Gotta' tell you, I like talking hockey. When I worked at General Motors and they still worked with Volvo, I'd spend my lunches talking with the Swedish engineers about hockey. Even skated in a league with a few of them one year.

Finnish Juniors, eh? Sounds like you had some skill. I watch a lot of junior hockey and it's good hockey.

Yeah, Detroit has been 'hockey-paradise' since Bowman and the Russian-five ... actually, it has more to do with Mike Illitch, the owner, then anything. That guy is a great owner. He's done it for the RedWings & the Tigers.

I think you're right about Detroit being the last team with a Finnish player on the roster, Filppula was the first and he's only been there since 2005 or so. I don't think the Wings overlooked Finnish talent, it's just they had some kind of connection with Russia. There was a lot involved with getting the Russian-Five and Russia just became like the RedWings own private, little talent pool for awhile.

That 'Red Army' lineup we had in the '90s wasn't that well received at first and it was because of the sentiments you expressed ... it was hard watching those guys skate in RedWing uniforms and not think about the Soviet teams of Anatoly Tarasov ... they had their way with everyone. When I read your post, I started thinking about the '72 Summit Series again ... yeah, Canada won that series but the Russians gave the world a hockey lesson they'll never forget.

Sharks fan? Ouch! If there's one team I hate for the Wings to face in the playoffs, it's San Jose. They seem to have the Wings' number and Niemi was a big part of that in last years playoffs. I begrudgingly respect the Sharks and think they're the only legitimate team out there on the left coast. I was rooting for them after they ousted the Wings.

I'm gonna' look into Filppula a little more ... I used to follow Nick Lidstrom's Elite League team and even bought my daughter a replica of his 'Vastaras' jersey ... my son had a Konstantinov 'Red Army' jersey and a Sergei Gonchar 'Traktor' jersey ... but I've kind of lost touch.

You know, the whole league re-alignment thing has me a bit disappointed ... I wanted to see Detroit in a division with Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Rangers, but you knew that wasn't going to happen. I like they cut down on the travel some, but being in there with Columbus/Nashville doesn't appeal to me. If nothing else, I'd like to see Detroit/Toronto in the same division, that's a huge rivalry.

I don't think anything's gonna' come of it though, unless they add two more teams to the league to balance everything out, which isn't gonna' happen, and they're not going to put all the Original Six teams in the same division/conference because it's popularity would eclipse the rest of the league.

I go to a few games a season, not so many since it became the hottest ticket in town. During the '70s I was on the glass all the time and during the '90s, when my kids were playing, we went quite a bit, but now I'm content to watch at home or in a bar for the most part. Believe it or not, and for all the attention Detroit hockey gets, Detroit is really a 'football' town, and when the Lions do good, all eyes turn towards them. Just wait and see, if they ever win a SuperBowl, the parade will dwarf the RedWings' celebrations.

Thanks again for creating this social group.

First of all, I have set the record straight that I wouldn't consider myself a fan of the Sharks - I don't really have a single team in the league that I would call my favorite. I've followed the Sharks now for the past couple of seasons mainly because of their playing style (Detroit-esque) and because I like their broadcasters on CSN-Cali (Hahn and Remenda), which is the feed I usually catch.

It is just easier to follow a single team through the season and then once in awhile I'll watch additional games if I spot a match-up I would like to watch. I used to live in Southern Virginia - where I went to school in the States - and the local feed we got there was for the Capitals, which I hated because they're one of the teams I dislike the most in the league. So every game of theirs I watched I was rooting for the other team...

Funny enough the closest team geographically were the Carolina Hurricanes, since it was just an hour and a half drive from where I lived to Raleigh - I lived 10 minutes from the border of North Carolina - and it took over 4 and a half hours to drive to Washington. While I lived there I went to see little over a dozen games in Raleigh, but I don't particularly like that team either mainly because I haven't yet forgiven the franchise for moving away from Hartford. Still, they had 3 Finns playing for them (Jokinen, Ruutu and Pitkänen), so it wasn't all that bad.

Also, to correct another point - I didn't play for the Finnish national juniors if that is what you thought. I played in the juniors of one of the teams in the national league, but I stopped during my last year in the B-juniors. The next year I would've either been invited into the A-juniors team - which is from where the national league team can call-up players to play for them - or as in my case I would've probably had to find another team to play for in the lower divisional leagues, since I really wasn't good enough to play in the A-juniors and especially not in the national league.

