Jeremy Roenick

Jeremy Shaffer Roenick

(born January 17, 1970) is an American former professional ice hockey player who played the majority of his career in the National Hockey League (NHL).

As a youth, Roenick played in the 1982 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with a minor ice hockey team from Middlesex County, Connecticut, and in the 1983 tournament with the Washington Capitals minor ice hockey team.

Roenick then moved to Fairfax, Virginia, where he traveled to play for the bantam-level New Jersey Rockets, who had won back-to-back national championships in 1984–85 and 1985–86.

At age 14, Roenick was required to take a flight from Dulles Airport to Newark, New Jersey, on a weekly basis to make the Rockets' games.

Roenick helped the Rockets to a state championship, registering 300 points in only 75 games.

After one year of traveling for hockey, the Roenick family would move back to Massachusetts, where Jeremy enrolled at Thayer Academy.

Roenick played on the same line as future NHL line-mate Tony Amonte; the two went on to win two League Championships.

He was drafted 8th overall in the 1988 NHL Entry Draft by the Chicago Blackhawks, for whom he played from 1988 to 1996.

Roenick subsequently played for the Phoenix Coyotes, Philadelphia Flyers, Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks over the course of his 20 NHL season career.

He also represented Team USA in several international tournaments.

Roenick was so impressive during his time at Thayer Academy he was drafted straight out of high school, going eighth overall in the 1988 NHL Entry Draft to the Chicago Blackhawks.

He was also taken to breakfast by Wayne Gretzky in an attempt to convince Roenick to play for the Hull Olympiques, a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) team Gretzky owned.

Roenick played for the Olympiques during the 1988–89 season scoring 70 points in 28 games, before going on to represent the United States at the 1989 World Junior Championship.

In his second World Junior Championship, Roenick led the tournament in scoring and was named a Tournament All-Star.

Roenick's line, which included future NHL players Mike Modano and John LeClair, totaled 41 points, the most ever by a Team USA line and sixth most in tournament history.

Despite his scoring success, the United States finished the tournament in fifth place.

During the tournament, Roenick become the all-time leading American scorer, totaling 25 points.

Following Roenick's successful World Junior performance, the Blackhawks called him up during the 1988–89 season.

Roenick made his NHL debut on October 6, 1988, against the New York Rangers and then scored his first goal on February 14, 1989, against the Minnesota North Stars.

In 20 games at the NHL level, Roenick scored 18 points.

In the 1989 Stanley Cup playoffs, he helped the Blackhawks reach the Conference Finals.

During the playoffs, Roenick gave the Chicago fans a glimpse of what kind of player he would become.

In a game against the St. Louis Blues, Roenick got into an altercation with Blues' defenseman Glen Featherstone.

Featherstone crosschecked Roenick in the mouth and broke his front teeth; Featherstone would be given a five-minute major penalty, while Roenick received a minor penalty.

Roenick remained in the game and once his penalty expired, he took a shift on the power play and scored a goal.

In the 1989–90 season, Roenick joined the Blackhawks full-time and helped the team improve by 22 points to win the Norris Division title; he scored 26 goals and 66 points in the regular season.

During the 1990 playoffs, Roenick helped the Blackhawks reach the Campbell Conference Finals before losing to the Edmonton Oilers.

He scored 18 points in 20 games.

The Blackhawks' confidence in Roenick's abilities allowed them to trade star forward Denis Savard for defenseman Chris Chelios in June 1990.

In 1990–91, Roenick paced the team with ten game-winning goals as the Blackhawks improved another 18 points to win the Presidents' Trophy.

Roenick finished second on the team with 41 goals, 53 assists and 94 points and played in his first NHL All-Star Game.

In six playoff games, he scored eight points.

On November 10, 2007, he became the third American-born player (Joe Mullen and Mike Modano were the first two) to score 500 goals.

He is one of 46 players to have scored 500 goals, but he is one of four eligible players (along with Keith Tkachuk, Pat Verbeek and Peter Bondra) to not be a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

After retiring in 2009, Roenick joined NBC Sports as a hockey analyst from 2010–2020.

Roenick began playing hockey at age four when the parents of a playmate persuaded Roenick's parents to put Jeremy in a hockey program so that their child would be with someone he knew.

The son of a Mobil oil district coordinator, Jeremy constantly moved around the Northeastern United States, joining new hockey teams with each stop.

Roenick's record stood for 21 years before being broken by Jordan Schroeder in 2010.

However, it took Schroeder three tournaments to pass Roenick, who set the record in just two events.