JR comes back from the brink
Jeremy Roenick considered himself retired last summer when there didn't appear to be an NHL team interested in a 37-year-old free-agent center whose best days were behind him.
But a call from an old friend in August changed all that.
That old friend was Doug Wilson, his former Blackhawks teammate and now the general manager in San Jose. Wilson was willing to give Roenick a one-year contract for $500,000 in hopes his experience and energy could help the Sharks win a Stanley Cup.
"I was really not going to play," Roenick said Tuesday before the Sharks practiced at the United Center ahead of tonight's game with the Hawks. "I was very irritated at the way things had gone and were moving for me and people turning their back on me.
"But then you have a guy like Doug Wilson give you a call and say you can't end your career like that, you've had too great a career, and give me one more shot at it. That put so much life back into me, just the loyalty and friendship put the life back into it immediately and got me excited to get back to work again."
So far Roenick has been a nice fit with the Sharks. He has 2 goals in the first three games, putting him within 3 of 500 for his career, averaging 11 minutes of ice time a night and doing what he can off the ice to help San Jose's young players.
"He brings a lot of experience," Sharks coach Ron Wilson said. "For as long as he has played in the league, the one thing that Jeremy Roenick has always been is enthusiastic, and he has a real passion for the game.
"It's only a positive for the young people we have to see a guy in his 18th season that is 37 going on 38 who still loves to come to the rink and practice every day."
That was true Tuesday when Roenick was one of the first Sharks to arrive for the skate at the United Center.
"I have a lot of different roles here," Roenick said. "He wants me to be an energetic guy in the locker room, a good leader, a good guy with the young kids, and I feel I've been doing a little more than they expected on the ice."
Roenick knows there are some nights he won't play as many as 11 minutes, and there might be others when he is a healthy scratch.
"This is such a great team -- it's a deep team, so I know there will be some times I'll be in the press box and not playing," Roenick said. "The last couple years have been humbling. I've been on the bench, I've been in the press box, I've been on the fourth line, I've played six minutes a game -- and I've done that with mediocre teams. To be able to do that with a team that has an opportunity to win the Cup is a lot easier to do."
The closest Roenick has come to winning the Stanley Cup was in 1992, when the Hawks reached the Finals only to be swept in four straight by Pittsburgh.
Roenick was reminded by a reporter Tuesday of how he sat fully dressed in the Chicago Stadium dressing room for almost an hour following Game 4, expressing his disappointment at coming so close to a Cup and not winning and wondering if he would ever get back to the Finals.
Roenick hasn't made it back.
"That's what I say to a lot of people, take full advantage of it, that you might never get back here again. Look at me," Roenick said. "Sometimes you only get that one shot. I might be fortunate to get one more shot here."
Roenick still views the eight years he spent with the Hawks from 1989-96 as his best in hockey. Twice he scored 50 goals or more and three times went over 100 points.
Hawks fans loved him and he loved them back.
"That was another era," he said. "I wouldn't even put the two years in this building (the United Center) into it. It was the six years in Chicago Stadium, those are the years I look at it as being a Hawk. Without a doubt those were the best six years of my career."