"Don't worry Rob, I'll make this right in a few years" Photo Credit: Dave Sandford/Getty Images/NHLI (via SI.com)

This week, Anaheim Calling has been all about the life and times of Teemu Selanne, however today we must take a short break to acknowledge another All-Time Ducks great. Tonight, Scott Niedermayer's number 27 will be raised to the rafters of the Prudential Center in New Jersey.

While I take issue with the fact that this isn't being done on February 17 when the Ducks are in Newark so that both of his clubs could honor him, tonight's tribute is not about his time in Anaheim (quite the contrary actually, for those of us who remember 2003). In that same vein, I'll restrain myself from making the case for the Ducks to match the honor. For the record though, I believe 27 should one day hang alongside 8, 9 and 35 for Sandis Ozolinsh, Bobby Ryan and Mikhail Shtalenkov, of course (Kidding ... you know who I mean).

Continue reading this post »

CHRIS:

Hockey season has been here for nearly two weeks, but the NHL Premier games in Helsinki and Stockholm created a little bit of a void for us Ducks fans. For me, last week felt a little bit like waking up on Christmas morning at two or three AM as a young child. You know that the greatest time of year has arrived, but at the same time you have to wait for a reasonable hour until you can fully enjoy it.

To make matters worse, other games were going on all week which felt like watching the neighbor kids open their bounty of presents through the window while we were waiting for our turn.Then we had three games in four nights (three wins no less) which sufficiently satisfied our urge for Ducks hockey, but it has made way for another three day break.

So, while we wait for the schedule to settle into some sort of rhythm I figured there is time for at least one more offbeat, summer-ish post.

During the long week of de-jetlag-ifying, some former Ducks made the news for better or for worse. Chris Kunitz signed a two-year contract extension with the Pittsburgh Penguins, while unfortunately Andy McDonald was sidelined with another concussion. Naturally, I took note that they were both former Ducks but not only that, they were also two of my favorite former Ducks, which got me thinking. Who are my favorite former Ducks? And thus a blog post is born.

I decided to narrow it down to active players for two reasons. First, to limit my options so that I could actually post within the week and second to eliminate some of the obvious choices, namely Paul Kariya and Scott Niedermayer. Warning: There is a heavy 2003/2007 bias in these choices. What else would you expect?

Continue reading this post »

JEN:

2011 continues to be a year of tragedy for the NHL. This morning, Puck Daddy and several news outlets confirmed the plane crash of a charter jet carrying the KHL team Lokomotiv. The story is still developing; however, Dmitry Chesnokov of Puck Daddy is reporting that the jet was carrying the entire roster plus the flight crew. There are reports of two survivors, a member of the flight crew and one player - Alexander Gaminov. Gaminov is said to be in critical condition, in a medically induced coma, with burns over 80% of his body.

The jet was carrying former Detroit Red Wings assistant coach (Lokomotiv's head coach) Brad McCrimmon, and former NHL players: Karel Rachunek, Karlis Skrastins (with Dallas last season), Josef Vasicek, Alexander Vasyunov (with Devils last season), Pavol Demitra, and former Mighty Duck, Ruslan Salei (with Detroit last season).

Ruslan Salei was a Mighty Duck from 1996 to 2006. Rusty, as he was known to teammates and fans, was a fan favorite for many years. His joyful off ice interactions with fans will never be forgotten. Occasionally during broadcasts, play-by-play announcer John Alhers refers to Honda Center as "The House that Rusty Built". He was that much of an institution in Anaheim. There were rumors last off-season that Rusty would be making a come back in Anaheim for the twilight of his career, but he opted for Detroit instead.

UPDATE: Eric Stephens of the OC Register is reporting Salei's agent confirms Ruslan's brother spoke to the player before he boarded the plane with the team.

UPDATE 2: Ducks issue statement on the passing of Ruslan Salei.

As a tribute to Ruslan, please post your memories of him in the thread. The best way to memorialize someone we lost is to celebrate the memories we have.

Gone are the days of the eggplant, mint green and white jerseys with the Mighty Duck crest; only to be replaced by the black, white, gold, and (dead Muppet) orange with the web-print D. Many Ducks fans came to the franchise post-lockout while the team was still wearing the original jerseys. It was around that time GM Brian Burke used the Mighty Ducks' second overall pick in the draft to take a kid out of Cherry Hill, New Jersey named Bobby Ryan.

Throughout his young hockey career, Ryan had worn the #9 on the back of his jersey; however, under Burke, all rookies playing with the big club would be relegated to higher jersey numbers until the GM (and coach) felt that the young player had earned his spot. Once landing with the Ducks, Ryan wore #54 until he was given the blessing to change his jersey to his regular #9. For long time Ducks' fans, the sight of a new #9, one that hadn't been worn since 2003, brought back memories of the one who wore it first - Anaheim's prodigal son, Paul Kariya.

