The Almighty Duck

"I'm a bus driver, not a passenger." -- Teemu Selanne

He is weaving through the streets of Anaheim behind the wheel of a black 2004 Mercedes CL600 not a bus, although Teemu Selanne does happen to have a bus back home in Helsinki among his muscle cars and limousine and 20 or so other vehicles. (When you have that many, you really do need to approximate.) At this moment, last Saturday afternoon, 40 hours after the Mighty Ducks closed out the Colorado Avalanche to reach the Western Conference finals, he is speaking figuratively. The point of the bus-driver metaphor--and there is almost a point a night in Selanne's world--is that if he could not dance on skates and fill the nets and be a world-class player, he would quit. � On Selanne's lips is the nearly omnipresent jack-o'-lantern smile, shy two teeth since he took a stick in the mouth from Team USA defenseman Derian Hatcher during the Turin Olympics in February. On the CD player is a Finnish version of House of the Rising Sun, only with more backbeat. Selanne is driving to a local rink to see two of his sons, Eemil and Eetu, play a youth-league game for the Sea Bass--what is it with Southern California hockey teams and names?--and when he arrives, he returns every greeting and autographs every jersey and creates the kind of happy stir that Emeril Lagasse might if he dropped in at a potluck supper.

Leaving a Ducks off-ice workout 10 minutes earlier, he had made a left out of the Arrowhead Pond lot. Then a right, a left, then another right-left combination. These streets have long since been recorded in the MapQuest of his mind. Even after Anaheim exiled him to San Jose in 2001 (he was traded for goaltender Steve Shields and winger Jeff Friesen), Selanne never left town. He kept his house in Orange County. He kept his close friendships, especially with former linemate Paul Kariya, who is now a Nashville Predator.

There are a few players who belong to a franchise and a city no matter which sweaters they might be wearing: Like Luc Robitaille and Los Angeles or Trevor Linden and Vancouver, Selanne and Anaheim are a team. If it looks like a Duck and acts like a Duck, it probably is a Mighty Duck--even when it is moonlighting as a Shark or, for one disastrous season (2003-04), as an Avalanche. As Selanne's wife, Sirpa, says when Teemu wanders off to help the boys lace up their skates, "This feels like home."

The place is familiar. The only uncharted territory for Selanne is the third round of the playoffs. In 13 seasons, nine of which he has been an All-Star, he has never gone this deep. "This is a dream come true, and I'm trying to enjoy every moment," he says as he watches his boys. "Since New Year's we haven't faced a better team than us. There wasn't one team that, even after a loss, we could say we had no chance against. We have a shot. It's in our own hands."

If he did not delight more in vaunting his teammates' successes than his own--Selanne likened Joffrey Lupul's four goals in Game 3 against the Avalanche to all the ketchup escaping the bottle in a single splat--he might note that his own hands have been remarkably capable. He scored the Game 7 series-clincher against Calgary in the first round and did it again last Thursday in the sweep of Colorado with a slick, almost smart-aleck, goal that came straight out of Selanne's hockey DNA. Early in the second period of Game 4, with the Avalanche still feigning interest in extending the series, Selanne flew down the right flank to take a pass near the half boards, faked a slap shot that froze Jos� Th�odore, took another powerful stride toward the goal line and, from an acute angle, fired the puck at Th�odore's pads, banking it off the goalie's right leg and into the net. That goal, his team-leading 10th point of this year's playoffs, had it all: creativity, audacity and speed. Mostly speed.

Selanne could not have burst into the offensive zone so swiftly if he had not submitted to reconstructive surgery on his deteriorating left knee in September 2004. He had undergone annual stopgap 'scopes for four years, and the surgery was the unhappy exclamation point on what was supposed to have been a fabulous once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Selanne and Kariya. In the final throes of the pre-salary-cap NHL, they Butch-and-Sundanced their way to Colorado, signing in tandem a $7 million, one-year package deal. Selanne might have needed two hands to count his money--he was making $5.8 million--but with only one functioning leg he scored a career-low 16 goals, none in the playoffs. Selanne looked long in the tooth, even before he lost them. During the Avalanche series last week when asked about that nightmarish season, Selanne replied, "That wasn't me. That was my twin."

(He actually does have a twin, Paavo, who teaches wood shop at a school in Finland. "He used to be a goalie as a kid, but I took all his confidence," Selanne explains. "He thought he sucked.")

In the stands Selanne points to his left thigh. "Before [the operation] it was more than three inches smaller than my right," he says. "No power. It was tough driving to the rink knowing that when you stepped on the ice, every stride would hurt. After the [September 2004] World Cup, I knew there was no way I could play this [low] level again. With all respect for third- and fourth-line players, that's not me. I'd rather play golf. There were a lot of people saying very loudly that this guy is done. It bothered me a little because they didn't know. After the surgery I was so pumped about coming back. After the rehab, when I realized this knee was going to be as good as the other, I wanted to prove myself."

Brian Burke, the new Anaheim general manager, cautiously repatriated the 35-year-old rightwinger, offering a one-year, $1 million deal. If Selanne could score 16 goals "in a messed-up situation" in Colorado, Burke reasoned, he could be slightly more productive for the Mighty Ducks, a moderate gamble as long as Selanne was willing to play diligently at both ends of the ice. Burke thought 20 goals was realistic, $50,000 a pop. Instead Selanne, the rare player in his 30s who actually benefitted from the lockout, scored a team-high 40 (and added 50 assists), the first time in five seasons he had reached that standard. (From 1996-97 through '99-2000 he averaged 46 goals a year; his 76 as a Winnipeg Jets rookie in '92-93 remains an NHL record.) Selanne became the seventh European in NHL history to reach 1,000 points. He also forechecked and backchecked and made every day in the dressing room feel like Christmas morning. "Teemu doesn't have bad days," Burke says. "When he comes to the rink, it's a good day. Doesn't matter if we won or lost the night before. Enthusiasm is an important attribute on any team, and he's brought that big time."