I learned it from watching you Dad!
Posted on March 25, 2008
Filed Under Breakfast Club, Hockey | 1 Comment
There’s finally a reason to pay attention to hockey this year, but it’s not a good one. On Saturday night, the son of legendary goalie Patrick Roy, Jonathan Roy, brutally assaulted an opposing goalie during a playoff game in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
There is fighting in hockey, but this does not qualify as a regular hockey fight. Even among savages, there are rules. Quoting from the National Post here:
Never does one see a goalie attack another goalie who has refused to leave his crease. Hockey follows the old common-law rule of volenti non fit injuria: Willing participants cannot claim to be victims. That’s how “Wanna go?” has become a universally recognized Canadianism — a phrase whose meaning even Swedes, Finns and Russians know. An attack on an unwilling bystander, however, is ordinary assault, no different in nature than it would be on the street.
My first reaction to this news was, “Patrick Roy’s kid is 19? Damn I’m old!” It feels like yesterday I was watching the fresh-faced Roy lead the Canadiens to the 1986 Stanley Cup. If you are wondering where Jonathan learned to pick fights with other goalies, it was probably from watching footage of his dad fight Mike Vernon, Dominik Hasek and Chris Osgood through the years. Roy was even a red ass off the ice.
I’ll never forget the time Roy went after a 6-foot-10 guy at the hotel disco at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. At a team party which included player familiies, Roy, along with Adam Foote, Claude Lemieux and a few other teammates and family members, were dancing to some music. The DJ, 6-10, had the music at a set level. Roy asked for the music to be turned up. The DJ said he couldn’t do it. Roy asked again. The DJ said he couldn’t do it. Roy demanded it be turned up, and the DJ said he couldn’t do it. Next thing you know, Patrick Roy had his hand on the 6-10 guy’s neck. If that didn’t prove Roy was absolutely fearless (and maybe not so smart) when he lost his temper, nothing did.
This story wouldn’t be nearly as sad if it wasn’t for the fact that Jonathan Roy’s coach and father are one and the same. In fact reports say that Patrick Roy gestured toward his son from the bench to go after the other goalie.
Jonathan was suspended seven games, his father five. I’ve never set foot in Quebec and have no idea what the precedent is for suspensions in the QMJHL, but both of those bans seem ridiculously short. Father and son should have been suspended indefinitely.
Whatever is left to say of this pathetic affair can best be summed up by the following scene from The Breakfast Club in which Emilio Esteves recounts how he ended up in weekend detention with the geeky Anthony Michael Hall, the pretty/ugly Molly Ringwald, dandruff queen Ally Sheedy and the mentally deranged Judd Nelson.
Andy Clark (Emelio Estevez):
Do you guys know what, uh, what I did to get in here? I taped Larry Lester’s buns together … And the bizarre thing is, is that I did it for my old man…I tortured this poor kid, because I wanted him to think that I was cool. He’s always going off about, you know, when he was in school…all the wild things he used to do. And I got the feeling that he was disappointed that I never cut loose on anyone, right…So, I’m…I’m sitting in the locker room, and I’m taping up my knee. And Larry’s undressing a couple lockers down from me. Yeah…he’s kinda… he’s kinda skinny, weak. And I started thinking about my father, and his attitude about weakness.
And the next thing I knew, I uh, I jumped on top of him and started wailing on him…And my friends, they just laughed and cheered me on. And afterwards, when I was sittin’ in Vernon’s office, all I could think about was Larry’s father. And Larry havin’ to go home and…and explain what happened to him. And the humiliation…fucking humiliation he mustuv felt.
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That’s not exactly how it happened at the Stars Club in the Broadmoor. It was time to close the bar, 1:45pm and Patrick wanted the music to continue but according to hotel policy and Colorado law we had to make last call at 1:30 and turn off the music at 1:45. The guy, (6′2″) wasn’t the DJ, he was just helping the DJ pack up. I witnessed it first hand as I was the manager on duty that evening.