Kariya officially retired last week, leading many Ducks' fans to debate whether his jersey should be retired by the franchise he helped to build, but would later leave. So Arthur, Daniel, and Earl, should Kariya's #9 jersey be retired or not?

Continue reading this post »

JEN:

To me, it's ironic that Jaromir Jagr would seemingly declare his intentions to return to the game on the day that Paul Kariya would announce his retirement. My very first Mighty Ducks game was versus the Penguins in 1996. Aside from the atmosphere that night, the two biggest things that made an impact on me were Jagr's mullet and Paul Kariya.

For a group of hockey fans that are claimed to be apathetic about their team, you'll never find one issue that riles up the emotions of Ducks' fans more than the legacy of Paul Kariya in Anaheim. If you've read what I've written before, it's no secret that I've been angry for years. I remember picking up The Orange County Register the day Teemu and Paul signed with the Avalanche. It was like seeing your ex-boyfriend with his new girlfriend - and they were engaged. (Brings back the nausea just thinking about it.) For Christmas that year, my parents bought me tickets to Mighty Ducks vs. Avs, just so I could "boo". I proceeded to go to every single game that brought PK back to Anaheim and "boo". It was my therapy.

The day he left Anaheim, I was upset, angry, and confused. Why would our captain - the face of our franchise - leave? As the years went by, I slowly started to accept that it was much more than Paul Kariya's desire to win a championship with his best buddy, but a royal screw up by management and the owners. I can only imagine how the Ducks would have looked if the Samueli's bought the team earlier and Brian Burke was the General Manager.

I found out about Paul Kariya's announcement while I was at lunch. For the most part, I could see this coming, but I still found myself numb while reading through The Globe & Mail article. I knew that I'd have to write about it, but I didn't know where to start. As I scrolled through the numerous tweets coming through reflecting on Kariya's career, one struck me as perfect. Our very own Battle of California Ducks' blogger, Earl Sleek tweeted:

"If it weren't for Paul Kariya, I wouldn't be a Ducks fan today -- maybe not even a hockey fan..."

As much as I was personally hurt by Paul Kariya leaving Anaheim, I failed to realize how much he really impacted my life. Paul Kariya made me fall in love with hockey. I guarantee you that I would not be writing for this blog today, had it not been for Paul Kariya captivating my interest in that very first game.

When he and Teemu Selanne were manning the best Power Play in the league, you didn't just expect them to score, you knew - without a single doubt - they were going to. Some of the goals they scored together left you doing this, "Go! Teemu to Paul! Wait! What?!? He scored?? It was so fast! I didn't see it!" While Getzlaf, Perry, and Ryan have size and some speed, they are nothing compared to Paul and Teemu in their prime. Those two were absolutely lights out.

Unlike Teemu, Paul was aloof. He never did pre-game or in between period interviews. He was hard to get autographs from or engage in conversation. I'll never forget reading that his father died of a sudden heart attack during the season. Instead of going home to attend the funeral, Kariya wanted to stay with the team and focus on the game at hand. If it was my dad, I would barely be able to function, let alone play a hockey game. Yet, this is just who Paul Kariya was. Some (including myself) perceived his behavior as arrogance. It wasn't until after he was gone that I finally realized this was Kariya's way of dealing with the spotlight he was thrust into.

Paul Kariya's was the very first hockey jersey I ever received. I watched Mighty Ducks 3 over and over because he was in it. He beat out some rookie named Derek Jeter for my very first sports star crush. (The stories I have from when I was a pre-teen/teenager and my love for Paul Kariya would probably scare you.) While he hasn't been on my team for years, I still feel a bit of sadness that his career ended the way it did. I was beginning to warm up to the idea of him in a new Ducks' sweater and seeing what he could still do with Teemu.

It's hard to think of a closing when your reason for doing what you love decides to bow out. So, I'll make it short. Thanks, Paul Kariya. Without you, I wouldn't be me.

DANIEL:
I think everyone who reads Anaheim Calling knows that I am a huge fan of Paul Kariya. I was holding out high hopes that taking a year off would do him well, and that Selanne would show him the location of the Fountain of Youth, so we could all see the old magic one last time. I wanted to be a better hockey fan, so that I could truly appreciate the brilliance of Kariya. That was what I hoped for this offseason, to have vibrant memories of Kariya and Selanne, the way my father remembers Koufax and Drysdale.

In the late 1990s there was nothing more terrifying than Kariya coming down the left wing with speed. If he was allowed to cut across the crease on the backhand, anything could happen. He was so skilled with the puck that Selanne could go anywhere he wanted, wait for the puck, and shoot the lights out. He was everything a skilled hockey player should be: fast, agile, patient with the puck, a phenomenal passer with a deceptive shot. He used to work the point with Fredrick Olausson on one of the best Power Plays in the league.

