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The saddest part of the Anaheim Ducks being ousted from the
2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs (aside from their 6-2 Game 7 capitulation to
cross-town rivals, the Los Angeles Kings) was what happened after the final
handshake line, after players from both teams on the ice, congratulated and commiserated
at the end of another hard series. Don’t get me wrong, the handshake line was
fantastic, and is a great part of hockey. The sad thing was what happened
after.
You don’t see if often, but after the Ducks were ousted in
front of their home crowd, instead of skating off what’s essentially enemy ice,
the Kings remained where they were, and joined in the celebration as a true
legend of hockey bid farewell to his adoring fans and, sadly, to the game
itself.
It’s not often that the unpopular victors of a Game 7 would
remain on the other team’s ice, much less to honour a player from that team,
but the guy with 8 on his back, the one with the scraggly hair and forlorn look
of realisation and dejection, the guy Kopitar, Richards, Quick and co tapped
their sticks for, momentarily becoming fans rather than players, was no
ordinary hockey player. Which makes his retirement even sadder.
Alas, we hockey fans bid farewell to Teemu Selanne – the Finnish
Flash, as he is perhaps best known – the forty-three-year-old veteran of 1,451
regular-season and 129 playoff National Hockey League contests. Ask anyone who’s
ever played in the League, and they’ll tell you how damn hard it is to get a
foothold in pro hockey, let alone stick around for twenty-one seasons.
That Selanne remained a fixture in the NHL for so long, and
was still putting up pretty solid numbers (particularly when you consider the
guy is forty-three) says a lot about the winger from Helsinki, who finishes his
career at fifteenth on the NHL’s all-time scoring list with 1,457 points, and
an even more impressive 11th with 684 goals. Ten times an NHL All Star, once
the League’s scoring champion and it’s Rookie of the Year in 1992-93, he is
currently the leading Finnish-born scorer in the NHL, and given that guys of
Selanne’s stature don’t come along very often, you can pretty much bet that his
mark will never be matched by any of his countrymen.
Universally liked and respected by fans, players, the media
and, indeed, the wider hockey community, Selanne is a sure-fire first-ballot
Hall of Famer and he deserves no less. Even the other team’s fans liked him. Don’t
believe me? Well, late in Selanne’s last game, when the Ducks faithful took up
their “Let’s go, Teemu!” chant on Friday night in Honda Centre, even the
jubilant Kings fans joined in.
It was a glittering career, featuring a long-awaited Stanley
Cup with Anaheim in 2007, after so many years of frustration with his first NHL
team, the Winnipeg Jets. Selanne had two stints with Anaheim, first between
1995 and 2000, then spent time in San Jose and Colorado, before returning to
Southern California after the lockout in time to see the Mighty Ducks become
the Ducks and hoist Lord Stanley, Selanne’s first trip to the Final, and his one
and only triumph after fourteen seasons, at age thirty-six. He had 15 points in
21 playoff games.
Internationally, there is perhaps no more feted player. Selanne
made his Olympic debut at the 1992 Albertville games and featured in every
Olympiad up to and including the most recent, in Sochi, Russia. By anyone’s
estimation, this was an ironman-type stretch, the sort of longevity that every
player searches for, but very few find. Selanne’s Olympic medal haul consisted
of three bronze (2014, 2010 and 1998) and a silver in 1998. He won a bronze
(2008) and a silver (1999) in World Championship play.
After the 2006-07 Cup run that Selanne first thought about
retirement. Then he decided against it, coming back again and again. The
guessing game would become a popular off-season event for hockey fans around
the world. He sat out the start of the 2007-08 season, eventually making up his
mind, returning in January, and in his third game back, scored his 670th point
as a member of the Ducks, breaking the record of the great Paul Kariya.
Selanne played his 1,100th game during the 2008-09 season,
which included his 1,100th game, thus becoming he sixth European
player to score 1,200 career points. Later in the season, he featured in his
100th playoff game.
In 2009-10, Selanne became the 18th player in NHL history to
score 600 goals, and, with goal 602, surpassed his childhood hero, another Finnish
legend, Jari Kurri. In 2010-11, he scored his 1300th point, and
despite the return of Winnipeg to the NHL that offseason, Selanne remained with
the Ducks, prospering, and earning an invite to the 2012 NHL All Star Game.
We thought it might have been the end after the
lockout-shortened season of 2012-13, but Selanne came back, announcing that
2013-14 would be his final campaign. It seemed hard to believe, because we’d
heard whispers for years that he wouldn’t come back, only to see him do the
opposite. This time, though, the ‘R’ word (retirement), came from Selanne’s
mouth. They had an edge of finality to them this time.
In his last season, despite being used sparingly by Ducks
coach Bruce Boudreau, Selanne remained an important player, a spiritual leader
in the locker room of a team that was at or near the top of the NHL standings
all season, and certainly a mentor for Anaheim’s prospects.
Sadly, Friday night in Anaheim was the curtain call for a
brilliant player and an even better person. His final season would not end with
the fairy tale we all wanted – another Stanley Cup win – but the farewell from
Kings and Ducks fans and players alike befitted a man who has, in many ways, transcended
a team, to become a legend of the game as a whole.
Anyone who saw Selanne on the tear, a burst of speed, a
quick shot, an exuberant post-goal celebration, will never forget it. He was a
hard guy not to like. If he had any enemies at all in the game, they were
incredibly few and far between. Selanne’s epitaph could well read: A great hockey
player, but a greater man.
Farewell the Finnish Flash, and thanks for the memories!
Hockey won’t be the same without you!
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