Michel Roy is “most proud” of writing a biography of his son, Avs coach Patrick Roy.
Michel “most proud” of writing Patrick’s biography
Michel Roy, 73, has been a provincial deputy minister in Quebec and also the province’s Chicago-based representative for 12 U.S. states.
As a jazz guitarist and composer, he has produced and released two compact discs and performed at the Montreal Jazz Festival. For two years, he headed a cruise ship company.
As the chair of Telefilm Canada, the federal agency charged with promoting and developing the film industry since 2007, he now has scaled back to working part time after the agency got back on the right track. He is managing a school of music in Quebec and has started a novel.
And, yes, he is the father of Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender and Avalanche coach Patrick Roy.
Nearly a decade ago, Michel wrote “Patrick Roy: Winning. Nothing Else,” the meticulously detailed biography of his son that did well in Canada, first in French then in English. Triumph Books has released a new paperback edition in the U.S., with a new introduction, and Michel Roy talked about it — and his son — over lunch Thursday at a Denver restaurant.
“It’s the one thing I did in my life that I’m the most proud of, to write this book,” Michel said.
He added that the publisher initially requested “maybe 200 pages of updates, to go into Patrick as a coach, and so on. I said, ‘No.’ I wrote the book of Patrick, the goaltender. The goaltender retired in 2003. I made a few updates ... but that’s all. This is the book of Patrick Roy, the goaltender.”
The conversation came the afternoon after the Avalanche lost 4-2 to the Pittsburgh Penguins at the Pepsi Center and fell to 1216-1. Since a stunning 112-point season in Roy’s first season as head coach, the Avalanche — now with only five players on the roster drafted by Colorado — has slipped considerably.
“What he has a hard time with now is that he still has the mindset now of a player,” Michel Roy said. “He still thinks that he can make the difference. He still is frustrated that he doesn’t make the difference. He has to learn to realize that he’s just the coach and that he cannot do more than he does, and he has to live with the consequences.”
But that’s getting ahead of the story.
When Michel Roy approached his son about writing the biography, Patrick was in the early stages of his retirement after finishing up with the Avalanche in 2003 and beginning what turned out to be a long run as part-owner, general manager and eventually also coach of major junior’s Quebec Remparts.
“He’s a very dedicated person, he’s a learner,” Michel said. “He’s prepared for this for eight years in junior, traveling by bus with a bunch of teenagers all across Quebec. Eating chicken on his lap. Sleeping in second-class hotels for eight years. He’s a multimillionaire, he didn’t need that. But he was preparing himself, he was learning.”
Michel said Patrick at first was against the book project.
He said he told his son that the book would show young people and others how a goalie who had been through hard knocks — undergoing bombardments and posting awful numbers with a terrible major junior team before refining the butterfly technique to help revolutionize the position and the sport — overcame those trials.
“He had a passion for winning at everything he did, and it drove him,” Michel said. “Through that determination and passion, he has achieved what he has achieved. ... I went to Patrick and said, ‘Look, you’ve received so much from hockey, notoriety and wealth, everything, and you started from nothing. You owe it to those kids to know that their dream is achievable.’ ”
From there, Michel did research both as a traditional biographer, going back through media archives and interviewing many involved in Patrick’s life and career, but also sitting down for lengthy father-son chats.
“It enabled me to go into the small details of what happened, what the media didn’t know,” Michel said.
During the writing, he said, he periodically shipped chapters to a friend and author. “I told him, ‘You watch me. If you see something in there that sounds more like a father than a journalist, you tell me.’ I think it turned out pretty objective. I told things the way they happened. It was hard work, but I enjoyed every minute of it.”