FAREWELL TO A SPORTS ICON
Behind the scenes with Lacroix, godfather of Avalanche’s championship empire
Mark Kiszla reflects on the late Pierre Lacroix, the general manager who ruled the Avalanche empire and made Patrick Roy, Joe Sakic and the state of Colorado champions.
We called him “Father Pete” because he was the godfather that ruled the Avalanche empire with an iron fist. Patrick Roy and Joe Sakic were the stars of a championship hockey team. But make no mistake: Pierre Lacroix was the boss. Nobody who valued peace or quiet messed with
“Father Pete.”
The greatest general manager in Colorado sports history? No contest. No debate. It’s Lacroix, who died Sunday, at age 72, from complications of COVID- 19.
With a voice that spoke sweetly to children and an accent that often won arguments on arrogance alone, Lacroix was fond of reminding me: “You know nothing about hockey.”
But one summer afternoon in 1997, I knew a secret that caught “Father Pete” with his pants down. It was a doozy that threatened to wreck the Avs’ burgeoning empire.
The New York Rangers had been plotting for weeks to steal Sakic in free agency, and I knew how they were going to do it. The plan was cunning. At the end of a business day in August, the Rangers faxed a predatory offer — a heavily front- loaded, three- year, $ 21 million deal — designed to make it extremely difficult for a cash- strapped NHL team in Colorado to match.
The Avs were blindsided. Charlie Lyons, who held the franchise’s purse strings in his role as CEO of Ascent Entertainment Group, was totally unaware New York had made Sakic the highest- paid player in the league until the telephone rang in his suburban Denver home shortly before 7 p. m. and I broke the bad news to him.
“How do you know that? I don’t know anything about it. I just walked in my house,” Lyons replied. “If Joe has an offer sheet from the Rangers, this is the first
I’ve heard about it.”
Back in the ’ 90s, before the internet moved information at the speed of two thumbs tapping, Lyons refused to believe my report until he talked to Lacroix, who was not only his trusted hockey ally, but also a neighbor.
Barely an hour later, I heard back from Lyons, who uttered these exasperated words:
“Son of a ….”
In death, Lacroix will be fondly remembered with toasts for blockbuster trades and two Stanley Cup championships that set a lofty standard of sports excellence in Denver.
But I’m convinced “Father Pete” did his best work during seven tense days in the summer of ’ 97. Lacroix swallowed his pride, bit the financial bullet, doubled Sakic’s salary ( with a major assist from Lyons) and kept his Colorado hockey family from splintering.
When the Avs retained Sakic, Lacroix masked his relief by growling like a grouchy bear: “I feel so uncomfortable, not only as somebody with a team here in Denver, but as a member of the National Hockey League. This league has a loose wheel somewhere and can’t stop from going down the wrong path.”
Laughing last, Lyons sent a framed old photo of politician Nelson Rockefeller offering a middle- finger salute to rival executive Dave Checketts at Madison Square Garden.
The Avs reigned in no small part because Lacroix combined problem- solving imagination with a hard- headed refusal to lose. The opposite side of the negotiating table from “Father Pete” was always the wrong place to be, whether you were a general manager looking to trade goalie Patrick Roy or Avs center Chris Drury, looking for more respect in a paycheck.
Lacroix worked tirelessly, dined passionately and lived by his own rules. Rule No. 1: Family first. Always.
“For me, Pierre’s passing is an existential nightmare,” Lyons told me. “Losing a loved one to COVID, with the vaccine on the dock. It’s like being shot down in a war that has been decided.”
Lacroix and I had arguments so in- your- face intense I could smell what he ate for lunch.
Prior to Marc Crawford’s final game on the Colorado bench, a 4- 0 loss to Edmonton in the 1998 playoffs, Lacroix was furious at me for blasting the team’s lack of commitment to a coach who won the Cup only two years earlier. With lines in the column he found particularly aggravating highlighted in pink ink, “Father Pete” stood outside the Avs dressing room and furiously waved the paper in my face, bellowing: “These are lies! All lies! Lies printed here in black and white … and pink!”
As the puck drop for Game 7 drew closer, our debate raged on until a nearby door cracked open, and Crawford stuck his head out, and politely asked:
“I’ve got a playoff game to win in this building today. Could you and Pierre take this argument somewhere else?”
Lacroix’s ticker gave out after more than seven decades of giving his whole heart to the people and projects he loved. As a Dad, he brimmed with pride, knowing Eric Lacroix scored 67 regularseason goals while playing eight NHL seasons. It also tore “Father Pete” apart when prominent Avalanche players privately told me Eric’s presence in the Colorado locker room caused so much discomfort it forced the GM to make the toughest trade of his career, dealing Eric to the Los Angeles Kings early in the 199899 season.
Truth be told, “Father Pete” never forgave me for the column that resulted in taking away Eric from dinners with his mother. Shortly after dawn in the summer of ’ 99, I heard a commotion while boarding a train at Union Station for a trip with local luminaries and Denver Post subscribers headed to Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming. Coco Lacroix, wife of the Avs’ roster architect, was distraught at the prospect of being in the same dining car as a journalist who contributed to family grief.
A mother’s anger made perfect sense to me. Family first. Always. So I moved as many train compartments away as possible, far from the Lacroix sight, so Pierre and Coco could enjoy their trip to the rodeo. It was no big deal to me.
But years later, in the midst of a rant about how my criticism of his team was as reckless as “a little boy with a gun,” Lacroix stopped abruptly in mid- sentence.
“I also remember the time you moved, so my wife and I could enjoy our day on the train,” Lacroix said, with genuine appreciation. “I’ve never thanked you for that. So: Thank you.”
Then, without missing a beat, Lacroix resumed bellowing, telling me how I knew nothing
about hockey. I loved every minute of admonishment because he was again teaching this knucklehead a master class in the art of championship- building.
“Father Pete” was one tough son of a gun. He could also be a saint who championed his team’s community service, and cherished the smile of a young grandchild more than championship rings.
That’s why I imagine heaven and hell waged a wicked recruiting battle to win the soul of the most brilliant sports executive I’ve ever met.
But can there be any doubt that Lacroix now resides with the angels?
Although fools have tried, nobody has ever told “Father Pete” where to go.
Lacroix always blazed his own path, and his footprints were the road map to Avalanche glory.