kings and Winterhawks.
Meanwhile, the Tigers’ play-by-play man Bob Ridley reached an incredible milestone on Sunday when he called his 3,542nd game. Ridley became the voice of the Tigers 44 years ago, at its inception, and has missed just one game – when he was assigned to a curling tournament during the hockey season.
Ridley’s record is all the more impressive when considering he’s not just the voice of the Tigers, but also the team’s bus driver. Ridley, 69, has been driving the Tigers’ bus for all but the first two seasons in franchise history.
“I think I’m closing in on three million (kilometers),” he told the Edmonton Sun’s Terry Jones.
Jones has this wonderful piece on Ridley with some interesting stories regarding former Tigers Kelly Hrudey and Ken Holland.
– The Mooseheads got to their third-consecutive semifinals berth by overcoming an overly physical series with the Gatineau Olympiques that Sam Cosentino described as having “prison rules.”
– Plymouth’s Alex Nedeljkovic, who’s eligible for this summer’s NHL draft, became the third American to be named the OHL’s goalie of the year.
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– D.J. Smith, whose Oshawa Generals are down 2-0 to North Bay in the OHL’s East final, was named the OHL’s coach of the year.
– The goaltending carousel in Erie is confounding. Devin Williams, who carried the Otters to the third round, gave way to Swedish goaltender Oscar Dansk in Game 2. Dansk was lit up for seven goals in a 7-2 loss. It’s critical now that the Otters find stability at the position facing a 2-0 series deficit heading into Monday’s game three.
– The Calgary Hitmen axed head coach Mike Williamson after losing the first round series to Kootenay. Does this now mean Williamson is likely to resurface in Saskatoon? As veteran scribe Gregg Drinnan put it, “If the Saskatoon Blades haven’t handed a blank cheque to Mike Williamson… you have to assume it’s only because it’s a long weekend in Canada and their banker was at the lake.”
– How’s this for the saying “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” The MasterCard Memorial Cup host London Knights, who have a month to prepare for the tournament after being eliminated by Guelph, hired former Shawinigan Cataractes assistant coach Danny Dupont. Dupont’s Cataractes overcame the long wait by winning the tournament in 2012…by beating the Knights in the final.
– Knights goaltender Anthony Stolarz will be able to participate in the tournament in spite of a playoff suspension carrying two more games.
– The Florida Panthers won the NHL’s draft lottery last week, which means the Aaron Ekblad-to-Florida rumours are ramping up. Ekblad likely already played his final junior game when the Barrie Colts were defeated in the second round by North Bay. “I hate to think about it and I love to think about it at the same time, because the future is pretty fun to look at,” Ekblad told the Barrie Examiner.
– The Charlottetown Islanders could be receiving Czech forward Vaclav Karabacek as deferred compensation for the Alexis Pepin trade with Gatineau in January.