He said it, not me...

After the tribute, the Avalanche presented the veteran goaltender with a regulation-sized silver stick, and the NHL passed along a piece of crystal, both to commemorate Roy's unprecedented 1,000th career game.

Smiling, Ray Bourque watched from a private box upstairs.

A few minutes earlier, Bourque had addressed the Avalanche, offering more of an affirmation of belief in his former team than a pep talk. As he stood in the middle of the room, Bourque could look over to the doorway, where his beleaguered friend sat at a stall. Bourque didn't need to say it. Roy knew it. Bourque still believes that the has-Patrick-lost-it debate is premature, and that Monday night's thousandth-game commemoration didn't deserve to be thought of as a tribute to a career in decline.

Bourque's longtime friendship with Roy deepened in their season and a half as Colorado teammates, and in the championship celebration that sent Bourque into retirement. One of the prerogatives of retirement is the right to go flying downhill without worrying about violating contract clauses, and Bourque and his family have traveled from the Boston area for a Colorado ski vacation.

"It worked out great," Bourque said in the box. "I hadn't seen the guys yet this season, and I wanted to come around and see things for myself. It was perfect timing for Patrick's 1,000th, and that was pretty remarkable.

"The thing is, not too many forwards or defensemen have played 1,000 games and now a goalie has. ... More important, look at the way he's played them, with the numbers he's put up in other areas. He's had a phenomenal career, and he just keeps adding on and adding on."

As Bourque helps coach his sons' hockey teams and is involved in several business ventures back in Boston, he hears the rumblings about Roy. And he also talks often with his former teammate.