Return to the Blogosphere, Summer Recap

It’s been over two months since my last post and while there have been some extenuating circumstances, the real reason is that this summer has been extremely boring for a Ducks fan.  Here’s a quick recap:

Jonas Hiller is feeling fine in Switzerland and looking forward to the season

The Ducks traded for and signed Andrew Cogliano, formerly of the Edmonton Oilers

Bob Murray also traded away Andy Sutton to Edmonton for Defenseman and Masterton Award winner Kurtis Foster

… And

Teemu still hasn’t decided…

That’s about it.

Luckily, two Saturdays ago was the Fedorin Cup, the annual charity hockey game held at Anaheim Ice that’s become the unofficial start of the hockey season around these parts. 

Usually a host of current and former Ducks participate and this year was no exception although there were more former Ducks than current ones.  In fact the only player that could be considered a current Duck participating was Teemu; which brings us to the most intriguing news of the event.

Teemu was only scheduled to “appear” at the event.  What that meant we didn’t know.  Would he drop the first puck, referee or just schmooze with the VIP ticketholders?  As it turned out that he decided to play.  Naturally this caused quite a stir among the Ducks’ faithful in the crowd (AKA 99% of the spectators).

There are two ways that this development could be read however.  The first and more commonly held belief is that his knee is feeling up to playing in a charity hockey game, which is only a few (huge) steps away from playing another season.  The second, however is that he isn’t worried about saving his knee for “One More Year” as the chants would suggest. 

“So far, so good. I’ve been skating three weeks now, and I’m really optimistic,” Teemu told the OC Register’s Randy Youngman on the day of the Fedorin Cup, and if he’s optimistic, so am I. 

This season is custom built for a Teemu Selanne Farewell Tour.  From an exhibition game against his Finish team Jokerit, to the NHL Premier in Helsinki, and a return to Winnipeg where his NHL career started with a bang it doesn’t get much more storybook than that.

While we wait for his knee to tell him what the future holds and for him to relay that to us, as SKEleven over at Ducks and Pucks has pointed out, there are only 11/14/31/38 days until training camp/pre-season/Season opener in Helsinki/true home opener in Anaheim.

It’s good to be back in the proverbial saddle and hopefully Teemu feels the same way soon.