With mom’s help, a born goalie

By Rob Miech

Friday, April 25, 2008 | 2 a.m.

As he boarded the bus after yielding six goals in Stockton, Las Vegas Wranglers rookie goalie Kevin Lalande rang his mother back in Canada.

They spoke daily as he struggled in his first professional playoff series. But six goals? She let him vent, then “kicked some butt.”

You’re better than this. Start playing like it. You’re thinking too much. You need to take it down to your heart, your soul. Play with your guts. Get cocky.

In Game 6 on Tuesday, Lalande (pronounced la-LOND) showed his heart and soul, diving, flicking and kicking at pucks, in the Wranglers’ series-clinching 4-1 victory against the Thunder.

He looked like the guy who went 17-5-4 and ranked second in the ECHL during the season by allowing a bit more than two goals a game.

And he looks ready to tackle Alaska in the conference semifinals, which begin tonight at the Orleans Arena.

Thanks, Mom.

“She told me what I hadn’t been doing,” Lalande said. “When your mother says that ... she knows me better than anyone.”

Ginette Pronovost, who remarried 15 years ago, is no ordinary hockey mom.

Before she raced to Edmonton to attend a wedding, she coaxed a friend to tape the 1986 Stanley Cup Finals between Montreal and Calgary. Patrick Roy’s spectacular goaltending helped the Canadiens close out the series.

Nine months later she gave birth to her future goalie in Kingston, Ontario, just down the road from Montreal.

Lalande ogled that videotape of Roy in Game 5 the way other tots watch Bert and Ernie on “Sesame Street.” The big pads and fancy mask of the position intrigued him. Roy’s acrobatics and skill enthralled him.

“The camera always zoomed in on him,” said Lalande, 21. “They were always talking about him, making a big deal of him.

“Maybe my mom had a hunch I’d want to be a hockey player.”

Aunts, uncles and cousins showered him with Montreal jerseys. At his first skating lesson, he was crushed when the Canadiens weren’t there to zip around the ice with him. He begged visitors to take shots on him in the basement.

Pronovost could see the signs that her son would pursue a hockey career.

“This one was never in doubt,” she said. “I pretty much never doubted he’d make it.”

At school, Lalande was devastated when he learned that Roy had been traded to Colorado. The principal called Pronovost to come get Kevin.

Once he asked, when is my draft year? His mother said 2005. It seemed awfully far off. When it was announced the draft would be held an hour and a half’s drive away in Ottawa, he said, “They’re doing that just for me, so the whole family can be there.”

As many as 100 of those relatives wore jerseys, rang cow bells and flashed signs at his youth games.

He learned the butterfly method, the trademark of Roy and other Quebecois goalies, from the best tutors, Francois Allaire (who trained Roy and is a goaltending consultant for Anaheim) and David Marcoux (goalie coach for Calgary).

When Ottawa-born Stephane Yelle helped Colorado win the Stanley Cup in 1996, Yelle’s aunt knew Pronovost, so Kevin was invited over to the house with other kids. He didn’t leave Yelle’s side.

How does Patrick Roy put on his equipment? Where does he sit in the dressing room? Where will you be in 10 years? Maybe we’ll get to play together?

Lalande, drafted by Calgary in the fifth round in 2005, skated with Yelle at the Flames’ training camp last fall.

“It’s like he knew,” Pronovost said.

She was stunned when she read “Le Guerrier,” Michel Roy’s biography of his son. (The English translation, “The Warrior,” will soon be printed.)

“I felt like I was reading Kevin’s story,” Pronovost said. “I felt like it was me talking. He went through this? This happened? He felt like this? So many similarities.”

Two years ago Lalande watched a buddy playing in a major junior game for the Quebec Remparts when their coach walked right by him.

Patrick Roy.

Lalande froze. He couldn’t look his idol in his eyes, much less introduce himself and shake his hand. Hockey is a small world, Lalande said last week. We’ll cross paths again.

“He wants to have something to talk about,” Pronovost said. “He doesn’t want to be a nobody. He wants to have had a dominant season or a championship. He says, ‘When I finally meet him, he’ll know me.’ ”