Former NHL goalie Patrick Roy and his son Jonathan, as well as five other players and an opposing coach, were suspended after a brawl in a QMJHL playoff game.
Roy is the current coach of the Quebec Remparts and got a five game suspension. Jonathan Roy received a seven game sentence after he attacked Bobby Nadeau, the goaltender for the Chicoutimi Sagueneens. After then getting into a fight with a Sagueneens defenseman, he skated off the ice and flipped off the crowd.
Also suspended were: Remparts defenseman Maxime Lacroix (three games); Remparts’ Marc-Oliver Vallerand (two games); Sagueneens winger Antoine Roussel (one game); Sagueneens’ Charles-Antoine Messier (two games); and Rioux (six games). Chicoutimi coach Richard Martel got a two game suspension because Rioux left the penalty box to join in the tussle. Both teams were fined 4,000 Canadian dollars.
Why all the suspensions though? It’s hockey, right? And what’s hockey without a fight or two? The only people who should really have gotten suspended were the coaches and Jonathan Roy and Rioux. Coach Roy for what appeared to be a gesture to his son right before Jonathan attacked the opposing goalie (And it was an attack as Nadeau didn’t attempt to fight back), the younger Roy both for the comment in parenthesis above and for flipping the bird, Martel due to a player leaving the box, and Rioux for leaving the box. Not a really serious one because who can really blame Rioux for coming to the aid of his goalie? That’s in a defenseman’s job description.
And if this is how severe suspensions are for a QMJHL fight, why are Chris Simon and Todd Bertuzzi still playing in the NHL?