He'll walk away as a point per game player for his career, but no one will remember that.

They will remember concussions, lots of them, from Gary Suter, Scott Stevens, Patrick Kaleta and others. Reading the article in the Globe and Mail made my sympathize with Kariya in a way I never had before. It's true that we are oblivious to the full impacts of concussions on athletes. One more bad hit could have turned Kariya into Muhammad Ali, and that is painful to think about.

I am probably one of the few fans who can sincerely say that he was never angry at Kariya when he left for Colorado. I was upset at the first holdout, but I had yet to read any Marx then. My first thought when Bryan Murray made him a free agent was, "What the hell are you thinking?" Kariya endured so much playing in Anaheim. No one went after Gary Suter. He always played hard when he was here, and for a few years, he was the only legitimate star on a team that was a Disney-owned joke. His reward for over a decade of loyal service was ridicule at the hands of a fan base that probably never appreciated how talented he really was.

Kariya is a Hall of Fame player. I'll never forget jumping off my couch when he scored that goal in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals. He deserved better than he got, and I'm very sad that he could never get that last year with the Ducks that Selanne offered. He was a Duck, through and through. I always believed that the fans' irrational hate is what kept him away. I'm confident that he always wanted to come back, and he needs to be welcomed back in some capacity by Bob Murray.

Every time we talk about retiring jersey numbers, I think of something Arthur said "When you close your eyes and think of a player, what jersey is he wearing?" Every time I close my eyes, I see Kariya in a Mighty Ducks Jersey. The organization needs to do the right thing and retire his 9. Bobby wears it now, and he can be the last one to wear it, because it is Kariya's. If it wasn't for Kariya, this organization would be long gone. I'm sorry I never got to welcome you back, Paul. You are one of the greatest to ever wear a Ducks jersey and now that it's over, everyone will remember how much they loved you when you played here.

Paul Kariya Retires

ARTHUR:
In The Tenth Inning, Ken Burns' recent addendum to his Baseball documentary, a sportswriter compares his relationship with the lovable-loser Red Sox to the relationship he shares with his kids. At the end of the day, they won't love him and respect him for the awards he won and the accolades he amassed, but just for the time they spent with him, the moments that make up that relationship, both fulfilling and disappointing.

And that is the relationship we all share with a bad team, sometimes a bad franchise. We mark time through them, but not in a negative way-- not unless we insist upon it.

Through seemingly interminable seasons of so-so Ducks teams, many fans marked time through Paul Kariya. The Kariya-Selanne show was reason, in and of itself, to show up at the Pond. You just never knew what they were going to do, but you knew you were going to see some s*** you've never seen before. The Dynamic Duo made the seasons worthwhile, as the team built (and sometimes rebuilt) toward the playoffs.

My own time as a fan is easily marked through Paul Kariya. When I first started watching hockey, he was the main event of the NCAA ranks. I still have not seen a better college player. Through the Dead Puck era, he and Selanne gave me a reason not to do homework in high school. In college, when the Ducks made their run to the Stanley Cup Finals, I called in sick to one of my three jobs to sit in front of the television. After the latest Lockout, when the rules would supposedly bring offense back to the ice, Kariya found 85 points (in Nashville, of all places), and got me to turn hockey back on, despite a rather busy first year in law school.

For any sports fan, there is some player career hero or team that marks the times of their life; Kariya just happens to be mine. Paul Kariya's battles with concussions, through a series of independently reprehensible incidents, became the story of his career. Still, it's not without some shock that I approach the announcement of his retirement. Perhaps, in Doc Emrick's call: Off the floor, on the board, Paul Kariya!!!, I began to wonder if headshots had any effect on number 9. You could apparently damage his brain quite severely, but the part that knew how to play hockey would continue unharmed.

A Gretzky fan once told me that he had a hard time accepting Gretzky in a suit, if only because it reminded him of his age, the fact that he no longer lived in a time when he could turn on a television and see The Great One swinging a hockey stick. I have no idea how that guy marks time now; I'm tempted to call him and ask.

DANIEL:
I know it's been a minute, Paul, but The Hockey News' Rory Boylen's musings about the return of Peter Forsberg got me wondering what you've been up to. I remember you saying you'd like to take a year off to rest from concussion symptoms. I also know that your time in Anaheim is primarily responsible for your time now. Who could forget this cheap shot from Chicago's Gary Suter that went unavenged. I wanted to take this time to apologize for all the undeserved treatment you've gotten since you left. However, Arthur has done good work trying to stand by the facts of the situation. I'd like to take this opportunity to convince you to come back.

Continue reading this post »