My skill-set was always fairly crude, I was kind of the "Douglas Murray" type defenseman, who has almost no puckmoving ability, but excels in the physical side of the game. I usually led my team in penalty minutes each and every year, but my best season points-wise was something like 2 goals and 16 assists. I remember one of my coaches telling me that "don't you worry about the puck, just take care of the guy handling the puck and someone else will gather the loose puck afterwards."

There isn't a lot of demand for such players in the Finnish league, since fighting f.e. isn't allowed and you get tossed out and a game misconduct to boot for doing it. In any case I broke my hand pretty badly the season before my last active season, and the team doctor didn't set the broken bones correctly when putting on the cast. So eventually they had to take off the cast and brake couple of the bones that had already healed somewhat, set them correctly and put on a new cast. The end result was that it took a long time for me to heal the broken bones, and it took even a longer time to rehab the muscles in my hand. What followed from that was that during the last season I played I was constantly feeling pain in my hand when I f.e. tackled somebody against the boards or if I took a slapshot my upper hand would loose its grip on the shaft a little and the pain would shoot up instantly, which made me not wanna shoot the puck. But, as I already said, it wasn't like that injury ended my promising career - it would've ended regardless.

As for the realignment - I think it's good that Detroit will stay in the Western Conference, because as it is at the moment, the media doesn't really care about anything that happens in the Western Conference and I can only imagine how bad it would get if Detroit also went to the Eastern Conference. The good thing is that from what I've heard the schedule makers are at least making some changes for next season, so that every team will face every other team at least twice during the season - once at home and once away. That is really good, because it forces the Eastern teams to travel more, which they haven't been forced to do as much as the Western teams. And also it'll give all the fans the opportunity to see their team go against all of the star players in the league and maybe new rivalries will be forged.

Yeah, no problem ... I see what you mean about it being easier to follow a team that way ... I do kind of the same thing, look for a reason to connect with a team, then follow them.

I kind of followed the Caps when Sergei Gonchar played for them, not so much now. The Hurricanes, though, had Paul Coffey who was pretty decent here in Detroit. Kind of ironic, we sent him to Hartford while the Whalers were still there and then he bounced around, ending up in Carolina. I liked the Hartford Whalers, Gordie Howe got to skate there with his son Mark, something he always wanted to do and that's where we got Brendan Shanahan from.

'Douglas Murray' style defensemen, eh? He's a heavy hitter ... they like those kind of guys in Juniors ... I know, I watch quite a bit of junior hockey, though with the Lions success this year, I've been distracted, lol! Did you play for the Lumberjacks? They're on the opposite side of the state, so I can't say I've ever seen them, but I gotta' hand it to you, junior hockey is rough hockey ... and to be 'that' guy they look to take the other team off the puck speaks volumes about your ass-kicking abilities ... I'm glad you're in my group, lol!

Yeah, Detroit in the West isn't so bad ... there's Chicago, St. Louis, San Jose, Vancouver ... they gotta' try to spread the teams I suppose. I just used to like playing Toronto, Montreal & Boston a little more. I guess next season Winnipeg is moving to the West, which makes sense.

All-Star game tonight, hope it isn't on that stupid Versus subscription cable ... I don't have it!

I never played in a team outside of Finland, except of course the times we were playing in a tournament abroad. I played for little over 10 years, started when I was 6, and all of those years I played practically for only one team. I started playing in a "city league" where there were a 16 or so junior teams all from different parts and from nearby areas of the city I grew up in (Tampere), and we were all "Tappara" (the name of the SM-Liiga team), but with different designations for where parts the team came from.

Then I got picked up by the official junior team for Tappara and joined their C juniors team, which is for 14 to 15 year olds, continued to the B juniors, which is for 16 to 17 year olds, and then quit after the second season with the B juniors. The official junior teams play against the other official junior teams around the country in a fairly similar league-type settings as the adult teams do at the highest level. Then of course there were occasional separate tournaments in Finland and also abroad.

