From the playoff goal he scored against the Islanders to the Russian folk dance he performs on the Stanley Cup DVD, the Lightning wing defies convention.
But never like this.
While taking a helicopter ride with the Stanley Cup on Aug. 9, Roy proposed to his girlfriend of 31/2 years, Karine Labelle.
The two were flying from Blainville, Quebec, where Roy's mother lives, to his hometown of St. Jerome on his day with the Cup. When Labelle looked out the window, Roy dropped a box into the bowl of the Cup. When she turned back, he looked into the bowl.
"What's this?" she said.
Roy, who phoned Labelle's parents the previous night to ask for permission, popped the question, and Labelle quickly accepted.
"She had a perma-smile on for the whole day," said Walt Neubrand, one of the Hockey Hall of Fame's Keepers of the Cup.
Making the trip even more special was the presence of Hall of Famer Guy Lafleur in the helicopter cockpit. The former Montreal Canadiens star is an investor in a helicopter company and, to Roy's surprise, served as copilot for the flight.
After the flight, the helicopter touched down next to the arena where Roy played minor hockey. Riding in a pickup truck, the party paraded downtown to a historic train station where the group posed for photos and participated in a short ceremony.
"You see that place over there?" Roy asked Neubrand during the trip. "That's where I worked as a busboy."
"I bet you thought you'd never be parading the Stanley Cup past this place," Neubrand responded.
"No, I didn't," Roy said.
From the train station, the group got into a friend's motorhome and drove to La Scandinave, a spa owned by Colorado's Vincent Damphousse and Philadelphia's Eric Desjardins at the Mont-Tremblant ski resort, where Roy and his fiancee relaxed in a whirlpool.
Earlier in the day, Roy donned a headband and fatigues to film a skit for RDS, the French equivalent of ESPN in Canada. Doing his best Rambo impersonation, he leaped over a row of bushes while pretending to protect the Cup.
He also drove to the home of the Canadiens' Steve Begin, honking his horn until Begin came outside. "You could tell (Begin) didn't want to have anything to do with it," Neubrand said.
ONLY FITTING: Vinny Lecavalier's visit with the Cup on Aug. 8 featured a ceremony at a pavilion named after him. On land his grandfather once owned and where his father, Yvon, played, the center held court at the Vincent Lecavalier Pavilion in Pointe-Claire, Quebec. More than 1,500 appeared for the chance to view the Cup and get autographs.
Teammate Nikita Alexeev and former Lightning defenseman Enrico Ciccone joined Lecavalier for a boat cruise around Montreal the previous day, and Brad Richards and Roy appeared at a private party on Sunday.
GIVING BACK: Hart and Art Ross Trophy winner Martin St. Louis donated $10,000 to the Laval (Quebec) Hockey Association during a ceremony before about 2,500 people Aug. 11 at Samson Arena, where he played peewee hockey.
Longtime friend and teammate Eric Perrin accompanied St. Louis for much of his visit with the Cup, and both (along with Roy) received paintings from a local artist depicting highlights in their careers.
HOME AGAIN: In Edmonton on Wednesday, defenseman Darryl Sydor visited his childhood home, the arena where he played minor hockey and his mother's burial site. In Morinville, he posed with the Cup on a tractor on his sister's and brother-in-law's farm, and took it to a local hall where it was viewed by about 250 people.
Sydor had the Cup at his cottage on Lake Shuswap, near Kamloops, British Columbia, Saturday.
