Teemu Selänne and Radko Gudas met gently in 1992 and violently in 2013.
Radko Gudas joined the Anaheim Ducks for this season. AOP / USA Today Sports
The NHL club Anaheim Ducks dug out a funny picture of the club’s former and current star player from the archives.
What makes the picture special is that the second puck hero is a small toddler in the picture.
In the picture, the scrappy defenseman of the Ducks crew Radko Gudas is watching Leo-on his father’s lap who played in the opposing team Teemu Selänetta. The photo was taken in the spring of 1992, when Jokerit has just beaten JyP HT in the spring playoff match.
The club did not publish the picture by chance. 20 years after the photo was taken, Selänne became closer acquainted with the little boy in the puck rink.
Leo Gudas, who played in Jyväskylä for two seasons, was one of the star players of the club that reached the final. Leo Gudas, who won a bronze medal in the Czech national team at both the World Championships and the Olympics, nailed his boots in the spring of 2003.
The Radko boy debuted in the NHL ten seasons later. The Czech player who played in the ranks of the Tampa Bay Lightning immediately gained attention in the early stages of his career with his hard playing style.
Even Selänne, one of the biggest stars of that period, got to experience it.
Gudas and Selänne, who played his last season in the NHL, were on a collision course almost exactly ten years ago.
Gudas rolled Selänte to the surface of the ice with a powerful but clean tackle.
Selänne was one of the first, but by no means the last, NHL players to fall under Gudas’s whirlwind. This season, Gudas has been sharing some work in the Ducks jersey. In 19 matches of the season, the Czech pack has scored 3+3.
In his career, Selänne focused on scoring goals instead of tackles. In 1,451 regular season matches, a whopping 684 goals and 773 assists were scored. Selänne celebrated the Stanley Cup with the Ducks in the spring of 2007.