Chicago Blackhawks great Jeremy Roenick made it clear he’s not bitter about waiting 12 years to be named to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
“It goes away right away,” he said of receiving the call in June.
But it was bittersweet.
“I’ve made it very public that the frustration of me getting this call (was) having my dad miss it,” Roenick told reporters Monday after Hawks training camp at Fifth Third Arena. “My dad passed in ’21 and he was my biggest fan. My dad was the one that literally was engulfed and embedded the most in my career.
“It wasn’t so much (for me). I would’ve liked my dad to have seen it, and he missed it by a couple of years. But that’s really the main thing. It was amazing how 12 years have just been literally erased with one phone call.”
When Roenick did get the call, he was surprised how raw his emotions were.
“Never at a loss for words, but I was,” said Roenick, who choked on his words again Monday. “When you wait for a long time, don’t know how it’s going to hit you. And I thought maybe before that, it wouldn’t be as big a deal as it was, but it hit me like a train.
“I couldn’t speak. I was crying in front of a barista at Starbucks, which was pretty interesting. But all in all, it’s been a really good four months since I got the call.”
“It hit me like a train. … I couldn’t speak. I was crying in front of a barista at Starbucks, which was pretty interesting.”
—Blackhawks great Jeremy Roenick on his reaction after he got the call that he would be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame pic.twitter.com/zTroULP5V0
— Phillip Thompson (@_phil_thompson) September 23, 2024
He called the reaction from colleagues “mind-boggling.” Within half an hour of the news coming out, he estimates he received 2,500 phone and text messages.
“Getting a call from Wayne Gretzky is pretty spectacular,” he said, adding that hearing from former teammates, friends and people he hadn’t spoken to in ages “really humbled me a lot.”
During his visit to Hawks camp, Roenick also showed off the memorabilia he donated for display at the Hall of Fame in Toronto.
- His Hawks 75th anniversary jersey (1991-92 season): “I scored my first 50th goal (of a season) in this shirt in Boston in front of my parents, in front of all my friends in my hometown.”
- His Team USA Olympic jacket from the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City, where he won silver.
- A flaming red New Jersey Rockets jacket: “It’s my bantam two-time national championship (1984, ’85) team jacket. I was 145 pounds, but literally three years later I was wearing a Blackhawks jersey, which makes this really pretty wild. But this is where I was pretty much noticed in the hockey world.”
- The stick he used “when I scored my second 50th goal right here in Chicago Stadium against the Toronto Maple Leafs.”
And speaking of the old Chicago Stadium, Roenick couldn’t help but wax nostalgic about the arena where he made his NHL debut against the New York Rangers on Oct. 6, 1988.
“Chicago Stadium was, without question, the greatest building that I’ve ever seen, ever been a part of, ever watched a game in or played a game in,” he said emphatically. “The energy in that building was like nothing else.
“To be in the locker room, having to check your helmet for cockroaches before you put it on, knowing the history that was there, knowing that you had to go up 26 steps to get to the arena floor, hearing that organ and the energy that you felt going up those stairs to hit that ice and literally be shot out of a cannon in front of some of the most raucous fan base that I’ve ever seen in hockey or in sports in general.”
He could just as well have been referring to himself: a sometimes underappreciated relic from a bygone era of hockey — but still revered in Chicago.
Roenick played the first eight seasons of his 20-year career with the Hawks, recording 267 goals and 329 assists in 524 games. He finished with career totals of 513 goals and 703 assists in 1,363 games.
He said he wants to be remembered as someone who overcame the odds.
“When I came to the Hawks in 1988, I was 158 pounds. I was 18 years old coming out of high school,” he said. “Hard work and determination and an absolute denial of failure helped me do what I did, and I did things that I didn’t want to do.
“I didn’t want to be a physical hockey player. (Coach) Mike Keenan made me be a physical hockey player. I wasn’t a guy who really played through a lot of pain — I just wasn’t built like that — and the NHL taught me to do that.
“I want to be known as a warrior. I want to be known as a guy that, when the chips are down, if you’re going to put the puck on somebody’s stick, I wanted it to be mine.”
Roenick — who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on Nov. 11 in Toronto — also wants some of his ex-teammates to receive recognition, particularly one linemate who has had an even longer wait for a Hall call.
“Doug Wilson (Hall of Fame Class of 2020) was my first roommate when I got here to Chicago — was a huge, huge influence of mine,” Roenick said. “Denis Savard (Class of 2000) was a huge part of the start of my career.
“Steve Larmer, Michel Goulet (Class of 1998), I would not have become the player that I was if I didn’t have two Hall of Fame linemates like them.”
If anyone can relate to Larmer being snubbed year after year, it’s Roenick.
“Steve Larmer should be in the Hall of Fame,” he said. “There’s no question about that in my mind.”
