In his Hockey-Hall-of-Fame career, Jeremy Roenick had two stints with the Phoenix Coyotes. And in this feature, Roenick was typically frank when discussing his NHL journey.
In his 1,363 regular-season NHL games, Hockey-Hall-of-Famer Jeremy Roenick poste 513 goals and 1,216 points. And he left his mark in the five cities he played in -- Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Jose, and Phoenix. And in this cover story from THN's Dec. 24, 1999 edition (Vol. 53, Issue 16), writer Bob McManaman penned a feature on Roenick in the first of two stints with the Coyotes organization:
CANDID COYOTE
By Bob McManaman
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ.-- The line is thick at the local Starbucks, j but that doesn’t stop the shop’s most recognizable regular, JB The guy with the chiseled good looks, the gun-metal blue JB eyes and curly blonde locks tucked casually beneath a ball cap gets the attention of the manager and orders a quick round or joe.
“Careful,” said Jeremy Roenick, sliding the java over in a jiffy, “it’s real hot.”
Yeah, J.R., we know. Just like you. You’re the hottest story in town, maybe in the whole NHL. After the first third of the season, you were on pace for 50 goals and 120 points for your streaking Phoenix Coyotes. And that includes missing five games due to that silly suspension for slashing good buddy Tony Amonte, your old prep-school linemate, across the face during that October trip back to sweet home Chicago.
“I know, I know,” said Roenick, shaking his head. “I’m not sure what exactly came over me that night. But it was wrong. I let a lot of things get to me that night. It shouldn’t have happened. To let my frustration snap on a guy that’s been my friend for many years…that set me back-again. I don’t know why I did that.”
The flashy center is still looking for answers. Not just for the unexplainable whack on Amonte. either. Roenick, for the past year-and-a-half. has been wrestling with inner demons that have affected his life on and off the ice. They have consumed, almost devoured, him. During this interview, he revealed he had considered quitting the game altogether.
“Oh yeah, I’ve thought about it,” he said. “Sometimes, I’ve really wondered.”
But a year ago, Roemck said he was a changed man and he meant it. He recognized his self-described I wicked ways and set out to B change them, for the benefit I of his family and himself. He became a dedicated husband and father again. He hasn’t strayed. He talks to his WB wife, Tracey, 10 times a day on his mobile phone when he’s away from their plush Paradise Valley estate.
Time, though, has a funny way of catching up to you and it caught up to No. 97 in a big way during the past 12 months. Rumors abounded that something was amiss in the Roenick household. There were reports his marriage to his childhood sweetheart was on the rocks, that J.R. had been embroiled in some sort of controversy, but he won’t comment on it. It happened before his “I’m a changed man” speech back in 1998, but the damage was done.
It all came to a head that fateful game in Chicago, when, according to several eyewitnesses, Tracey Roenick had a shouting match with her husband during the second period intermission at Rocky the United Center. And a few minutes later, an obviously angry JR. slashed Amonte across the mouth.
“That’s a touchy subject, Roenick said. “There are a lot of rumors and people are going to think what they want. But what people have to understand, is even athletes have their personal lives. A lot of athletes have certain problems that they go through. It’s not how the problems arise, but how you deal with (them). Sometimes, it can erupt at the wrong time.
“I’m very thankful and I’m very pleased that I have the family and the beautiful wife that I have. She’s a very smart woman, she’s a very big supporter of mine and I’ll always be a big supporter of hers. But it’s how you deal with things you go through and I think we deal with things that happen in our life very, very well.”
“In the past year or so, there were a lot of things in my life I had to get straightened out, obviously. I think I’ve done that and I’m a better person for that. I’m a different person. I see things different.”
It has been a humbling experience, says the three-time 100-point scorer. Jeremy and Tracey want to keep their lives a private matter.
The couple and their two children, daughter Brandi and son Brett, crave seclusion. But that’s a pipe dream, even in the sleepy desert town of Phoenix. Roenick and his bride, like it or not, are sexy sound bites and make great copy.
“We’re trying to be quiet and we’re trying to be strong,” he said. “We just want to be together and we just want it to all go away. Look, I know I’ve said controversial things in the past and maybe I’ve lived it a little, too. But I really want to change that. I really do.
“I think the less you hear of Jeremy Roenick and the more you see of Jeremy Roenick, the better my life becomes. Let my actions show my feelings, in terms of how I play, what I do off the ice with my charities and what I do for my K hockey club.”
What he’s been doing for the Coyotes has been incredible. The 11-year pro from Boston has helped Phoenix rise to another superior early-season start, as the desert dogs followed up last season’s amazing 17-3-3 start with a league-best 18-8-3-0 record this year. And wouldn’t you know it: It pretty much all began after Roenick’s five-game vacation courtesy of NHL woodshed chief Colin Campbell.
“I had a lot of time to think,” Roenick said, “about a lot of things. And by the way, I still think five games was way too severe. But I’m not going to call the NHL a bunch of idiots, even if somebody like Tommy Barrasso slashes a guy who’s going to be out several weeks and he only gets four games. And the guy I hit just gets a couple of stitches and doesn’t miss a shift.”
After his suspension, Roenick lit up the league with five goals and 10 points in his first five games back. He followed that up with an 11-game point streak-still intact-as Phoenix roared to eight straight wins and nine victories in their past 10 games.
His 16 goals and 38 points ranked fourth in the league and he was leading the NHL with six game-winners as of Dec. 9. The Coyotes were 15-3-1-0 when he was on the scoresheet.
