I liked to pull down the black shade. Tracy hated that about me. I refused to communicate. Gary forced me to deal with that issue. The funny thing about counselling is that you have to do most of the talking. Gary wouldn’t say much; he just had a way of getting me to say things I didn’t want to say. He got me to work through my problems. He forced me to be accountable in all areas of my life, including my career. He stressed daily preparation of your day in terms of what you want your life to be like and what kind of person you want to be. He made you decide how you want others to perceive you. He wanted you to get out of yourself and look back to see who you really were. He wanted you to have pride in yourself. Mack didn’t “fix” me, but he helped me know that I wanted to be a better person. That’s really what Tracy wanted. She wanted me not to hide from my problems. She wanted me to be able to discuss problems when I have them. And today I’m able to do that.
My friend Matt Mallgrave came out to talk to me as well. We were friends before I came into fame and money, and our talk helped guide me back on the right path.
It’s not as if I completely quit gambling or stopped going to parties. When we stay with friends at a hotel in Las Vegas, Tracy jokes that “Jeremy helped pay for this floor.” But the confrontation at the United Center in 1999 caused me to consider for the first time that I had a gambling problem. Plus, it made me think about who my friends were.
More importantly, it made me fully cognizant of the importance of Tracy to my career. She says now that people who knew her back in Chicago probably think she is a “cold, hateful person” because she always had to play the bad cop while I played the good cop in our dealings with the people in our lives. Tracy had to be the responsible one in our marriage, while I was busy playing the role of NHL star. It’s fair to wonder if I would have the money I do today if Tracy had not been with me on this journey. She was a strong person the first day I met her, and she remains strong to this day.
When Brandi was born, I do remember partying like a rock star, dancing on the top of a big speaker at a nightclub. That was one of the happiest days of my life.
When Tracy and I were first married, we talked about having five children. But her pregnancy with Brandi was problem-filled. She was bedridden at times, and she had to be fed intravenously. We had to get her a nurse. I remember staying at a hotel during the playoffs, because Tracy didn’t want me distracted during the playoffs.
Honestly, I was scared for her to have another baby. Proving again how tough she is, Tracy decided to have a second child. By then, Zofran was available to pregnant women for nausea, which was helpful.
We were on Cape Cod in Massachusetts when Tracy went into labour with Brett. She got up one morning and announced calmly that her water had broken.
“What do you mean, your water broke?” I said, jumping out of my chair as if someone had just yelled “fire.”
Tracy was starting to make breakfast.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I said. “We have to go to the hospital.”
“Relax,” she said.
“Relax? What the fuck are you talking about?” I said. “Your fucking water just broke.”
“We are fine,” she said.
She finished making breakfast. We ate it. Then we left for the hospital.
Tracy knew what she was talking about, because her labour lasted long enough for me to make seven trips to Blockbuster Video to rent movies. The baby was in breech position and he wouldn’t turn. I remember telling the doctor after 24 hours that Tracy had gone through enough pain and I thought we needed a Caesarean. Fortunately, the doctor agreed.
As the anaesthesiologist was preparing the epidural, Tracy put her head on my chest. When I saw the five-inch needle that was inserted into her back, my knees buckled and I saw stars. I was going down to the ground. It was Tracy who held me up. People say I was a warrior in my NHL career, but Tracy is the true warrior.
After Brett was born, we then had both a boy and a girl, and both were healthy. We were thankful enough for what we had; we decided not to risk any more pregnancies.
10. Exit Strategy
During my fifth season in Phoenix, it became clear that I was going to be wearing another team’s sweater in the 2001–02 season. Effective July 1, 2001, I was going to become an unrestricted free agent for the first time in my career. The Coyotes couldn’t afford me. They had been having money issues, and general manager Bobby Smith had made it clear they wouldn’t be able to re-sign me, especially since I was definitely going to get offers much higher than the $4 million I was being paid.
