from George Richards of On Frozen Pond,

Jovanovski underwent hip surgery in April after radical treatments in Germany didn't help with the pain. On Thursday morning, five months after being operated on, Jovanovski -- who turned 37 in June -- was back on the ice with his teammates for the first day of training camp.

Just being suited up and participating on the opening day of camp seemed out of the question to Jovanovski a few months ago.

"It's been a long summer,'' he said. "You always have those doubts, I would be lying if I said I didn't. I had a major surgery done, I had no options. I'm happy where it is right now, my quality of life is much better.''

Now, however, the battle for Jovanovski is to see if he can get back to game speed and help the Panthers on the ice.

"I'm skating right now and it's pretty much pain free,'' Jovanovski said. "But that's skating where pretty much everything is controlled. Getting into a game-like situation, we'll see what happens.

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