Statistics notwithstanding, Roenick knows he’s a feast for those dying for juicy, personal tidbits. To this, he says “No more”.
But Roenick doesn’t help himself when situations arise like the one that happened recently, when he openly complained about having to share the league’s player of the week honors with Montreal Canadiens’ goalie Jose Theodore. Granted, Roenick had scored hat tricks against top-echelon clubs in New Jersey and Colorado, becoming just the fifth player in 20 years to accomplish the feat in back-to-back nights. But his whines of foul play were appreciated by few and some thought he cheapened the distinction by popping on.
“I agree with J.R., I thought he got screwed,” said Coyotes’ captain Keith Tkachuk. “But it’s one thing for us to say that and another thing for him to say it, if you know what I mean.”
So maybe Roenick goofed-again. Not that he would ever waver from his opinions. But Roenick also says he plans to drop the edge and the off-the-cuff comments. That’s a little hard to believe of a Hart Trophy candidate with a “history of spewing candid remarks.
“It’s for my own good,” he said. “People want to run to the paper and say, ‘God, look what he said.’ They want to run to their buddies and say, ‘Did you hear what Jeremy Roenick said this time?’ Hey, that’s the nature of the beast. I guess. But I’m tired of it.”
Coyotes’ GM Bobby Smith, who reportedly has had discussions with Roenick about extending his contract before it expires next season, had a solution for the Valley of the Sun’s most popular Coyote: Just play hockey. Enjoy yourself. Do what you do best. Good things will happen.
“I honestly believe,” said Smith earlier this season, “that if J.R. just put his mind into hockey, he’s going to be OK. Some guys, they need to do that.”
Roenick, who turns 30 next month, had to do something. What he did after last season, when the Coyotes lost in the first round of the playoffs for the eighth time in their last eight trips to the post-season, was stay in Arizona. He sold his homes in Boston and Chicago. He disassociated himself from fair-weather friends and hangerson. And, along with spending quality time with his family, he devoted himself to a summer of training with the Coyotes’ strength and conditioning coach, Stieg Theander.
Roenick added 10 pounds of muscle to his 6-foot frame, well above his standard 200-pound playing weight, and then wearily went through an exhausting training camp run by first-year coach Bob Francis. It got so bad one particular day that Roenick said, “I can’t even feel my legs. I think I’m going to puke.”
But he overcame, just as he hopes to overcome his many personal matters that so attract the public eye. He did it, he said, because he wants to revive the player who had back-to-back 50-goal seasons in the early 1990s, the player who made it to the Stanley Cup final in 1992, only to lose in four straight to Mario Lemieux’s Pittsburgh Penguins.
“He’s got that fire burning again, you can see it,” said Los Angeles Kings’ defenseman Rob Blake.
When you’re hot, you’re hot. And Roenick and the Coyotes-despite the absences of unsigned goalie Nikolai Khabibulin and center Robert Reichel-have been hotter than the desert sun. J.R. hopes to be under that blazing sun for the rest of his career.
“This is where I want to end it,” he said. “I want to finish my career here and I want to play on a contender that can win the Cup. I think we can do it.”
Roenick, who still dishes out checks as wildly as he dances down the ice with the puck, believes he was destined to have a resurgence. It’s his validation for three straight years of trade rumors, sub-30-goal seasons and bad luck-like late last season, when his jaw was shattered by Derian Hatcher of the Dallas Stars. Sporting a motorcycle-type helmet to protect his fragile face, Roenick returned for one playoff contest-a Game 7 loss to the St. Louis Blues.
His battles with Hatcher, the Stars’ 6-foot-5 captain, have been well-chronicled. But Roenick swears he has no qualms with the hulking defenseman. Though he believes Hatcher’s high-elbow, bone-crunching hit against the boards last April was retaliation for J.R.’s devastating check on Mike Modano in an earlier game, he doesn’t think Hatcher intended to inflict such serious damage.
“Maybe I went a little too far,” Hatcher later acknowledged.
Maybe. Roenick doesn’t care. Not anymore. He has closed those wounds, just like he has at home. He bought a farm with Tracey in north Scottsdale to help her start a show-horse business, he’s eliminated countless “friends” that had invaded his life and he’s focused on becoming the Roenick of old with this year’s version of the Coyotes.
“I’ve got some things to prove this year, mainly to myself,” Roenick said. “I realize now that not everybody’s going to like me. I don’t try to make everybody like me anymore.
“If people want to judge me because of what they hear or what is written, then I don’t care about those people. It doesn’t mean I dislike them just because they say I’m cocky or I’m arrogant.
“Yeah, I am cocky and I am arrogant. But that doesn’t mean I’m not a nice person. It doesn’t mean that I’m not friendly to my friends and want to have fun and treat them the way I want to be treated. That was the problem. I let too many people come into my life because of who I was and it screwed me. And now I’m not like that anymore. I’m very guarded.”
He protects himself and his family, whom he adores. He just wishes more people would believe he was sincere.
“A lot of people think I’m fake,” he said. “I’m sure of that…
“Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s because I genuinely try to be nice to people. Maybe people don’t believe that athletes can be really nice people. Maybe they don’t want them to be in this day and age. Maybe they want them to be the money-grubbing, egomaniac, love-to-watch, love-to-hate celebrity.
“I just want people to know I’ve stood behind everything I’ve done. I’ve fulfilled my responsibilities. The bottom line is, you can be on my side or you can get out of the way. I have no time for you.”