Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

SI's Muir: Teemu Selanne bio-pic to premiere in Finland

09/24/2013 at 3:15pm EDT

It's somewhat difficult to explain to North Americans how much of a rock star Teemu Selanne is back home in Finland. If someone attempts to at least peruse Finnish sports websites on a semi-regular basis, every point the man registers, every hit, every promotional appearance, every time the man goes golfing or plays tennis in the summer, it's on the front pages of Iltahleti, Ilta Sanomat, Helsingin Sanomat, MTV3.fi...The amount of coverage the man receives makes the height of David Beckham mania look tame by comparison.

Selanne is far and away the biggest figure in Finnish sporting history, and it comes as little surprise that SI's Allan Muir reports that a Finnish-language bio-pic of Selanne, "Sel8anne," will hit theatres (in Finland) soon:

[T]he life of the Finnish Flash has been given the big budget documentary treatment, but the film is only being released in his native land. For now, anyway.

“I have been asked a couple of years now about doing this film, but until now I have answered that I don’t have the time for this kind of project and I’m not sure I want to part of a project this magnitude,” Selanne told Finnish website mtv3.fi last year. “But the [Jari Litmanen, a Finnish soccer legend] documentary gave me courage that maybe I could do a movie, too.”

“We’re going quite deep,” he said. “The story has to be honest and right, otherwise it’s not worth it.”

Director JP Siili promised the movie will go well beyond the highlights. “As a hockey fan, I want to see a lot of great goals and passes, too” Siili said. “But I’m interested in the anatomy of the superstar, to go under the skin with the viewer. To show who Teemu really is as a person, how he became what he is today, what experiences he’s had with wins and losses, sacrifices and learning experiences and what will he take from all this after his career.”

Here's a video clip previewing the film, and it happens to have English subtitles:

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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