Can a song save a lost man’s life?
The first handful of times Jake Schroeder belted out “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Avalanche games way back in 1998, he was a clueless father of a newborn baby girl. In those days, Schroeder often slept in his underwear as his funk band Opie Gone Bad rolled down the highway to its next gig. Desperate for rent money, he tended bar for tips. During every waking hour, his heart ached from the fresh, jagged wound of divorce.
“I was struggling. I was not in a good place. I was not taking good care of myself,” Schroeder told me.