Published: Tuesday, October 23, 2007
CALGARY - He had become nothing more than a sound byte. A page-filler. Ten seconds of entertaining air. A relic living off his mouth and his celebrity. The publicity hound who'd table-danced on The Best Damn Sports Show Period. The guy who advised player-hating fans during the last lockout to "kiss my ass.''
Gone was the fun and the freshness of the old J.R.
Worse, all pretext of being an honest-to-goodness contributing hockey player had apparently been compromised beyond salvaging.
"By the time I got to L.A., The Show had kind of taken over,'' admits Jeremy Roenick, watching the Calgary Flames go through their morning skate at the Pengrowth Saddledome. "And Phoenix ... I don't know what I was doing there, except maybe to sell tickets for a struggling franchise.''
Without a contract, without a team and apparently without a lifeline this summer, J.R. seemed like older news than Pac-Man.
That's when buddy Doug Wilson, his first NHL roomie way back in the Mike Keenan/Darryl Sutter days in Chicago, days when the City of Broad Shoulders actually gave a damn about the Blackhawks, stepped in with the defibulator paddles.
"When Doug called,'' says Roenick, "he gave me my life back.''
The announcement that Wilson and the talent-laden San Jose Sharks had signed Roenick to a one-year deal was met around the league with much eyebrow-raising, and more than a few giggles. Even the paltry $500,000 they were paying him seemed less a contract than an appropriation of funds.
"He'd become a caricature of himself,'' says Sharks coach Ron Wilson now. "He'd started talking about himself in the third person. When you do that, you're a caricature.
"He seemed lost in this ... fog.''
The fog has lifted.
Nearing 38, Jeremy Roenick isn't concerned with the stature of his linemates anymore, or the quantity of his playing time or the reaction to his quips. He isn't even overly obsessed with the two goals he needs to reach the ever-filling but still-sort-of-exclusive 500 club.
"I just feel so fortunate, so blessed,'' he says. "A lot of people in this game had given up on me. Understandably, I guess, when you look at the last couple of years. In the summer, I had come to terms with my career probably being over. It bothered my wife, though. She kept saying 'You can't go out like this.' I was OK with it.
"But I started receiving lots of e-mails and calls from players and friends telling me to hang in there.'' He nods out on the ice at No. 24 in white. "For example, Craig Conroy text-messaged me saying: Don't give up! That meant a lot. All the encouragement did.
"And then Doug called.''
The Roenick Experiment has, so far, been a success. He's scored three goals, to stand at 498 for his career, and has been a model teammate and thorough professional. He understood the ground rules coming in: There wasn't going to be long leash. The Sharks are a Stanley Cup contender, have been so for a couple of years now, and would broach no theatricality or boat-rocking.
He was here to be a contributing member of the group, not Sideshow Bob.
"J.R.'s fit in well,'' says Ron Wilson. "The two games he's missed because of bumps and bruises, we've missed him.''
Coming off the 2004-05 lockout, Roenick was heavy. The year away, and finding himself in L.A., a young team with no serious aspirations of any meaningful success, he floundered. As a lot of older players can, and do, in such circumstances. In Phoenix last year, the misery only intensified.
"The first time you're a healthy scratch,'' says Roenick, "it's a reality check.''
For someone who had seemed so vibrant, who played and talked and lived with a sly wink, he suddenly seemed past it and oddly out of sorts.
"He's down to 195 pounds now,'' says Ron Wilson. "And sinking. J.R. has lots of gas left in the tank. I asked him what his ideal weight was, the years when he was putting up 100 points in Chicago and he said 185.
"The last two years he was up around 210.''
The only extra weight at the moment is lugging around the baggage of No. 500.
"I just wish it was over,'' groans Roenick.
It will be, soon, given the way he's playing.
"Outside of Gretzky, the greatest player ever, and Mario, I think I've had more press in the last 20 years than any other NHL player,'' muses Roenick. "Certainly in the States. And, I guess, created more controversy. Me and Hullie. You know the press, when you tell them the truth, are honest with them, they end up calling you a liar and an a--hole. The media and my mouth have always been a pretty potent combination.''
He's scored nearly 500 goals. Created excitement. Entertained a whole whack of people; infuriated just as many more.
"I've done a lot in my career, I think, no matter how it ends. I'd sure like to win a Stanley Cup. I hope it happens. But it may not. And you have to live with that.
"I guess, in the end, though, what everybody wants in whatever it is that they do is to leave some kind of a mark. You hope that people remember you.''
For the accomplishments as well as the antics, no worries on that score.
Welcome back.
© CanWest News Service 2007