The Two-Line Pass

Jeremy Roenick is no spring chicken. At 38 years old, he was one of the oldest players in the NHL. So when 18-year-old Samuel Groulx caught him with an elbow during a training camp scrimmage, what was he supposed to do?

He tried to get the kid, who was born over two years after Roenick made his NHL debut, to fight.

The veteran got in Groulx’s grill, threw a few words at him and then a punch to the helmet. A few more words and a second punch earned Roenick a roughing penalty.

A veteran like you should know they always catch the retaliatory penalty, JR. Always.

Groulx, for his part, didn’t know if he should put Old Man Roenick on his ass (and at 6-foot-2, 165, he probably could have), so he just kind of stood there dumbfounded.

“The situation was, I don’t know what to do,” he said after the scrimmage. “It was, ‘OK, sorry about that. I’m just trying to make the team.’ I don’t know, it was a crazy situation.”

If he really wanted to make the team, he would’ve one-punched Roenick. That’s what Kevin Bieksa did that one time, and he’s been in the NHL ever since.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 3:22 pm and is filed under Sum-sum-summertime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.