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Save by Roy: Patrick Roy and the Return of the Colorado Avalanche
In 2013, the Colorado Avalanche announced that Joe Sakic, a franchise legend and Hall of Fame center, would be promoted to become the new executive VP of hockey operations. Soon, Sakic was instrumental in the hiring of Patrick Roy, the greatest goaltender in NHL history, a man crucial to the Avalanche’s Stanley Cup victories in 1996 and 2001, as Colorado’s new coach. This book, a collaborative effort between seasoned sportswriters and authors Terry Frei and Adrian Dater, is an opinionated, interpretive, and in-depth look at Patrick Roy’s first season as a National Hockey League coach, and the Avalanche’s surprising 2013–14 season.
320 pages, Paperback
First published November 5, 2014
6 people are currently reading
47 people want to read
About the author
Terry Frei
17 books3 followers Award-winning journalist, author, and screenwriter Terry Frei is in his second stint at the Denver Post. He has been sports columnist for the Portland Oregonian, a football writer for the Sporting News, and an ESPN.com hockey columnist. Among his six previous books are Third Down and a War to Go, ’77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age, and Olympic Affair. His web site is www.terryfrei.com.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 30, 2014
Rating:
3 1/2 of 5 stars (good)
Review:
After a few poor seasons, the Colorado Avalanche, at one time one of the elite teams of the National Hockey League, decided to hire a rookie head coach who had no NHL coaching experience at the time. He was well-known to the franchise, having led them to Stanley Cup championships in 1996 and 2001. Hall of Fame goaltender Patrick Roy became Colorado’s head coach for the 2013-14 season. That season is chronicled in this book, a collaborative effort between Terri Frei and Adrian Dater of the Denver Post, both of whom have covered hockey for the newspaper.
After a brief recap of Roy’s career and life after hockey, the book really gets going when the press conference announcing Colorado’s hiring of Roy causes some stirring around the league. How can someone who has never coached in the NHL lead a team that has struggled for the last four years? Very well, thank you as the Avalanche won their division in 2013-14 and while they were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the Minnesota Wild, the season was considered to be a success.
The book covers the season by recapping every game, some much more in depth than others. These recaps are not newspaper stories, but instead they will cover a new aspect or situation facing the team, an anecdote about the player who played the biggest role for the Avalanche in the game, or possibly a simple rehash of the results. In between these stories there were sections that had player biographies that read like the biographies one will read in team media guides. However, those were more complete in this book with much more information gleaned from the player being profiled. Those were enjoyable reads and strategically placed at various spots during the season’s recap.
There was also one more feature of the book that was interspersed in various spots in the book, and that was notes “from the notebook of” one of the two authors. These were alternated between the two writers and these features were my favorite part of the book. These pieces were informative, opinionated and entertaining. Whether the pages from a notebook were about the feud between Roy and St. Louis Blues coach Ken Hitchcock, how Roy would use the media to his advantage or just commentary on the games, these sections were welcome breaks from the season discussion. Just like how players enjoy breaks in the schedule during a long season, I felt refreshed and ready to continue after reading these.
While the main topic of the book is the 2013-14 Avalanche season, this was also a good source of information to learn more about Roy and what makes him tick both during his playing days and as a coach. The style of the writing is what one would expect from two newspaper reporters, but the stories don’t read like a newspaper. Put together, they weave a good picture of the team and what the future holds for them. It is a book that any hockey fan will enjoy reading, especially Avalanche fans.
I wish to thank NetGalley for providing an advance review copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Did I skim?
No
Pace of the book:
Very good. I felt some of the game summaries and stories started to run together when reading them one after another, but the breaks in them with either player biographies or the notebook chapters made reading the entire book fairly quick.
Do I recommend?
Avalanche fans will certainly enjoy this recap of this comeback season in which Roy was named the NHL Coach of the Year. All hockey fans would enjoy reading this in-depth book.
3 1/2 of 5 stars (good)
Review:
After a few poor seasons, the Colorado Avalanche, at one time one of the elite teams of the National Hockey League, decided to hire a rookie head coach who had no NHL coaching experience at the time. He was well-known to the franchise, having led them to Stanley Cup championships in 1996 and 2001. Hall of Fame goaltender Patrick Roy became Colorado’s head coach for the 2013-14 season. That season is chronicled in this book, a collaborative effort between Terri Frei and Adrian Dater of the Denver Post, both of whom have covered hockey for the newspaper.
