Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?

Saku Koivu & Mikko Koivu

Many female Wild fans were saddened to learn that Saku Koivu signed a contract with the Anaheim Ducks. I’m sure many of the male fans are saddened, too, but females will mention the fact that besides being an incredible hockey player, Saku is incredibly hot.*

*I'm making Ryan reconsider his idea of having a female presence on his site, one sentence at a time! I should clarify here that I don’t watch sports for cute guys. I’ve had favorite players who were not attractive. However, I will admit that I consider attractiveness of some players as an added bonus.

Wild fans were looking forward to Saku Koivu joining the team not only because he is a great hockey player with a well-established career, but he’s also the big brother of the Wild’s oft-Captain (and guy with the best name in professional sports), Mikko Koivu. The boys are nine years apart in age, and haven’t had many opportunities to play with each other, and only limited opportunities against each other. Having brothers, I know I’d have a hard time playing against them. I’m competitive enough that I want to win. But I’m sympathetic enough that I wouldn’t want my brothers to lose. A bit of a dilemma, really.

Yet, Saku Koivu chose to take a smaller contract from Anaheim. It seems crazy, since he’s getting older, so the risks of injury being career-ending are greater. He’s not playing with his brother. Moving from the western conference to the eastern conference means he’ll face off against his brother more often. Thinking about the ramifications, though, it makes perfect sense. And Saku thought about it:

“I kind of felt that Minnesota’s Mikko’s place at this point. I wanted him to have his own privacy in a way and make his own name and career. And I just felt there were too many risks for us as brothers and as family members to join on the same team and kind of compete for the same ice time.

“I think Mikko was really excited about the possibility for us playing on the same team and I can’t deny, if you really think about the possibilities and only the positive side, it would have been a pretty exciting thing. But I looked at it in, I guess, a more negative way and I was thinking, ‘what if this happens or what if things won’t work out?’ And right now, we have such a great relationship and I was too afraid to challenge that. You never know what is going to happen. For me, this was a safer option and I felt myself, I felt more comfortable.

“When I spoke to Mikko today, he understood totally. I guess I looked at things as more of an older brother and I wanted to protect him in a way and I felt there were too many risks for me to sign there.”

The risks of playing together included the fact that the Wild have become Mikko’s team. Even though Marian Gaborik was the longest-established player on the team, and even if he had been healthy all year (ha!), it still would’ve been Mikko’s team. From reports, both Brothers Koivu are natural leaders. Things easily could’ve come to a head as the Elder had to submit to the Younger—and perhaps the Younger would have a hard time not acquiescing to the Elder.

But the real issue is what would happen if Saku had a bad year. Presumably, Mikko would be Captain at some point (and if the captaincy isn’t rotating with the loss of Jacques Lemaire, Mikko is a strong candidate to be named Captain). How would the younger brother deal with his leadership role with his older brother struggling (and even vice versa would be a bit of a struggle).

So, while it’s sad that Saku Koivu won’t be playing with his brother in Minnesota, it makes perfect sense. Plus, now his kids are close to DisneyLand. I wonder if he would consider that a good thing, or if he’ll rue that decision.