J.R. - WE ALL LOVE TO HATE HIM

Am I the only one who finds all of the Internet chatter about the return of Jeremy Roenick funny? I mean here we have a guy who has been slammed, for a good part of his career, for spouting off at the mouth with his opinions. Every time JR makes the news, the first thing people do is spout off at the mouth giving their opinion on how much they dislike players who spout off at the mouth. Message boards and blog threads across the globe are jam packed with pokes, jabs and some down right nastiness all about how much this guy bugs them. Granted, JR does cross the line sometimes with his comments to the press to the point where he fills the role of the NHL version of T.O. Everyone loves to hate him. With that said, let’s get to the fact of the matter regarding Roenick and his signing with the Sharks.
My initial thought about the signing was: Why? The Sharks don’t need another center. They pushed every team around during the regular season and then got pushed around in the playoffs and Roenick certainly doesn’t fix that problem. They really didn’t need to find secondary scoring and a progressively declining Roenick definitely won’t be providing that anyway. So why would they sign this guy? Grit? Come on, that can’t be it unless you only need grit on the bench and in the locker room, because his grittiness ends there these days. Leadership? With guys like Thornton, Marleau, Davison and Brown I highly doubt that was it. When you ask the question of what is the missing piece the Sharks need to advance through the playoffs, JR and his 28 points certainly doesn’t come to mind. So all we are left to do is ask why with no real answer forthcoming.
Instead of asking why would the Sharks sign him, let’s ask why would he want to sign with the Sharks over retiring. This will be fun; I can get my shots in on him during this part! Let’s see….Umm, the Sharks are a team that has a shot at winning the cup and all he would have to do is ride the coattails of his teammates to have one last chance on getting his name on the trophy. How about reaching 500 goals? He is only 5 goals away from that plateau. Better yet, how about reaching #2 all time goals for U.S. born players? Joe Mullen stands at 507, which is only 12 goals away. Let’s face it folks, a friggin’ tree stump could score 12 goals on a power play where Thornton is dishing the puck. Come to think of it the tree stump might be a better idea, JR didn’t score 12 goals last season and the stump would probably come cheaper. Okay, that’s all fine and dandy and I’m sure that somewhere in the back of Roenick’s mind this is motivation enough to give it another try, but this is Jeremy Roenick we are talking about and in his mind there is no one better so could it be that maybe he has his sights on catching Modano for the #1 spot? Well, that’s not going to happen unless he plans on pulling a “Tanya Harding” on Mike. I can picture it now, an unsuspecting Modano walking down the dimly lit corridor leading to the locker room before the game and out of the shadows pops Stu Grimson with a lead pipe in his hand. All anyone hears is a “Whack!” and then cries of “Why?” “Why?” Okay, sorry about that, the coffee started to take over for a minute.
The reality of it folks, is that JR feels that he still has some gas left in the tank and that he can still contribute in some facet even if it is just cheerleading from the bench. Yes, I think he would have been better off joining NBC and trading jabs with “Chicken-parm” on Saturday afternoon games, but if his buddy Mr. Wilson wants to give him $500k to put on a Sharks uniform and give the local media some juicy quotes so be it. He won’t help the Sharks find the “promised land”, but he won’t hurt their chances either.
Love him or hate him or love to hate him, it doesn’t really matter; JR is back for one more go around. This bit has just been another opinionated asshole spouting off at the mouth about an opinionated asshole who spouts off at the mouth. You can now return to your regularly scheduled program.