Even after Steve Ellman and Wayne Gretzky completed negotiations to buy the Coyotes in February 2001, nothing changed from the perspective of keeping me. Gretzky became the team’s managing partner, and he fired Smith. Cliff Fletcher was brought in as general manager, and it was immediately clear that his mandate was to shed payroll in the name of getting younger.
On March 5, the Coyotes traded goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin to the Tampa Bay Lightning for defenceman Paul Mara, forwards Mike Johnson and Ruslan Zainullin and a second-round draft choice.
Nine days later, Keith and his $8.3 million contract were traded to the St. Louis Blues for Martin Handzus, Ladislav Nagy, Jeff Taffe and a first-round pick. At the time, Tkachuk had been the franchise’s captain for seven years.
The Coyotes finished the 2000–01 schedule tied with the Vancouver Canucks for eighth place in the Western Conference. Each team had 90 points, but Vancouver got the final playoff berth by racking up 36 wins to our 35. Undoubtedly, Tkachuk and Khabibulin would have made a difference in that final month. It was the only season of my five in Phoenix that we didn’t make the playoffs.
With all of the controversy surrounding the team’s future, it has been forgotten that we drew reasonably well when the team played in the America West Arena in downtown Phoenix. We averaged over 15,000 fans per game in an arena, built primarily for basketball, that had 4,500 obstructed-view seats when it was set up for hockey.
Unquestionably, the location of the new arena—near the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals’ stadium in Glendale, northwest of Phoenix proper—has hurt the team. If the arena had been built in Scottsdale—to the east of Phoenix, where most of the Coyotes’ fan base lives and where the Ellman group originally hoped to build—there is no question attendance would be better.
When I came to Phoenix, I had made it my mission to help our sport grow in the desert. After the gates had opened in the America West Arena, I would put on my sweater and step out into the runway between the dressing room and the ice to do my stretching. From there, I could converse with the fans. I tried to connect with people. If you ask Arizona fans from those days, they will tell you that Roenick always signed autographs.
On the ice, I never had fewer than 24 goals or 102 penalty minutes in any of my five seasons, and our record was .500 or better in all five seasons I was there.
I have fond memories of my days with the Coyotes. I still call Arizona home today. I’ve been there longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. My two children were raised there. When the Coyotes announced in 2011–12 that they were going to add me to the team’s Ring of Honor, I felt humbled and gratified. I think people in Arizona understood that I was as proud to wear the Coyotes sweater as I was to wear the Blackhawks logo. Keith Tkachuk also joined the ring that same season, making the honour even greater. I would always want to be a member of any club Tkachuk is in.
My hope is that the Blackhawks will someday follow the Coyotes’ lead by retiring my number, 27. I played only six seasons in Phoenix, and I played eight in Chicago. I’m still one of only three 50-goal scorers in Chicago history. My relationship with the Blackhawks is good enough that I still hope it is possible. It’s hard to explain why I want so badly to see my jersey hanging from the rafters in Chicago. But to put it simply, that city means so much to me.
11. Hitch in My Giddy-Up
On July 2, 2001, the Philadelphia Flyers signed me for $37.5 million over five years to add ener
gy and goals to their lineup. The deal was completed on just the second day of the NHL’s free-agent season because the Phoenix Coyotes, knowing they couldn’t re-sign me, had allowed teams to talk to me before the July 1 deadline.
After reviewing my options, my choice came down to two teams: Detroit and Philadelphia. If you ask my wife, Tracy, she thought for sure we were moving to Detroit. Even though my decision to join the Flyers was well thought out, that’s how close I came to signing with the Red Wings.
When the Flyers were wooing me, Rick Tocchet and Mark Recchi took me to an NBA Finals game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Philadelphia 76ers. Similarly, the Red Wings brought me into Detroit, and general manager Ken Holland wined and dined us. He drove Tracy and me around the area. His sales pitch was an aggressive one: he told us that if I came to Detroit, I was giving myself the best opportunity I’d had to win the Stanley Cup since Chicago reached the championship series in 1992.
