Former legendary goaltender Patrick Roy just coached the Quebec Remparts to a Memorial Cup championship as the top team in junior hockey, but he admitted he's had a tough time finding an NHL coaching gig after the way he left the Colorado Avalanche in 2016.
“It's hard for me to get a job because of the way I left Colorado,” Roy admitted to NHL.com's Dave Stubbs on Thursday.
“I know I made some bad choices. I know the way I left, everything I did, could have an effect on today's perspective on myself. I have to live with that. I know that I've learned from my mistakes. The past is the past but sometimes, you have to live with your past. I understand the situation.”
The former NHL goaltender abruptly resigned from his role as the Avalanche's head coach and vice president of hockey operations in the summer of 2016, which didn't do him any favors around the league.
“I understand now, better than ever, that you can't be in management and coach a team at the same time,” Roy told Stubbs. “If you're the coach, you coach. If you're GM, that's what you do.”
Roy was hired by his former teammate Joe Sakic in May of 2013, and lasted three seasons before leaving the organization.
But he's had great success with the QMJHL's Remparts, claiming the Canadian Hockey League's top prize on Sunday. The 57-year-old was clear that this was his last year coaching junior hockey, and he is looking to get back to the NHL level at some point.
“A person I know very well one day said to me, ‘Hockey is not your passion, hockey is your life,' and that's pretty much right,” Patrick Roy made clear. “It would be an honor for me if I have a chance to be back in the NHL.”
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