Ranting Roenick

Roenick sounded off against USA Hockey Monday after his Los Angeles Kings earned a 4-3 shootout victory over Vancouver Canucks, saying he was left off the team ''because (USA Hockey has) been blackballing me since September.''

The 36-year-old centre called American hockey officials ''disrespectful'' and was clearly bitter with their decision. He clearly seemed fired up in Monday's game, scoring and adding an assist in the first period.

''I think they were holding the fact I haven't played in the last two World Cups against me. I'm a lot better player than my points indicate,'' said Roenick, who has six goals and seven assists in 32 games this season. ''I'm one of the guys that have gotten the USA to where it is today.''

Roenick was on the American team that finished second to Canada at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, and was also on the 1998 team that finished out of the medals in Nagano, Japan. He thought American officials would choose him for the Turin Games out of respect for his previous tenures with the team.

''To not have the opportunity to go back one more time and try and win the gold is obviously, in my opinion, very disrespectful,'' said Roenick, who has 1,133 points in 1,156 career regular season games. ''They can beat me down and say I'm over the hill or say that I don't have it anymore, but to me I know that I do.''

"I took it as a compliment because I could really appreciate how much he wanted to be a part of this," Waddell said. "But at the end of the day we had 13 better forwards than Jeremy at this point."