Parts from a Selänne article/interview

The article/interview was 4 pages long so I'm not gonna put the whole story here (lazy...) but I translated parts of it - the ones that amused me and the ones that I thought might be interesting. I'd love to give a link to the original story but it was in paper version so I don't have one but here's a link to the net site of the news paper. (The parts are in the same order than in the original text)

This kultapoju, Golden Boy. That's the title the city of Winnipeg granted to Teemu in 1993, when Winnipeg Jets’ golden boy had broken league and team records during his first NHL season.

Golden Boy is not just any title. It's named after the most famous landmark in Winnipeg, which is over 5 meter tall golden Golden boy statue on the roof of parliament house of Manitoba province. There's a song of the statue which chorus goes:

He’s the symbol of success

At the gateway to the west

And he’s our legendary pride and joy.

That fits well to Teemu Selänne.

And now the Anaheim Ducks coach Randy Carlyle yells in the hall of Honda Center arena in clear Finnish: "Poika! Poika!"

Then he changes into English."Do you know what "poika" means?" Carlyle asks from the Californian hockey journalists, who gather around him.

"Something eatable?"

"It's boy in Finnish."

"Jumalauta"*

"Helvetti. Perkele"*

"Hunajata, hunajata, hunajata"**

It's Anaheim Ducks Swedish defenseman Andreas Lilja showing off his Finnish knowledge in the locker room and Lubomir Visnovsky, who sits next to him, follows the example:

"Down", Visnovsky yells in Finnish and points up.

"Up", Visnovsky yells in Finnish and points down.

Defenseman Toni Lydman grins: "And we're supposed to work with these guys..."

                                                                                  * * *

"I've went year by year, with the attitude that every season is the last one"

There have been so many last seasons that the golden boy is already over 40.

"It feels. Big problem is to be able to recover. That you would feel normal every day. In my age it takes damn much everything."

                                                                                  * * *

When you're over 40, talent and speed aren't enough. You'll get nothing with just skills.

"One must rest. If the boys for example want to go bike, I have to say that I can't because we have game tomorrow. If the kids want to go to Disneyland, I can't go there to walk. We have to figure out something else, like movie."

"Same thing was with food when I was younger: main thing was that the tummy was stuffed. It didn't matter if it was fastfood, as long as it was food. Now my food must be well-balanced and right, basic foods."

                                                                                  * * *

"If things don't work, I must figure out something else, but why retire, if you still enjoy the game?"

                                                                                  * * *

Couple of thoughts:

• There seem to be very good team spirit among Ducks and they apparently are fun bunch of people.
  
• Selänne is totally gonna play next season
• Swedes have to use our swearing words because theirs suck... :P
  
• Koivu might be brainwashing them to become TPS fans

* Finnish swearing words

**Honey, honey, honey (likely refers to a horrible goal song of a Finnish hockey team TPS - Koivu's team)