After a brief recap of Roy’s career and life after hockey, the book really gets going when the press conference announcing Colorado’s hiring of Roy causes some stirring around the league. How can someone who has never coached in the NHL lead a team that has struggled for the last four years? Very well, thank you as the Avalanche won their division in 2013-14 and while they were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the Minnesota Wild, the season was considered to be a success.
The book covers the season by recapping every game, some much more in depth than others. These recaps are not newspaper stories, but instead they will cover a new aspect or situation facing the team, an anecdote about the player who played the biggest role for the Avalanche in the game, or possibly a simple rehash of the results. In between these stories there were sections that had player biographies that read like the biographies one will read in team media guides. However, those were more complete in this book with much more information gleaned from the player being profiled. Those were enjoyable reads and strategically placed at various spots during the season’s recap.
There was also one more feature of the book that was interspersed in various spots in the book, and that was notes “from the notebook of” one of the two authors. These were alternated between the two writers and these features were my favorite part of the book. These pieces were informative, opinionated and entertaining. Whether the pages from a notebook were about the feud between Roy and St. Louis Blues coach Ken Hitchcock, how Roy would use the media to his advantage or just commentary on the games, these sections were welcome breaks from the season discussion. Just like how players enjoy breaks in the schedule during a long season, I felt refreshed and ready to continue after reading these.
While the main topic of the book is the 2013-14 Avalanche season, this was also a good source of information to learn more about Roy and what makes him tick both during his playing days and as a coach. The style of the writing is what one would expect from two newspaper reporters, but the stories don’t read like a newspaper. Put together, they weave a good picture of the team and what the future holds for them. It is a book that any hockey fan will enjoy reading, especially Avalanche fans.
I wish to thank NetGalley for providing an advance review copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Did I skim?
No
Pace of the book:
Very good. I felt some of the game summaries and stories started to run together when reading them one after another, but the breaks in them with either player biographies or the notebook chapters made reading the entire book fairly quick.
Do I recommend?
Avalanche fans will certainly enjoy this recap of this comeback season in which Roy was named the NHL Coach of the Year. All hockey fans would enjoy reading this in-depth book.
January 7, 2020
As an Avalanche fan, I found this book highly entertaining as I watched most of the games and was very familiar with the story line. Patrick Roy hired, Nathan Mackinnon Rookie season, Semyon Varlamov Court case and amazing rebound season for the Avalanche were all re-visited by Frei and Dater who do sports writing out of Denver. A must read for any hardcore Colorado Avalanche fan.
July 15, 2015
Luck plays a role in the business of books. Example One in this case comes from Denver newspaper columnist Terry Frei and reporter Adrian Dater.
The two men saw that a sleepy Colorado Avalanche franchise had taken a dramatic turn with the hiring of a new coach, legendary goaltender Patrick Roy. The Avalanche also had Joe Sakic, another hockey Hall of Famer, in the front office, and had some good if unproven young players on the roster.
It figured to be an interesting season. Therefore, they decided to make a book out of it. "Save by Roy" is that book.
The luck comes with what happened, particularly at the start. The Avalanche got off to the best start in team history, which was rather unexpected considered it had missed the playoffs the season before. What's more, the team stayed good throughout the season. If you follow hockey, you probably know that the team had one of the great turnarounds in recent history.
Roy turned out to be an inspired choice to be coach. The number of former NHL goalies who have been NHL coaches over the years is a small one. There's Emile Francis, Gerry Cheevers, Eddie Johnston, Glen Hanlon, Ron Low ... there must be someone else around. It's almost like baseball pitchers, who mostly become pitching coaches and rarely move up to become managers. Yet goalies have a good view of the ice at all times, and have to think about offense and defense constantly.
Roy is considered one of the greatest goalies in history, and paid some dues by coaching in junior hockey. Still, he hadn't been an NHL head coach or assistant, so it was a risky choice. Yet it paid off nicely with a great first season.
