Former Chicago Blackhawks forward and Hockey Hall of Famer Jeremy Roenick shares a hilarious story from the mid 1990s while with the Blackhawks.
Former NHL forward and Hall of Famer Jeremy Roenick is one of the most colorful personalities that the NHL has ever seen, and one of 3 American-born players to have scored 500 goals during his career.
He began his NHL career with the Chicago Blackhawks before eventually playing for the Phoenix Coyotes, Philadelphia Flyers, Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks before his retirement in 2009.
During a 2019 appearance on The Dan Patrick Show, Roenick told a hilarious story from early in his playing days when he and the rest of his Blackhawks teammates mistakenly thought that the NHL was going to strike early, and they spent the afternoon drinking in a Windsor bar before having to return and play in Detroit the same day.
It was in '94. We were gonna lock out - the players were gonna stop playing before the playoffs. That was gonna be our way of having the upper hand.
So we're playing in Detroit. And we're waiting for 12 o'clock to roll around, because at 12 o'clock, they were supposed to shut the season down. It was the last game of the season. So a bunch of us go across the border to Windsor. We're at a bar, we're boozing, we're waiting for 12 o'clock. 12 o'clock comes - nothing. No call.
3 o'clock - still no call. Finally, one of the teammates gets a call from the league. Now we're 25 or 30 guys in, four hours deep. Next thing you know, the NHL calls and says, 'We're gonna strike tomorrow'.
We went straight into Joe Louis Arena. We walk in, Mike Keenan sees us, and he just shakes his head. But we tied, 3-3, and I had a goal and an assist.
Roenick was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame's Class of 2024, and was also a former analyst with NBC Sports.