At the time, Detroit was only four years removed from winning back-to-back titles, and they still had a talented roster. They played an offensive style that was very appealing. They were also offering a five-year contract with similar money to what the Flyers were offering.
The only negative about Detroit was that the area didn’t have enough places where Tracy and my daughter, Brandi, could stable their horses and train.
While we were still in Detroit being wooed by Holland, the Flyers called and said that they had to have an answer from me that night, because if I wasn’t signing with them they wanted to make an offer to another player before he ended up somewhere else. They sweetened their offer by agreeing to front-load a bit of the money. When you receive a front-loaded contract, it’s like getting an advance on your salary. For example, a team might agree to pay you $40 million over five seasons, with an $8 million salary every season. But in a front-loaded deal, the player might earn $12 million in each of the first two seasons and only $4 million in the last two. As a rule, players prefer front-loaded deals because they like their money now. By getting another $4 million up front, a player can earn interest on that money for an additional two or three years. Even in a salary cap league, big-market teams that can afford to front-load deals have an advantage when bidding for free agents.
However, the money wasn’t the deciding factor. Rick Tocchet, then playing for Philadelphia, convinced me to sign with the Flyers. He lobbied aggressively on the phone, convincing me that the Flyers had an excellent chance to win the Stanley Cup if I came aboard. He believed I could be the missing piece.
“If you sign, we would have the most talent I’ve seen in a dressing room since I was in Pittsburgh,” Tocchet said, referring to the Penguins team that had defeated my Blackhawks in the 1992 Stanley Cup final. Trusting Tocchet, I called my agent and told him to take the Flyers’ offer.
Meanwhile, my hometown Boston Bruins offered more money than both the Flyers and Red Wings. But I didn’t believe the Bruins were close to being ready to compete for a Stanley Cup. Plus, I didn’t believe it would have been good for my career to play in my hometown, where I would be on the friends and family plan. Throughout my career, I’ve created distractions without trying very hard; I didn’t need distractions built in.
What the Flyers may not have understood is that when you buy the Roenick deluxe package, it also comes with a disco ball at no extra cost. On game days, at about 5:40 in the afternoon, I was the warmup act for our team meetings. I would haul my disco ball into the dressing room, turn down the lights, turn on music from the 1970s or early 1980s and dance the night away. The Gap Band’s 1983 hit “Party Train” was usually the featured song. Fourth-liner Todd Fedoruk often accompanied me with his hockey-stick guitar. Don’t know why I started this 15-minute pre-game ritual, because I had never done it at my previous NHL stops. But once I started, I couldn’t stop.
Coach Ken Hitchcock could never make peace with it.
“Can’t you just be serious for once?” he would say.
“I am being serious,” I would reply. “This is what I do to keep everyone loose and ready to go.”
It was made clear to me that Hitchcock would prefer that I be more like Flyers legend Bobby Clarke and less like Hollywood legend John Travolta. Maybe he would have been happier with me if I’d sat at my stall and scowled at my teammates. The old-school Hitchcock just never could relate to my flamboyant tendencies.
“J.R., you are never on the same page with us,” Hitchcock would whine.
“But the page I’m on is more fun,” I would say. “Why don’t you come on my page for a while?”
Hitchcock and I had some special moments, such as the time, during a game, when he was trying to yell instructions to me as I was carrying the puck into the offensive zone. After I dumped the puck, I hit the brakes, turned to the bench, and screamed: “Will you shut the fuck up, Hitch? I’m trying to play a game out here.”
Everyone on the bench doubled over in laughter.
Although Hitchcock and I would battle over issues, I always felt like there was mutual respect between us. Hitchcock primarily liked the way I played, although he was always trying to convince me that I needed to be more defensive-minded. Probably, he was right. I’ve always said that Hitchcock was the smartest coach I ever had.
