Nunavut’s Jordin Tootoo signs with New Jersey Devils

Jordin Tootoo plays an exhibition game with the New Jersey Devils last month. (PHOTO COURTESY OF NJ DEVILS/FACEBOOK)

Jordin Tootoo married his girlfriend Jennifer Salvaggio last July. (TWITTER PHOTO)

On Oct. 7, Rose Tootoo got the phone call she’d been waiting all week for.

“Hey Mama,” said the long-distance voice of her son, Jordin Tootoo, “I’m a New Jersey Devil now.”

After weeks of speculation, Nunavut’s most famous hockey player signed a one-year contract with the National Hockey League’s Devils Oct. 7.

The 31-year-old forward will play his 12th professional season this year, after splitting the 2013-14 season between the Detroit Red Wings and the American Hockey League’s Grand Rapids team.

“We’re just so happy for him,” said his mother from the family’s home in Rankin Inlet. “Jordin still has a lot to give to the NHL.”

Tootoo said the phone has been ringing off the hook since the news broke, with calls from family and friends offering their congratulations.

Hockey fans in the Kivalliq region are already snapping up tickets to see Tootoo play when the Winnipeg Jets host the Devils Nov. 18. The NHL’s regular season starts today, Oct. 8.

“Everybody’s just so happy and excited,” she said.

The only glitch with playing in New Jersey: Tootoo will have to trade in his trademark number 22 for number 20. (Devils defenceman Eric Gelinas already wears number 22.)

It’s been a big year for Tootoo, whose professional hockey career remained uncertain after the Detroit Red Wings bought out his three-year contract last June, a year before it was set to expire.

But by early September, Tootoo had agreed to take on a professional tryout offer with the Newark, N.J.-based Devils.

The team has won three Stanley Cup championships and made the NHL finals twice in the past 20 years.

Tootoo will soon relocate to Newark from Kelowna, B.C., where he lives with his new wife Jennifer. The couple married this past summer.

In the coming weeks, fans will also be able to read a new autobiography Tootoo wrote with Canadian sports journalist Stephen Brunt called All the Way: My Life on the Ice, due out later this month.