The majority of the book covers the season, game by game. It doesn't get too bogged down in the play-by-play, sticking to larger trends for the most part and quotes from those involved. Every player on the roster, important or not, receives a short biography. Yet Roy is the star of the show, as he unquestionably has the spotlight much of the time. After an emotional start to the season (understatement), the new coach generally calmed downed and was quite calculating in his public "performances." The authors believe he turned in one of the great coaching performances in memory in this particular season.
The best part of the book comes when Frei and Dater go off on tangents by themselves. There are some good anecdotes about issues that came up during the season, as well as journalism matters in which there often is no easy answer. That's our business, all right. Oh - you'll shake your head when you read about how tough it is to get to your car after covering a Super Bowl. I did say tangents, right?
The obvious question here is whether the book works well enough to appeal to an audience outside of the state of Colorado and certain parts of Quebec (the Roy connection, as he spent part of his playing career in Montreal). That's tough to say. The games do tend to blend together a bit here without much analysis at times, which is only natural in an 82-game season. And the story ends with a playoff whimper, as fans no doubt remember - there's that luck issue again.
Therefore, it's a little difficult for me to give "Save by Roy" more than a three-star rating from this distance. However, at 1,500 miles away, I'm not in the target audience. Colorado hockey fans probably would enjoy reading about the surprising Avalanche, and they would bring some personal knowledge of memorable games to the table. In other words, they will like this book better than the typical after-the-fact, quickly published book on championship seasons that are often produced. Those people will give this another star and are sure to enjoy it.
The two men saw that a sleepy Colorado Avalanche franchise had taken a dramatic turn with the hiring of a new coach, legendary goaltender Patrick Roy. The Avalanche also had Joe Sakic, another hockey Hall of Famer, in the front office, and had some good if unproven young players on the roster.
It figured to be an interesting season. Therefore, they decided to make a book out of it. "Save by Roy" is that book.
The luck comes with what happened, particularly at the start. The Avalanche got off to the best start in team history, which was rather unexpected considered it had missed the playoffs the season before. What's more, the team stayed good throughout the season. If you follow hockey, you probably know that the team had one of the great turnarounds in recent history.
Roy turned out to be an inspired choice to be coach. The number of former NHL goalies who have been NHL coaches over the years is a small one. There's Emile Francis, Gerry Cheevers, Eddie Johnston, Glen Hanlon, Ron Low ... there must be someone else around. It's almost like baseball pitchers, who mostly become pitching coaches and rarely move up to become managers. Yet goalies have a good view of the ice at all times, and have to think about offense and defense constantly.
Roy is considered one of the greatest goalies in history, and paid some dues by coaching in junior hockey. Still, he hadn't been an NHL head coach or assistant, so it was a risky choice. Yet it paid off nicely with a great first season.
The majority of the book covers the season, game by game. It doesn't get too bogged down in the play-by-play, sticking to larger trends for the most part and quotes from those involved. Every player on the roster, important or not, receives a short biography. Yet Roy is the star of the show, as he unquestionably has the spotlight much of the time. After an emotional start to the season (understatement), the new coach generally calmed downed and was quite calculating in his public "performances." The authors believe he turned in one of the great coaching performances in memory in this particular season.
The best part of the book comes when Frei and Dater go off on tangents by themselves. There are some good anecdotes about issues that came up during the season, as well as journalism matters in which there often is no easy answer. That's our business, all right. Oh - you'll shake your head when you read about how tough it is to get to your car after covering a Super Bowl. I did say tangents, right?
The obvious question here is whether the book works well enough to appeal to an audience outside of the state of Colorado and certain parts of Quebec (the Roy connection, as he spent part of his playing career in Montreal). That's tough to say. The games do tend to blend together a bit here without much analysis at times, which is only natural in an 82-game season. And the story ends with a playoff whimper, as fans no doubt remember - there's that luck issue again.
Therefore, it's a little difficult for me to give "Save by Roy" more than a three-star rating from this distance. However, at 1,500 miles away, I'm not in the target audience. Colorado hockey fans probably would enjoy reading about the surprising Avalanche, and they would bring some personal knowledge of memorable games to the table. In other words, they will like this book better than the typical after-the-fact, quickly published book on championship seasons that are often produced. Those people will give this another star and are sure to enjoy it.
March 1, 2018
The book overall was decent. I would have like to seen more details on the overall season and some more details on how Patrick Roy handled his players during the year more closely.
