Anaheim Mighty Ducks Hockey Team

Add another chapter to the Ducks' book of moves that backfired. Believing they had added depth at center for the stretch drive and the playoffs, the Ducks were left empty-handed after a trade with the Vancouver Canucks was voided Wednesday. Peter Zezel, obtained for a late-round draft pick only hours before Tuesday's noon deadline, refused to report to the Ducks because he wished to be by the side of his terminally ill 3-year-old niece in Toronto.

As a youngster, Paul Kariya and his family used to gather around the television set to watch the NHL All-Star game. "That was a big deal," he said. By the age of 12 or 13, "I used to practice my signature," he said--hoping against hope that someday somebody would ask for it. On Saturday, Kariya will start in the All-Star game in Boston alongside his boyhood idol, Wayne Gretzky, and the crush to get the autograph Kariya practiced so carefully will be like never before.

One is "the Finnish Flash," the other is simply a blur. Step away from the ice, away from the crowds, the skates, sticks and pucks and you will find two very different people. The only thing Teemu Selanne and Paul Kariya of the Mighty Ducks have in common is an uncommon grace in an often brutal game. "Teemu is so easygoing," said Colorado Avalanche winger Warren Rychel, a former Duck. "Paul is so focused, you can't talk to him sometimes. "But when they get on the ice, it's like magic."

John Muckler remembers the woman and her broomstick most of all. Tim Moriarty can't forget the arena's awful aroma, the chicken wire and the fights. The Long Island Ducks are long gone, buried by 20 years of NHL success on the island and the rise of a new breed of Duck in Anaheim, but they live on in the memories of Muckler, Moriarty and others. Only a handful mourned the Long Island Ducks' passing after 14 wild and crazy years from 1959 to 1973 in the Eastern Hockey League.

When we last saw Mighty Duck captain Paul Kariya in a regular-season game at the Arrowhead Pond, his arms were raised in celebration after scoring his second goal of the game Feb. 1 against the Chicago Blackhawks. A nanosecond later, he was on his backside, screaming at Blackhawk defenseman Gary Suter, "What the . . . was that?" Kariya missed last season's final 28 games because of post-concussion syndrome caused by Suter's cross-check to his jaw.

From the NHL's debut in 1917, when Georges Vezina came out of the northern Quebec town of Chicoutimi and earned the nickname "the Chicoutimi Cucumber" for his coolness under siege, goaltenders from the Canadian province of Quebec have been well represented among the top players in the league. Jacques Plante of Shawinigan Falls, a town between Montreal and Quebec City, became synonymous with goaltending in the 1950s and became the first goalie to regularly wear a mask.

Bobby Brett, brother of Hall of Famer George Brett, spoke this week with a representative of an investment group pursuing the Angels and Mighty Ducks. While the brothers would be interested in making a minority investment and operating the teams, Bobby Brett said Wednesday such discussion would be pointless until--and unless--Broadcom Corp. co-founders Henry T. Nicholas III and Henry Samueli can find majority investors for a purchase that will likely exceed $400 million.

Joe Aranda walked into his downtown Los Angeles office one day this spring, proudly wearing a tie adorned with the logo of his beloved Mighty Ducks. "Oh, look," said a curious co-worker. "A hockey chicken!" Dr. Michael Papadopoulos leaned over a dental patient in his Torrance office recently and told the cute story of his young daughter's affection for the Ducks' talented rookie Stanislav Chistov. "Who?" asked the patient.

David McNab, Mighty Duck assistant general manager, makes his opinion on Frank Banham quite clear. "If anyone had told me two years ago that I would be in an organization that was interested in Frank Banham, I would have laughed at them," McNab said. Yet there was McNab Wednesday, not a grin in sight, talking about Banham as a Duck prospect. Banham spent the last week huffing and puffing around the ice with the Mighty Ducks.

