Kukla's Korner Hockey
Wings A Huge Attraction In Sweden
by Paul on 09/29/09 at 05:59 PM ET
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from Dan Rosen of NHL.com,
Between the eight Swedes, the Wings have nearly the entire eastern half of the country covered, from as north as Boden (Larsson), Pitea (Holmstrom) and Njurunda (Zetterberg) down to Vasteras (Lidstrom), Stockholm (Kronwall) and Norrkoping (Ericsson).
Franzen’s hometown of Vetlanda is more centrally located in the southern part of the country and Lilja’s hometown of Helsingborg is on the southwestern tip of Sweden, near Denmark.
“This has a huge impact for hockey in Sweden,” said Anders Berglund, a former teammate of Lidstrom’s in the Swedish Elite League and father of St. Louis center Patrik Berglund. “You have all the great players from the best team in the world and a lot of them are Swedes. This is making a huge impact to hockey in Sweden. I think the games were sold out in two hours, so you can imagine that it’s a huge event in Sweden and extra special because it is the Red Wings.”
Ever since the Russian Five fizzled out in Hockeytown, Detroit has been the NHL’s leading breeding ground for top-flight Swedes. It started with Lidstrom in 1991, and to this day the Wings continue to draft and develop some of Sweden’s top talent.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Detroit Red Wings | KK Hockey | Permalink
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