December 29, 2014
I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Well, this is a departure from my usual fare! But one of the many fascinating facets of my personality is that I'm a hockey fan and specifically an Avalanche fan. Terry Frei and Adrian Dater, the authors, are both sports writers for the Denver Post, so I'm somewhat familiar with their work. They wrote this book as a response to the amazing rookie year that Patrick Roy had as head coach of the Avalanche, a team that began with a bang but has been struggling in recent years with young players, bad trade decisions, and probably some poor management in the back office.
Last year, however, Roy was brought on as head coach. After his retirement as a goalie for the Avs, he coached college hockey but had not yet felt ready for an NHL coaching job. He came back to the organization and promptly shook things up to the point that the Avs not only came in first place in their conference, but went to the playoffs for the first time in years.
The book alternates between player bios and quick rundowns of the games of the 213-2014 hockey season for the Avs. The recaps of the games can get kind of old. I remember them from last year, in general, and I began to skip past the play-by-plays. I just didn't care about reading in that much detail about games past. The player bios were interesting. However, the teams' makeup has changed somewhat from last year. The most important change is probably that Paul Stastny, a great center, versatile player, and hard worker on both ends of the ice, has gone to the St. Louis Blues with a fabulous contract. Many players, notable Ryan O'Reilly, are having very different years this year as compared to last, and the Avalanche are struggling to try to get out of the basement this year. It's a bizarrely quick turnaround from last year, and I don't think anyone quite knows why the magic isn't there right now. Because of this change, I wonder how this book will sell. Any sports book has got to be a snapshot of a specific time and a very specific team, before records and players change. In this case, the change may make it more difficult to market this book.
Well, this is a departure from my usual fare! But one of the many fascinating facets of my personality is that I'm a hockey fan and specifically an Avalanche fan. Terry Frei and Adrian Dater, the authors, are both sports writers for the Denver Post, so I'm somewhat familiar with their work. They wrote this book as a response to the amazing rookie year that Patrick Roy had as head coach of the Avalanche, a team that began with a bang but has been struggling in recent years with young players, bad trade decisions, and probably some poor management in the back office.
Last year, however, Roy was brought on as head coach. After his retirement as a goalie for the Avs, he coached college hockey but had not yet felt ready for an NHL coaching job. He came back to the organization and promptly shook things up to the point that the Avs not only came in first place in their conference, but went to the playoffs for the first time in years.
The book alternates between player bios and quick rundowns of the games of the 213-2014 hockey season for the Avs. The recaps of the games can get kind of old. I remember them from last year, in general, and I began to skip past the play-by-plays. I just didn't care about reading in that much detail about games past. The player bios were interesting. However, the teams' makeup has changed somewhat from last year. The most important change is probably that Paul Stastny, a great center, versatile player, and hard worker on both ends of the ice, has gone to the St. Louis Blues with a fabulous contract. Many players, notable Ryan O'Reilly, are having very different years this year as compared to last, and the Avalanche are struggling to try to get out of the basement this year. It's a bizarrely quick turnaround from last year, and I don't think anyone quite knows why the magic isn't there right now. Because of this change, I wonder how this book will sell. Any sports book has got to be a snapshot of a specific time and a very specific team, before records and players change. In this case, the change may make it more difficult to market this book.
January 27, 2015
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review*
As an avid hockey fan, this book was a great in-depth recap of the Colorado Avalanche’s 2013-2014 season. This book is completely different from my typical read, but as a hockey fan it was engrossing. I just want to preface this review by saying, I am not at all an Avs fan, they are a divisional rival to my beloved Hawks. However, I really enjoyed learning more about the franchise and how they came to be the team I know today and the team I remember last season.
As a fan, I remember being mystified by how the Avs went from literally the bottom of the standings to the top in a single season. This book was an insider’s perspective of that drastic change and rise in the standings.
The book consisted of three parts, the introduction which showcased how bad the Avs were, the Regular Season, and the Playoffs. These parts were filled with stories and chapters pertaining to players and each game. I really liked how each game was broken up into a section with a brief summary of the game and explanation of anything else that was going on.
