Brett Festerling will forever be connected to Prince George because he was born here, but his formative years were spent in Quesnel, where he was raised.
So next June, if the Winnipeg Jets win the Stanley Cup, his date with Cup will probably have to include stops in both cities.
The 25-year-old defenceman signed with the Jets on Tuesday. Terms of the contract were undisclosed. Festerling was traded to the Atlanta Thrashers from Montreal at the March deadline and finished the season in Atlanta. He will move with the rest of the Thrashers team to Winnipeg for the 2011-12 season.
Since turning pro in 2007, Festerling has worn the jerseys of eight different teams, most of which are in the American Hockey League, where he accumulated 42 points in 189 games.
In a three-year NHL career that spans 83 games, all with the Anaheim Ducks, he collected eight points and 33 penalty minutes. On Dec. 31 2010, Festerling's rights were traded to the Montreal Canadiens along with a fifth-round draft pick for forward Maxime Lapierre. Last March, the Canadiens sent Festerling to Atlanta for goalie Drew MacIntyre.
Festerling, a former fifth-overall pick of the Tri-City Americans in 2001, spent the 2010-11 season with three American Hockey League teams, playing for Syracuse, Hamilton and Chicago. He had one game in the NHL last season with Anaheim.
His four-year WHL major junior career starting out with the Tri-City Americans, who drafted him fifth overall in 2001, and he was then traded to the Vancouver Giants, where he played 2 1/2 seasons with the Giants.
Festerling's twin brother Garrett, a left winger, started his junior career in the BCHL with the Vernon Vipers, and later joined the Portland Winterhawks and Regina Pats of the WHL. He's played pro hockey the past four seasons in Germany.
The Festerling brothers' expected arrival on the same day, March 3, 1986, required a visit to Prince George for their mother because, at the time, the hospital in Quesnel was unable to accommodate twin births.
