{"id":8377,"date":"2025-07-20T12:17:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T12:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/8377\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T12:17:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T12:17:06","slug":"blake-wheeler-who-once-ruptured-a-testicle-officially-retires-after-16-nhl-seasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/8377\/","title":{"rendered":"Blake Wheeler, Who Once Ruptured A Testicle, Officially Retires After 16 NHL Seasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Right-winger had his best years in Winnipeg, including a pair of back-to-back 91-point seasons<\/p>\n

PublishedJuly 19, 2025 6:39 PM EDT\u2022UpdatedJuly 19, 2025 6:39 PM EDT<\/p>\n

FacebookTwitterEmailCopy Link<\/p>\n

He didn’t sign with an NHL team last season, so there was speculation that he may be hanging them up, but not former Wi<\/a>nnipeg Jets captain Blake Wheeler<\/a> is making it official: he’s retiring.<\/p>\n

Wheeler appeared on an episode of the radio show Jets at Noon this week and revealed that he had decided to call it a career after 16 NHL seasons and 1,172 games played.<\/p>\n

“More or less, right after last year knew I was all done,” Wheeler said, per Global News<\/a>. “I just haven\u2019t felt like a rush to make a formal announcement or anything. But yeah, after my injury and kinda the way things ended last year, I just didn\u2019t have anything left in the tank for it. So yeah, I was at peace with it almost immediately after last year, and yeah, I\u2019m just enjoying being a dad and kinda slowing things down a little bit, and being around my family.”<\/p>\n

Wheeler, a native of Plymouth, Minn., played for the Green Bay Gamblers of the USHL and then played college hockey for the Minnesota Golden Gophers.<\/p>\n

Despite being selected by the Phoenix Coyotes in the 2004 NHL Draft, Wheeler signed with the Boston Bruins as a free agent in 2008. In 2011, he was traded to the Atlanta Thrashers and played the tail end of their season before the team moved to Winnipeg.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

After 16 NHL seasons, Blake Wheeler has officially announced his retirement. (Photo by Andreea Cardani\/NHLI via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Wheeler had his best years in Winnipeg<\/a>, including a pair of back-to-back 91-point seasons, and was named the team’s captain for the 2016-17 season.<\/p>\n

In 2023, he signed with the New York Rangers<\/a>, but missed a chunk of the season with a leg injury. He appeared in one game for the Blueshirts during the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, which proved to be his final NHL game.<\/p>\n

Congrats to Wheeler on a heck of a career. I think he’s going to go down as one of the most underrated Americna-born players. He was on the 2014 Olympic team and was a Hockey Guy’s Hockey Guy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I mean, who could forget when he ruptured a testicle and stayed in the game<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Now that’s peak Hockey Guy-ism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Right-winger had his best years in Winnipeg, including a pair of back-to-back 91-point seasons PublishedJuly 19, 2025 6:39…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-8377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}