The news came and went quietly, which is how it goes in September once training camps start eating the headlines. A two-time Stanley Cup champion and 13-year NHL veteran has announced his retirement, per MSN, and just like that the skates go up on the hook for good.

Thirteen years is a long time in this league. For the younger readers, let me put that in perspective. A decade and change in the NHL means you survived all the travel, the morning skates, the healthy scratches, the groin pulls, and the general demolition derby that is a professional hockey season. Most guys don't get anywhere near that long. The league chews players up and spits them out faster than almost any sport in America, and nobody's writing retirement speeches for the ones who flame out early.

And he didn't just survive, he won the whole thing. Twice. Two Stanley Cups with the Tampa Bay Lightning, and that's the part that stays with you forever. Plenty of great players go their whole careers without lifting the Cup even once, and this guy did it two different springs. You pour six weeks of yourself into a playoff furnace and come out with your name on the best trophy in sports, twice. The list of guys who can say that is short, and nobody can ever take it off his resume.

The word "sudden" in the announcement is doing some work too. Usually when a guy in his mid-30s walks away this close to camp, it's the body making the decision, not the mind. We've seen it plenty over the years. The game gets a step faster and you don't, and a proud player would rather leave a year early than stay a year too long. Sometimes it's family. Sometimes it's the neck or the back finally filing the paperwork. Either way, choosing the exit on your own terms is a privilege in this sport, and it sounds like he took it.

I've always appreciated the guys who leave without a farewell tour, no season-long victory lap with gifts from every visiting rink. Most players don't get that kind of goodbye anyway. Most get a Tuesday press release in September and a handshake. That's the sport. The NHL moves on fast, camps open, some 20-year-old takes your stall, and by Thanksgiving you're a trivia answer. Except the trivia answer here includes "two-time Cup champion," which beats just about anybody's.

Here's what I'd tell him, and anybody else who just played their last period. Thirteen years and two Stanley Cups isn't a footnote. It's a career most hockey-mad kids in Moose Jaw or Minnetonka or wherever would trade anything for. The game doesn't owe you a retirement party. It already paid you in the only currency that matters, and that's the years themselves.

Enjoy the first October in a while where the only camp you're attending is your own kitchen, pal. You earned it.