It is a splendid summer day in Finland and Teemu Selanne, wearing olive green shorts and a polo shirt with a Mighty Ducks logo, is talking about his cars. And so, it seems, is everyone else. Selanne opens a Finnish tabloid-style newspaper and shows a picture of a Toyota Corolla with a smashed front end. It is Selanne's car, the one he crashed four days earlier while practicing his second favorite sport, rally car racing.

vs. Phoenix, 5 p.m., FSN Prime Site -- Honda Center. Radio -- 830. Records -- Ducks (0-1), Coyotes (1-0). Record vs. Phoenix (2007-08) -- 3-1-4. Update -- Phoenix acquired Finnish center Olli Jokinen in an off-season trade with Florida and he paid dividends in the season opener Saturday night, producing a goal and an assist in a 3-1 victory over the visiting Columbus Blue Jackets. The Coyotes are also expecting big things from second-year forward Peter Mueller, who also scored against Columbus.

There is no need to find space in the Honda Center rafters to put up another Pacific Division champions banner for the Ducks. The San Jose Sharks will happily address that in their own arena. The late-season surge by the Sharks continued Friday night, and it has culminated in their first division title since 2004. Jeremy Roenick and Curtis Brown ended a second-period tie with goals in a 3-1 victory over the Ducks. And so the Ducks' yearlong reign as division champions ended.

Music wasn't blaring in the dressing room and the playful banter was nonexistent. Smiles were few and far between. A practice session ahead of a travel day for the Ducks is usually short and to the point. But Tuesday's session went a full 75 minutes with Coach Randy Carlyle poring over detail after detail.

ATLANTA -- Until this weekend, Kings forward Anze Kopitar thought of Ducks forwards Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf as enemies. After sitting beside them in the West All-Stars' locker room this weekend, Kopitar gained a new appreciation for his rivals. "We actually became good friends," he said Sunday. "It doesn't really matter if we're Kings and Ducks. They're good guys off the ice. On the ice that's the job and we kind of have to maybe hate each other, but now we can respect each other."

Ted Purcell has been with the Kings for a little more than a week but there are some in the organization who believe they've unearthed a gem. Purcell has yet to score a goal in his four games with the parent club, but the University of Maine product led the American Hockey League in scoring with 53 points before his call-up from the Kings' affiliate in Manchester, N.H. "He's a good player," Kings Coach Marc Crawford said.

CALGARY, Canada -- Name the quickest way to watch a tie score in the third period -- and thus, a four-game winning streak -- evaporate into the Alberta, well, Saddledome, air on Saturday night. The answer: Four straight power plays, plus part of one that carried over from the second period.

CALGARY, Canada -- How does a coach respond to a game in which his team spiraled downward physically and emotionally? Naturally, the thing to do would be to bring the hammer down with a grinding, seemingly never-ending practice. Except Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle has already done that this season. So he took the other route Wednesday in response to his team's 4-0 loss to Vancouver. "It was their practice today," Carlyle said. "Not hands-off. Just let them do their thing."

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Try as they might to convince themselves that they're not feeling the effects of an unprecedented trip to open the season, the Ducks didn't put forth an convincing argument Friday night. Looking as if they were skating around in slush rather than ice, the Ducks were inept throughout as the Columbus Blue Jackets rolled to a 4-0 victory at Nationwide Arena.

The date Sept. 18, 2006, doesn't register in the annals of the Ducks but Bobby Ryan vividly remembers that night. "We got slaughtered," Ryan recalled Wednesday. "It was a bad showing by everybody on the ice." The Ducks' 7-1 exhibition loss to the Kings is long forgotten by most. But it was a low light in training camp for Ryan, the prized prospect who spent most of the night being knocked off his feet.

Scott Niedermayer met with Ducks General Manager Brian Burke on Wednesday, but the only thing that was certain afterward is that the former Norris Trophy winner will not be at training camp as the team prepares to defend the Stanley Cup. Still undecided is whether he will end his storied career. Niedermayer told The Times that he doesn't expect to be at Anaheim Ice on Tuesday for the start of camp, but that he also is not sure if he is done with hockey.