First, a bit of pre-history. It's really all about Blades of Steel (play a halfway decent version here). My dad and I would play for hours on end, letting the NES controller jam its hard little corners into our sweaty palms. Surely there were some Oedipal overtones in my trying to draw my father into fights, but I won't examine that too deeply right now...
I usually played as Toronto because I liked the blue players, and my dad was usually New York. So many fights. So many zamboni interludes. So many angry goalies pounding the ice like an 8-bit King Kong.
Also, there was some dude named Gretzky playing up the road in LA. Apparently that was a big deal or something.
And so it was that the NES and grainy telecasts of Kings games spurred me into wanting to play hockey. I took one skating lesson that resulted in my falling and breaking my wrist after about 5 minutes on the ice.
With playing hockey ceasing to be an option, I was left with a renewed passion for the game and an irrational fear of slick, hard surfaces.
~Fast forward a couple more years~
Disney made a hockey movie. My mom took me to see it, and it was pretty good. Not only did the good guys win, but they did so with an awesome Triple Deke. Realism be damned - how can you not love that?
Then, next thing you know, the Mighty Ducks were going to be a real hockey team. And not a team of misfit kids led by a washed-up lawyer. Like, an actual team. A hockey team that would play hockey in Orange County. Wham, bam, thank you Disney.
Coincidentally, the company that my dad was working for at the time was intrigued by the new arena in Anaheim and went in on a suite with a few other companies. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you create a Ducks fan. My impressionable little mind made its decision right then and there at the very first game I attended: Wild Wing was awesome, and so was the team. Paul Kariya! Guy Hebert! Oleg Tverdovsky! A bunch of other guys with awesome names!
I was an instant die-hard. My commemorative Inaugural Season puck, bought at that very first game (#5869 of 9394, by the way) remains a cherished possession, fresh and clean in its original package. And yet, I was young enough at the start that the attraction was at least as much about being able to throw peanut shells on the floor as it was about the game itself.
One man changed that. Teemu Selanne.
Allow me to repeat that.
TEEMU SELANNE.
This guy right here. This is the guy.
To this day, I couldn't tell you exactly what it is about him that I found so magnetic, but there you have it. From the moment he became a Mighty Duck, I was myself unable to take my eyes off him. If he was on the ice, so was the entirety of my attention.
Teemu Selanne.
Oh, sure. There were and are and surely will be plenty of other luminaries to don a (Mighty) Ducks sweater, and each of them has added their own special spice to the OC hockey gumbo.
That's part of what makes the Ducks so... unique. Even after all the wins, after all the big names and personalities to arrive (some of whom stayed, some not so much *coughFedorovcough*), and after an especially good offseason in 2007, we somehow remain a footnote. We aren't a love-us-or-hate-us team like so many other upper-echelon teams are. We're more of the love-us-or-forget-we-exist option. As a local, and as a Day-1 fan, it's fascinating to watch my team get overlooked with such shocking regularity. Hell, even the NHL's own "30-in-30" piece on the Ducks alluded to their inability to get the respect they deserve.
Up or down, winning or losing, the Ducks will be respected here.
"So, what's this blog gonna be about, anyways?"
Good question, faithful reader. In addition to the occasional worship at the altars of Selanne, Niedermeyer, Parros (yeah, that's right - I'm a 'stache fan) and the rest of the core that makes us so freakin' fantastic, you can come here for a Duck fan's perspective on as many of our 8 preseason, 82 regular season, and 16 postseason* games as my fingers will allow. This promises to be an outstanding year of hockey here in Anaheim, and as soon as that first puck drops on September 16, I'll be here to tell you what I see.
There will also be plenty of Shark-bashing and Red Wing-hating. You've been warned.
Until next time...
-The Raving Duck
*Yes, I just predicted a loss-free run to the Cup. So sue me. I'm an optimist.
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