We'd been there about half an hour and had been introduced to a few other journalists, we chatted to one in particular from 7 Jours for about 10 mins or so, but I don't recall what his name was. We told him about the LFN Con a couple of weeks ago and the prices that the Set Visits went for, needless to say he was as gobsmacked as we were. J-F kept disappearing off to see who was around, and maybe get some quotes. However at one point he came back and said, if you behave yourselves I'm going to go and take you over to see Roy Dupuis. So off we went to hover around where Roy was surrounded by various press people. There were a multitude of microphones and tape recorders all thrust at him .... we just stood back and observed, it was all very interesting. So when you get to see the interview on the TV, we were hovering somewhere to Roy's right :-) Apparently you get a fleeting glimpse of us whilst the woman who directed the dramatizations is being interviewed.

He looked *even better* than he had done last Friday when we met him. He was wearing a long, mid thigh length leather jacket (not that motorbike one he usually wears, but a nicer one), a burgundy shirt (which incidentally was a perfect match for the dress I was wearing, we were colour co-ordinated <G>), he was wearing his cross and the turquoise ring .... and the poor baby had a plaster on his thumb, must have been doing a bit of DIY over the weekend. One thing he hadn't done that weekend was shave, he looked rather rugged .... yum!!

Once he finished doing the multiple interviews, he then had his photo taken with a little boy, who we later learned played the young Maurice (c'est cute!). He then disappeared behind the curtain for a quick cigarette ....LOL! He was then being interviewed separately by a journalist from 7 Jours, so it was nice to observe him leaning in the corner chatting away, with all the hand gestures :-)

Whilst this was going on the Prime Minister of Canada arrived and about 2 minutes after that Celine Dion made her entrance and they all stopped just near us. However we were paying a little more attention to what was going on behind us than the PM & Celine in front of us ...LOL!! Celine is much prettier in the flesh than she appears on TV, and even more petite (if that's possible!)

Roy was looking very stunning, as I said earlier, even better than last Friday. He was tanned and smiling and looked very at ease. His hair seems a lot lighter in person and was more toussled and less Michael like ... which is better.

Once all the stars had disappeared we made our way into the arena for the presentations. Roy was not present at this, the only stars from the series were Macha Grenon who accompanied Maurice to the stage and Celine Dion ... but no sign of Roy. I know some people have expressed their disappointment that Roy was not at the presentations and that they didn't even hear Roy's name mentioned. Actually Robert Guy Scully did mention that Roy played Maurice and that Macha Grenon played Lucille, just before Macha accompanied Maurice to the stage. This evening was about Maurice, everyone was there to honour him, it wasn't about the actors who portrayed either Maurice or any of the other important people in the small extracts in the documentary, so on reflection, as much as we would have liked to see Roy I can completely understand why he wasn't there.

After all the video messages, telegrams and presentations, they showed the first part of the mini-series. Actually to call it a mini-series is a little misleading because what is not is a 4 hour dramatization of Maurice's life, with Roy in the lead role. It is actually a documentary with many people each telling their part of Maurice's story, memories
of watching him play or playing with him as well as snippets of interviews with Maurice himself. Interspersed between all this and the library footage are little dramatizations of important events in Maurice's life ie. meeting Lucille (played by Macha Grenon) which has a great scene with Roy dancing <G>, signing his contract, scoring 5 goals, scoring the winner when he'd hurt his shoulder moving furniture (the Heritage Minute) and also scoring the winner after being knocked out during a match. There were many others but as the whole thing was in French it was a little difficult for me to catch all of them. This is where Roy comes into it, in these 2 or 3 minute sketches, he's not in it that much, so don't be expecting 4 hours of Roy, I'd hazard a guess that Roy's bits don't go much over the hour mark, if that. It was interesting getting to watch Roy on a big screen for the first time .... and very enjoyable too!!

Once the screening was over we went to the Wrap Party/Reception were there was a ton of food (including a chocolate sauce fountain!) and free drink. Roy did not make an appearance at the party, nor did Celine Dion. It was our guess that maybe he went back to Toronto that night as he wasn't around at all after doing the interviews earlier in the evening.

We did however see Macha Grenon at the party, she's lost weight since Scoop and is much prettier in person than she appears on the TV. Barb also managed to meet the man of the night ...Maurice Richard, who was very sweet and seemed a little overawed by the whole evening, and who could blame him.

Also at the wrap party, they showed the second part of the series, so we were able to watch most of that. It seemed that there were more Roy bits in that than there had been in the first part, but that could have just been co-incidence that every time we looked at the screen it was a Roy bit.