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Like so many who’ve gone before him, Jannik Hansen can’t pinpoint the exact moment it happened.

He just knows it’s happened.

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One moment, his only worry is his game, and his place in the lineup. The next moment he’s bringing his kids to the rink. One moment he’s fighting for his career. The next he’s starting his 10th year in the NHL.

One moment he’s a wide-eyed rookie measuring himself against the veterans in the Canucks locker-room. The next, he realizes he’s one of those veterans the wide-eyed rookies measure themselves against in the Canucks locker-room.

“I can tell you, the first couple of years didn’t go by very quickly,” Hansen says during a quiet moment. “You’re always worried about getting sent down. But the last couple of years have flown by. All of a sudden you’re not 25 anymore. You’re 30 and things change.”

And changed in the way you couldn’t imagine when this journey started.

Looking at Hansen now, it’s hard to reconcile the accomplished pro with the greener-than-grass teenager who first landed in North America by way of Denmark almost 12 years ago. But, against staggering odds, he’s become a fixture on the Canucks, a dependable two-way forward who’s carved out a place in franchise lore.