It’s well known that Jeremy Roenick has no shortage of anecdotes.
And what a good opportunity the weekend of his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame was to tell some of them.
In a press scrum in which our colleague Luc Gélinas participated, the man who amassed 1,216 points in 1,363 games in the NHL was asked about his brief stint with the Hull Olympics at the start of his career.
Roenick was selected eighth overall in the 1988 draft by the Chicago Blackhawks. Although he made his NHL debut this season, the forward also played for the Hull Matériaux in the QMJHL.
He thus found himself alongside Martin Gélinas, Stéphane Matteau and Karl Dykhuis under the orders of a certain Alain Vigneault. When approached on the authority of his former head coach, Roenick immediately remembered this story:
“I remember one time he made us put our gear on and off about ten times in the locker room at 2 a.m. on our way back from a game. »
“We had a neck protector and Martin Gélinas didn’t bring it to a match and we lost. He punished us by making us put on and take off our wet gear ten times. At the end, he told Martin to keep his equipment on and we all went to the bench to watch him do laps of the ice with Alain Vigneault for 45 minutes. Nobody forgot their neck protector after that,” he said.
Roenick has precious memories of his time in Hull and he describes his stay as “fantastic”. He ultimately played 28 games in the regular season for the Olympics and nine in the playoffs. He finished the regular season with impressive statistics of 34 goals and 70 points. He added 19 points to his tally in the playoffs.
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