On the days when he would irritate the shit out of me, I would think, “What does he know? He never played in the NHL.” Other times, I would be honest with myself and realize that his coaching tactics and defensive structure gave us a chance to win the Stanley Cup. When I’m objective about Hitchcock, I see that the issue we really had was that he wanted his dressing room to have a 1950s mentality, while I wanted to let some fresh air into a sport that can sometimes be too stuffy. Hitchcock always wanted to be in control. He wanted things done the way he wanted them done. I never wanted to be controlled, and I like to do things differently.
Once I arrived in Philadelphia, it seemed as if I was born to play there. As soon as I ran over someone for the first time, the crowd adopted me as one of their own. After I retired, my Twitter account blew up when I was quoted as saying Philadelphia fans were “crazy sons of bitches.” Philadelphia folks were upset because they felt I was turning my back on the fans who had supported me. Never. In terms of what Philadelphia fans mean to the Flyers’ success at home, I view “crazy sons of bitches” as a term of endearment. The minute you run someone over while wearing a Flyers sweater, the fans in Philadelphia are with you for life. The players from the Broad Street Bullies era are viewed as gods in Philadelphia. Anyone who knows me well knows I liked the music loud and the fans amped up when I played. When the crowd is revved up, the Flyers feed off the energy. I saw it happen often.
The Flyers were signing me to be a replacement for Eric Lindros, who hadn’t played for an entire season because of a falling-out with general manager Bob Clarke. My relationship with Hitchcock was a lovefest compared to what occurred between Clarke and Lindros before I got there. Lindros had refused to play for the Flyers and sat out the season.
At the press conference to introduce me to Philly media, I tried to signal a new era in my own way: I made owner Ed Snider hug it out with me on stage at the practice facility in Voorhees, New Jersey.
“Come here and give me a hug,” I said to Snider before wrapping him in my arms. He had no idea what I was trying to do, which made it even more amusing.
“You’d hug him too if he gave you that kind of money,” I told the assembled reporters.
The way I saw it, the Flyers were a team in need of feel-good moments, and it was my mission to provide the franchise with the most upbeat press conference in team history. I would have held hands with Clarke and sung “Kumbaya” if I thought it would have helped.
When reporters asked me what Tocchet had said to convince me to sign with Philadelphia, I told them, “He said, ‘Come here, or I’ll kick your ass.’”
I told the media that it used to scare me to play in Philadelphia because the Flyers always had a big team that was willing to hit. I said I
wanted to be part of their assault team.
“I just want to take someone’s head off and score goals,” I said.
I said I believed my best chance to win a Stanley Cup would be in a Flyers jersey, and I meant every word of that. The Flyers had an impressive roster that included Tocchet, Mark Recchi, Keith Primeau, Éric Desjardins and Simon Gagné. We had seven former All-Stars, three former 50-goal scorers. At the press conference, I kept telling everyone how good I thought I looked in the Flyers’ sweater.
My first captain in Philadelphia was Desjardins, and he was a solid, dependable, hard-working man. When we were opponents, we didn’t like playing against each other. Since I had knocked out some of his teeth on a hit earlier in my career, we probably had an awkward beginning as teammates. I respected Desjardins, but he was never a guy I would go out with on a Saturday night. He was too blah for me. I preferred captains who could take over a room verbally or physically. I prefer a captain who could snap, like Keith Tkachuk would in Phoenix or Chris Chelios did in Chicago. Desjardins wasn’t that guy. Given his personality, I knew I wouldn’t be stepping on his authority by doing what I do.
Although my time in Philadelphia is usually associated with playing for Hitchcock, Billy Barber was actually my first coach in Philadelphia. At our first meeting, I knew I would like him. He was old school, and he was a good man. I didn’t always agree with his tactics, but I always liked him. He was tolerant of my personality, as long as I was doing the job on the ice. Probably, his days playing for the wild-ass Broad Street Bullies had taught him you can have a good time and still win a championship. Based on what I hear, the Broad Street Bullies weren’t choirboys.
J.R.: My Life as the Most Outspoken, Fearless, and Hard-Hitting Man in Hockey Page 13