But the "Douglas Murray" reference was maybe taking it a bit too far - I just meant that I played a similar role within my team as he does within the Sharks' D-corps. I was always among the biggest kids within the age groups and I never avoided physical altercations, and in fact I kind of looked forward to them as a kind of an outlet for the teenage angst or whatever. I was a fairly good skater - not a really fast one, but technically very sound - and, therefore, I was able to make all the required moves while defending and boxing out attackers, and of course making the tackles. I had a pretty good wrister and a slapshot, but like I already stated I was no scorer or a set-up guy. I played a lot of PK, but very rarely I was put on ice for the PP. But to be honest that was the game I enjoyed playing the most... it was never really about scoring for me.

The only guy I played against that you might know was the goaltender Vesa Toskala, who played for the Sharks, Toronto, Ducks, and maybe the Flames. But he was 2 years older than me and I only played against him couple of times - he played for our biggest rivals, which is the other team from the city of Tampere: Ilves.

Talking about the NHL, I think that the Vancouver area could possibly support another NHL team, because they do have the Canucks, and I think 5 or 6 minor league teams, which all have strong support. So, the league might end up giving them another team at some point in the future - I'm just hoping they won't be as obnoxious as the Canucks are.

And there's no Versus anymore - they changed it to something like "NBC Sports Network" from the beginning of the year. I might watch the All-Star game at a later time if I feel like it, maybe not, I've never been a fan of the All-Star/Pro Bowl type of games.

When you describe your game, it reminds me a lot of my son, except he wasn't a juniors-level player ... but same thing, he was always out on the PK, out against the opponents top line, out there when his team wanted to make the statement they could play rough too ... he had excellent feet and great hands, but he never cared much for scoring either. He just liked being out there with his buddies, I think.

Toskala, Toskala ... I remember him from Toronto, I think, so I looked him up. Got his first NHL shutout against the Wings I see, lol! And when he was playing with the Sharks ... of course ... I tell ya', San Jose has Detroit's number all around, haha!

This is my take on the NHL in Canada. I've spent a lot of time in Ontario watching junior hockey and the Canadian community wholeheartedly supports their junior teams. You would think Vancouver could support another professional team because of all the minor league support, but I wonder. I'd love to see more Canadian NHL teams, but a lot of the Canadians I know would just as soon pay to see the Windsor Spitfires as the Detroit Red Wings. They love their minor teams that much. It made me wonder how well putting a team in Winnipeg again would do, but since the Manitoba Moose have relocated from Winnipeg to St. Johns, the Jets will be the only game in town and should do alright.

Hey, the All-Star game isn't until Sunday anyway, got my wires crossed. That's one thing about the NHL too, they've gone to all these network contracts and I don't like having to subscribe just to watch my home team, so I don't know ... figure something out.

The Sharks have had a number of Finnish goaltenders in the past years. They had Kiprusoff and Toskala at the same time. Now they have Antti Niemi and Antero Niittymäki, who has been out for the first part of the season, and then they brought in Harri Säteri into their AHL team at Worchester for this season. Säteri played for Tappara in Finland, and let me tell you they've missed his goaltending this year. I think Säteri is someone who has potential to be a Top 10 starting goalie in the NHL provided he gets the right goaltending coaching along the way.

Yeah, I would also like to see more Canadian teams in the league, but like you said, they might not have the willingness to support a brand new NHL franchise as opposed to the local minor hockey teams they've supported for all their lives.

I guess they had the rookie game last night and the skills competitions? At least that was the format some years back when I watched it. Well the network contract are all with NBC now, since they acquired Versus, so I think it's only NBC and NHL Network in US and CBC over in Canada. But I tell you it was a b*tch trying to catch a Saints' game in Virginia, because none of the networks ever deemed it the right game for the "local market" audience. Instead, they always showed the Redskins' games and also the Seahawks' games, which didn't really make any sense to me?!

Yeah, I tell you, I really like Niemi. He was the main reason I predicted the Wings wouldn't get past the Sharks last year. It hurt, but I had to be honest, San Jose had better goaltending. You guys seem to be somewhat of an NHL goalie-factory there in Finland, eh?

Didn't watch the rookie game, never do, but I did look for Pavel Datsyuk in the skills-challenge relay ... man, that guy has puck control. IDK if I'm gonna' watch the actual game, probably just have it on in the background while I do something else. I'm not really liking the whole "Team Chara/Team Alfredsson" concept they're using now and some of the theatrics.

