Teemu Selanne had just been traded out of Winnipeg, a city he adored, in what most people now regard as one of the worst deals in hockey history. He caught up with his new team on Long Island, midway through an East Coast road trip, and was told his roommate would be a 22-year-old from North Vancouver named Paul Kariya.
Kariya ran a tight operation. He was the sort of athlete who had taught himself to juggle on the theory that it would sharpen his hands, and as The Globe and Mail recounted, he informed Selanne that lights went out at 10 p.m. so he could get his nine hours and be up at exactly seven.
Selanne had a counter-proposal, and it was a work of art.
They were playing for the Mighty Ducks, he pointed out. A California team. Surely the responsible thing was to stay up until one in the morning so their bodies remained on California time.
What were Selanne and Kariya like as teammates?
Kariya liked to read before bed. Selanne wanted to watch Baywatch. Kariya was among the most fastidious professionals of his generation, paying close attention to training and nutrition at a time when the sport largely ignored both. Selanne was the easygoing natural talent who had scored 76 goals as a rookie and never seemed to treat any of it as work.
READ MORE: Teemu Selanne’s GM gave him a bizarre warning at 47 goals
Kariya won the lights-out argument. What he didn’t win was any sleep. The two lay in the dark long past midnight while Selanne periodically broke the silence to ask his new roommate what he thought of various women who had been on television earlier.
The partnership worked out rather better on the ice. The two played 308 games together in Anaheim and combined for 783 points, accounting for roughly 35 percent of the team’s goals across six seasons, and they entered the Hockey Hall of Fame together in 2017. They told this story themselves at a private gathering for family and friends in Toronto on the eve of the ceremony, and by all accounts it brought the house down.
Read more:
