Let There Be Vikings.

If you haven't already heard, Jonathan Ericsson will return from a knee injury tonight against the Hurricanes. With this, the Wing's Swede count increases to three. THREE. I remember a time long, long ago when Detroit had seven Swedes on the roster...



...Oh wait, what was that? Seven? Really? This season? You mean 2009-10?

Yeah. There was a time when the red and white of the Winged Wheel and the blue and yellow of Sweden's flag were practically synonymous. I miss those days.

Speaking of international hockey, a couple days ago it was released that Brian Rafalski was named alternate captain America.




He's a defenseman, so the bulletproof shield is used to... stop pucks... or something... I don't know. There was a point in my life when I was on MS Paint, meticulously cutting around a Red Wing player's head, pixel by pixel, so I could copy/paste it onto a comic book character's body, and it occurred to me that I probably shouldn't think far enough into these things to actually come up with backstory for what Alternate Captain American Brian Rafalski uses his superhero paraphernalia for.

Sadly, that day predates this blog by about two years.

Who else felt like the US Olympic roster was subtitled "let's see how many current/former New Jersey Devils we can fit on one team"? There were less Swedish Wings in Torino.

Which brings me back to the whole point of this post, which was supposed to be: I miss our Swedes.