The best part of this book for me however was the sections about the various players on the team. As a fan of the sport, I really liked the tidbits about their lives and their connections to the Avs growing up. The writing style of this book was also perfect, it was informative, but also had a witty side that kept me entertained. I really enjoyed the sections from Terry and Adrian's Notebook. Those were great insights into the events.
Overall, this was a really informative, in-depth book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I believe this book would only interest hockey fans, or more broadly sports fans. This book is a very focused look at a single season of hockey under the coaching of Patrick Roy and I’m not sure that would interest readers who are not a fan of the sport.
As an avid hockey fan, this book was a great in-depth recap of the Colorado Avalanche’s 2013-2014 season. This book is completely different from my typical read, but as a hockey fan it was engrossing. I just want to preface this review by saying, I am not at all an Avs fan, they are a divisional rival to my beloved Hawks. However, I really enjoyed learning more about the franchise and how they came to be the team I know today and the team I remember last season.
As a fan, I remember being mystified by how the Avs went from literally the bottom of the standings to the top in a single season. This book was an insider’s perspective of that drastic change and rise in the standings.
The book consisted of three parts, the introduction which showcased how bad the Avs were, the Regular Season, and the Playoffs. These parts were filled with stories and chapters pertaining to players and each game. I really liked how each game was broken up into a section with a brief summary of the game and explanation of anything else that was going on.
The best part of this book for me however was the sections about the various players on the team. As a fan of the sport, I really liked the tidbits about their lives and their connections to the Avs growing up. The writing style of this book was also perfect, it was informative, but also had a witty side that kept me entertained. I really enjoyed the sections from Terry and Adrian's Notebook. Those were great insights into the events.
Overall, this was a really informative, in-depth book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I believe this book would only interest hockey fans, or more broadly sports fans. This book is a very focused look at a single season of hockey under the coaching of Patrick Roy and I’m not sure that would interest readers who are not a fan of the sport.
July 22, 2015
Save by Roy is a well-written book chronicling the rookie NHL coach Patrick Roy and how he took the Colorado Avalanche from mediocrity to a possible Cup contender in the 2013-14 season. This book is by no means a must read for hockey fans (unless you're an Avs fan), but it gives a good perspective on how Roy used time on the ice as an all-star goalie and experience as a QMJHL coach to rally a fairly young team.
The book reads like Frei and Dater's feature articles. It's game recaps and player profiles interrupted by the writers' diary entries. The game recaps are tiring if you're not interested in reliving the season game-by-game. However, the authors make up for it with their frank looks at Semyon Varlamov's domestic violence accusation, individual players trying to make it to the Olympics, and the Avs' place in the Denver sports market.
The book reads like Frei and Dater's feature articles. It's game recaps and player profiles interrupted by the writers' diary entries. The game recaps are tiring if you're not interested in reliving the season game-by-game. However, the authors make up for it with their frank looks at Semyon Varlamov's domestic violence accusation, individual players trying to make it to the Olympics, and the Avs' place in the Denver sports market.
December 30, 2014
I received [Save By Roy] as an advanced readers copy. I am a HUGE hockey fan and have the utmost respect for Patrick Roy(although as a New York Rangers fan I hate him with a passion.) I was really excited to read this book and I was not disappointed. It was well written and was almost like a written version of 24/7 on NHL network. It had insider points of view that regular fans don't get. The fact that Roy managed to bring this team to the playoffs after being almost last in the league the season before (only Florida was worse and they don't count) in the amazingly tough Western Conference was amazing. All hockey fans should read this book (even if Roy made you cry when you were younger).
April 25, 2016
A pretty straightforward retelling of the Avalanche's 2013-14 season. Nice to get some looks behind the scenes in terms of front office thinking/attitudes, and to hear things from the players that one might have missed. Gives a fan some insight as to how things might go in the future, when it comes to addressing team needs - and where I've loved all Avs teams through the years, I know the current one has room for improvement. All in all, a nice trip down memory lane, where the band... sort of got back together and made for a very exciting season.
January 6, 2015
This is a very engrossing look into a hall of fame player’s transition into a head coach, with plenty of information about the players and the behind the dressing room door details. With the authors providing a game-by-game analysis intermixed with the star player’s biographies and direct commentary when the situation requires it renders a rich and detailed look at a top caliber team.
Free review copy.
Free review copy.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews