Boston College Athletics
Behind the Glass...Joe Rooney
November 17, 2004 | Men's Hockey
Nov. 17, 2004
Athletes speak of the sacrifices they made in the past to get them to the professional level. Roger Clemens talks about how he ran home from baseball practice every day to get in shape for the season. BC's own Doug Flutie was repeatedly told his size would hold him back until he silenced the critics with his Hail Mary touchdown pass.
Joe Rooney is no different. There were times in his life when Rooney had to make certain sacrifices for his family and himself to make way for hockey. The normal childhood Rooney jettisoned and the hockey player lifestyle he adopted make him person he is today.
When he was a child, Rooney's father, Steve, played five seasons in the NHL. His first memories of hockey come from when his father played for the Montreal Canadians. He would spend summers in Canton and when the NHL season rolled around, he would move to the city for which his father played in the winter.
"My house in Canton, which was my true home, pretty much became my summer house," Rooney said. "Every winter we would go back up north to where my father was playing. At this age, I did not think of it as tough, it was just normal."
His father then played for the Winnipeg Jets. Rooney and his family relocated to the Western side of Canada. Again, this was not ideal for Rooney. The typical childhood of growing up around the same group of kids did not apply to him. He lived two lives which he rotated through semiannually for the first years of his life.
Although he was not skating at that point, he had to make sacrifices for the sport of hockey. This level of devotion to hockey seemed to always run through his veins, whether he could fully comprehend it or not.
Rooney clearly recalls the first time he laced on skates. "It was at a Christmas party in Winnipeg and my father threw some skates on me," Rooney said. "I was towed around on this little wagon-type thing, so I guess it really was not skating. That moment always stands out to me."
He also remembers when he first began playing the sport. At the time, his father was playing in Utica, N.Y. "There was a league for the children of the players," Rooney said. "It was not too intense and we were all learning how to skate at the time. It was nice to finally play the game that I was so used to watching my father play."
As was the case with his prior living arrangements, Rooney still overcame that which most children would not. Although he started playing hockey, the lifestyle still was not easy.
The sacrifices his father made were par for the course for the professional athlete: the necessity of relocating and the traveling. These were reflected onto his son, who took them on as a professional might. "I guess I was just destined to play hockey," Rooney jokes.
Let us fast-forward to high school. From seventh grade through 10th grade, Rooney attended St. Sebastian's school in Needham, Mass. In terms of hockey and his lifestyle, this was relatively easy in comparison to what he had dealt with in the past.
For these three years, he had a limited commute and got to play hockey for a school with quite a reputation in the field. Resources were plentiful as St. Seb's starts their hockey program at the middle school level and it continues through the varsity high school level. Teammate Brian Boyle is also a product of St. Seb's hockey.
Everything seemed simple until his life sped up again after his sophomore year. He signed with Boston College during this year and, at that point, he wanted to get the collegiate level as quickly as possible. Rooney lobbied for an accelerated program at St. Seb's, but consequently, his desire to squeeze two years of high school into one facilitated his move to Canton High School.
At Canton High School, he entered an accelerated program. In one year, he completed his final two years of high school. Most would say that this is quite an accomplishment. However, Rooney went one step further when he played for the Walpole Stars.
At the junior level, players' lives outside of the realm of hockey vary. Some take classes, some work, some do neither. Not many go through a whole day of school on an accelerated graduation track and then drive across town to Walpole for practice. "A bunch of the guys would get there early and stay late," Rooney said. "I would be so exhausted by the time practice got over that I got right in my car and left."
Nevertheless, Rooney earned EJHL Offensive Player of the Week twice, was named to the All-EJHL Team and was honored as the league's Rookie of the Year. He overcame the adversity of his busy life to excel on the ice.
The grind never got the best of Rooney. "Yes, I was like every other kid when I would complain about going to practice. But, early on, I grew to love the sport and I was a self-motivator."
He was surrounded, sometimes engulfed, by the sport as far back as he can remember. From the sacrifices he made from moving around as a child to those which he made when playing juniors for Walpole, these experiences are what landed Rooney at BC and make him the player he is today.
