Jeremy Roenick will reach the pinnacle of his career Monday night when he will be officially inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
But nearly 20 years ago, with his reputation in tatters after having previous drinking and gambling issues and believing his once-illustrious career was at its end, Roenick fell into a dark place.
Following the conclusion of the NHL lockout in 2005, and after two forgettable seasons – one in Los Angeles and the second in Phoenix – Roenick sank into a deep funk, thinking he was now out of the game for good just short of a major milestone.
In the summer of 2007, Roenick even texted a reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer, writing, “I’m retiring; is that still news?”
“Now I’ve realized I’ve reached a point where my attitude, my career, my reputation, is now at an all-time low,” Roenick told TSN in a segment on him that aired Saturday night called “American Beaut.”
“I’m (five) goals away from 500, and here I am sitting: Is this going to be my legacy? And I remember diving into a mental depression.”
That’s when Roenick heard from his former teammate and roommate with the Chicago Blackhawks, Doug Wilson.
Wilson was just a few years into his tenure as the Sharks’ general manager when he spoke with Roenick. He saw that Roenick still had some fire in his belly, and one week before the Sharks started training camp in 2007, Wilson signed him to a one-year contract.
Wilson, at the time, said he had his reasons for signing the then-37-year-old forward after the Sharks lost in the second round of the playoffs to the Detroit Red Wings just a few months earlier.
“Spice,” Wilson said then. “You know what Jeremy is? He’s like adding a little spice to the recipe.”
Wilson did something else for the gregarious and loudmouthed centerman: He gave Roenick a lifeline.
“I remember working my ass off for the next month, scoring my 500th goal,” Roenick said. “Doug Wilson gave me the true honor of retiring with respect and probably saved me from going into a life that I was probably not going to survive.”
Roenick scored his 500th career NHL goal in November of that season and had a productive year with 14 goals and 33 points. His best moment as a Shark came in the first round of the 2008 playoffs when he had two goals and two assists in a 5-3 win over the Calgary Flames in a decisive Game 7.
Roenick did not reach his goal of winning the Stanley Cup, as the Sharks went on to lose in the next round to the Dallas Stars. After Roenick signed another one-year contract with the Sharks for the 2008-09 season, San Jose, as Presidents’ Trophy winners, lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Anaheim Ducks.
Roenick retired in August 2009 in San Jose with 513 goals and 1,216 points in 1,363 regular-season games. His point total ranks 48th on the NHL’s all-time list.
“In Phoenix, I wasn’t able to say goodbye to the game,” Roenick said at his retirement press conference. “Doug Wilson and the San Jose Sharks gave me my life back. I can sit here and make my own decision to hang them up and move on.”
Despite the peaceful ending to his playing career, Roenick still made waves among Sharks fans by calling out “Mr. Shark” Patrick Marleau on at least a couple of occasions.
In 2011, after the Sharks lost a playoff game to the Red Wings, Roenick, then a television analyst, said Marleau put forth a “gutless, gutless performance.” Roenick would later admit to a poor choice of words but didn’t backtrack on his criticism of Marleau, feeling that despite being a highly skilled player, he needed to play with more heart.
In his 2012 book, “J.R.: My Life as the Most Outspoken, Fearless and Hard-Hitting Man in Hockey,” Roenick wrote about the problems he had with Marleau.
In a chapter called “Five Players I Hated During My Career,” Roenick wrote that on one occasion, he became so frustrated with the less-emotional Marleau that he drove to his house in an effort to inspire him.
“I could tell 10 minutes into our conversation that I was wasting my time,” Roenick wrote. “He considered my arrival at his house an intrusion. He listened to me, but he never did anything to change the way he was.”
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Marleau would fire back at Roenick.
“He’s got his own agenda,” Marleau told this news organization in 2012 when asked about Roenick. “He’s saying stuff so people watch. I understand that. I don’t have to like it or agree with it, but he’s trying to get viewers like you’re trying to get people to read the paper.”
“I can see how people would think that because I’m very stoic,” Marleau added. “I tried to keep it controlled, but believe me, the emotions are running. Sometimes I think if you just show emotion to show it, you’re draining yourself, and it’s not really for anybody’s benefit.”
As Roenick enters the hall, he admits he often speaks before he thinks, as when NBC Sports suspended him for making lewd and sexual comments about a coworker.
“I enjoyed the microphone, I enjoyed the camera,” Roenick said in the TSN piece. “I was always one that needed to be heard. … People either loved it or hated it. Sometimes it got me into trouble.”