Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 6, 1994 TAG: 9403060031
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY RANDY KING STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Swat him. Chase him. Curse him. Forget it. Nothing works.
There may be bigger and badder dudes in the East Coast Hockey League, but there's no more agitating pest than the feisty Roanoke Express forward.
"Roger is the type of guy you hate to have to play against," teammate Pat Ferschweiler says. "He's always in your face, trying to get you off your game and then turn around and beat you on the offensive end.
"When he was with Richmond earlier in the season, he gave me a few shots out there. Did I like him? I sure didn't. I'm just glad he's on our side now."
After being picked up by Roanoke in November, Larche became an immediate hit with the Express faithful because of his relentless, unharnessed playing style that's fueled by seemingly endless emotion. The 22-year-old Quebec native plays every game as if though it may be his last.
"I like hearing that guys don't like to play me," he says. "The more I hear it, the more I do it.
"I don't back down from anybody or anything. Take a fight. What's the worst that can happen? A lot of guys say it hurts to get your jaw broken, a lot of guys say it hurts to get your nose broken. Well, I've had plastic surgery x-amount of times, and it still hasn't stopped me.
"Hey, you get knocked out. You wake up five minutes later. Big deal. I don't see any reason why anybody should ever back off.
"This league is an intimidating league. If you let yourself be intimidated, they're not going to leave you alone. I've been in this league three years, and I don't get bugged on the ice anymore. Maybe sometimes the bigger guys will come and see me, but I don't really give a crap."
Larche is a 5-foot-10, 180-pound stick of dynamite with a short fuse.
"I do play with a lot of emotion," he says. "I think you have to. When you're not the biggest player on the ice, even if you score 100 points, I think you have to play tough."
At times, Larche's emotion becomes the untempered sort. His hell-bent, go-for-broke style sometimes gets him in trouble, leading to penalties that Express coach Frank Anzalone calls unnecessary.
After missing three weeks for knee surgery in January, Larche returned to the ice with the tenacity of a caged lion. Eager to impress, he got out of control and took some bad penalties that cost the Express.
Larche's biggest blunder was a well-publicized five-minute major cross-checking violation against Hampton Roads on Feb. 19 that allowed the Admirals to come back for a 5-4 win over the Express.
After the game, Anzalone tore into Larche and ordered him to stay at home for the team's game the next day at South Carolina.
"It didn't surprise me that Frank did that," Larche says. "He had to use me as an example. Since then, you haven't seen any more penalties like that. It was an unintentional penalty on my part, but it cost the team a big game."
Anzalone says the costly cross-check is history.
"At times, Roger loses touch with discipline," Anzalone says. "His discipline was running amok, and it was starting to get contagious. I thought that Roger needed a break.
"He was back at the next practice right on schedule. No fine, no yelling. He started the next game. I don't hold grudges against players. We need Roger Larche on this hockey team."
Unlike most agitators, Larche has offensive skills. He has 18 goals and 20 assists in 37 games split between Richmond and Roanoke this season.
"In Greensboro last season, Jeff Brubaker [the Monarchs' coach] had me on the first line with Phil Berger [ECHL's all-time leading scorer] early in the season," Larche says. "Then he put me on the squad line with four defensemen. I told him I'm not going to get out of this league by fighting. I said, `If you don't mind, I've got potential.' "
After being let go by Greensboro, Larche finished last season with the Roanoke Valley Rampage.
"I didn't play bad considering the team we had," he says. "I was supposed to go to Baltimore [of the American Hockey League] at the end of the season, but the roof collapsed at the LancerLot [in the March blizzard], and I lost my skates inside. Baltimore then called up [Rod] Taylor of Hampton Roads instead."
When the Rampage moved to Huntsville, Ala., Larche requested a trade. Dealt to Richmond, Larche left the club after eight games.
"We had just gotten beaten badly in Greensboro, and I had had enough," says Larche, who quit on the spot, refusing to board the Renegades' bus back to Richmond. "I was really mixed up at the time. I decided I would stay in Greensboro and go back to school. After two, three weeks, I said to myself, `What are you doing?' "
That's when he came back for his second ECHL hitch in Roanoke.
"I didn't want to stop playing hockey - not yet, anyway," he says.
No matter how hard you try to shoo him away, Roger Larche just keeps coming back for more.
by CNB