HERSHEY, Pa. — Less than 21 hours after a game in Syracuse, and less than 17 hours after the team bus rolled back into town, Scott Gomez perched astride the boards at Giant Center, awaiting the first shift of the seventh American Hockey League game of his life.

Gomez, a 36-year-old center who was the N.H.L.’s top rookie in the 1999-2000 season, had two assists for the Hershey Bears in that game, a 5-1 win over the Syracuse Crunch here on Saturday, and the sellout crowd of 10,964, including dozens of children tooting vuvuzelas, went home happy.

“I’m not just hanging around,” Gomez, his bag packed and his tie askew, said as he stood in the empty Hershey locker room afterward.

Gomez, who had 181 goals and 574 assists in his 1,066-game N.H.L. career and helped the Devils win two Stanley Cups, was waived on Dec. 30 by the St. Louis Blues, his sixth N.H.L. team. He considered retiring until the man he calls his “paid consultant” talked him out of it.