The Habs played and played hard. So did the Bruins. It was honestly a toss-up as to who would win… would Carey or Tim Thomas make that extra save… it was Thomas, but Carey was phenomenal as well.
But it was the whole history and emotion that the game was played with which touched me, and I’m sure many other fans as well. You could tell the Habs wanted to win this for Patrick… and they almost did.
Kostpoulos (or rather Tommy Non-stopoulos – his nickname in junior) came up huge. What a game for him!
The pregame ceremony was moving… I’ll admit I was in tears… all the bad blood was finally washed away (well except maybe for the newer bad blood, after hearing the boos directed at Jonathan Roy, surely received for his attack on Bobby Nadeau last year) and Patrick Roy was finally welcomed home. For the first time, I saw him as a small man… normally his cocky personality makes him seem so big, but today he was small, and humble, and showed how much he truly wanted to be back, and I think he definitely deserved the seemingly endless standing ovation that he got.
As I’m writing this, I’m watching him in an interview on RDS, and he just picked Carey Price as who he thinks is the most important player in the league. To me this seemed very unlike Roy, so willing to dole out compliments, and I think that Carey will be very appreciative of his comment. It’ll be a big positive for Carey to know that one of the best goalies of all time has that much confidence in his abilities as a goalie. He is a true talent, and undoubtedly one day he’ll match, if not break many of Roy’s records. It was nice that Roy’s records stayed intact for his jersey retirement, but with Brodeur so close, and Price on the way, they probably won’t stay that way for long. But hey, records are meant to be broken right?
After a wonderful night like that, the Habs shouldn’t be too upset with their performance. Their defence has finally improved, and they are finally playing as a team.
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