I hear you on the whole 'local market' crap the networks use to determine who watches what game. If I'm gonna' follow the Saints next season at all, I'm going to have to get going with lining up how I'm going to see the games. Could be a bit problematic in Michigan.

Niemi is OK, but he has some major deficiencies that will keep him from becoming an elite goalie in NHL, and he wasn't that spectacular in SM-Liiga either, so his success was pretty unpredictable. He has really fast legs - and it seems like he has longer legs than normal compared to his overall physique - and he is at his best when he is down on the ice, pads down, and pushing off side-to-side. But his puck handling is just terrible, and he creates a lot of "ooooops" moments when he is trying to move the puck behind the goal.

I think the main reason why there are so many good Finnish goalies is that SM-Liiga teams have had dedicated goalie coaches for a very long time - longer than North American teams have. And even most junior teams have dedicated goalie coaches, which improves the development of young goalies and gives them the understanding of working with a coach to improve their skills. The long history of goalie coaches also has the side-effect of having created a lot of "coach trees" where the knowledge of past great goalie coaches are passed down to their assistants who themselves become goalie coaches and then pass on their knowledge to the next guy.

Unfortunately, you can only have one goalie on the ice at once, so having a bunch of world class goalies doesn't really transfer well into success on the international stage. What Finland needs is more skill players and not just team players - players like Selänne off course come along very rarely if at all - they need more players who can put the puck in the net and who only have the mentality of scoring. Well, that being said, Finland are the reigning World Champions, but that isn't exactly the same as winning in the Olympics.

Dedicated goalie coaches explain it ... from what I've seen, the North American teams will just call a goalie coach in from time to time to work with the netminders.

SM-Liiga is supposed to be the number one or number two league internationally, isn't it? That what I read somewhere anyway and you guys are always in the medals at the Olympics, aren't you? Seems like it, and Selanne is the all-time leading Olympic scorer ... it's just a matter of time until Finland gets a gold. Now that the USSR is broken up, Canada is really the only consistent team standing in the way.

Most of the international success in the past has usually come because Finland plays very well as an unit since their national teams are made up of what would be considered all "role players" according to the international standard. They lack the "superstar players," which teams like Canada, USA, Russia, and Sweden posses, so they have to play a strategically sound game if they're to have any possibility of succeeding. Also, they have had some luck in the past Olympics in who they have had to face in the latter stages of the competition - f.e. Slovakia in the Bronze game in Vancouver.

I don't think that Finland are ever going to win the gold medal in the Olympics - that is if the afore mentioned teams don't suddenly decide to boycott the games and even then there are still the Czechs and the Slovaks f.e. - they've come close a couple of times, but that is when that "golden generation" of Selänne, Koivu, Lehtinen, etc were in their prime and there's no sign of another similar generation emerging any time soon.

But talking about Selänne - that rookie season of his is just incredible looking back at it: 76 goals, 56 assists, for a total of 132 points in 84 games. I find it hard to imagine anyone braking that record any time soon.

Thinking back at that 1988 entry draft where Winnipeg drafted Selänne as the 10th overall pick, one might think "what were those other nine teams thinking about that went before Winnipeg?" But there were some pretty good players within those nine players:

#1 Mike Modane - Minnesota
#2 Trevor Linden - Vancouver
#3 Curtis Leschyshyn - Quebec
#4 Darrin Shannon - Pittsburgh
#5 Daniel Dore - Quebec
#6 Scott Pearson - Toronto
#7 Martin Gelinas - Los Angeles
#8 Jeremy Roenick - Chicago
#9 Rod Brind'Amour - St. Louis

But, for example, Quebec had two picks (#3 & #5) and they decided to draft Daniel Dore with their #5, a right winger (like Selänne) who played in a total of 17 games NHL games in two seasons and got 6 points in those games. Talk about a dud....

Oh, and to answer to your previous post: I don't think that the SM-Liiga is even in the Top 3 of international leagues. I think KHL is #1, Elietserien (Swedish league) is #2, and then it is between the German DEL league; the Czech Extraliga; and the Finnish SM-Liiga - and the Swiss national league follows quite closely behind because of the high salaries they are able to pay to foreign players, which attracts some skill in both players and coaches.