The NHL this weekend is hosting its NHL Global Series in Stockholm, Sweden, with the Colorado Avalanche taking on the Ottawa Senators on Friday and Saturday at the Ericsson Globe. Both games sold out within a month, according to NHL Exec VP, Media & Int’l Strategy David Proper. The event will be the NHL’s first games in the country since ’11, and with both teams having native Swedes as captains -- Ottawa’s Erik Karlsson and Colorado’s Gabriel Landeskog -- the country and players have responded with excitement. “This town is really buzzing about the games,” Proper said from rinkside at the Ericsson Globe. NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said that compared to the last games in Sweden, the demand has been much higher and quicker. Daly: “People really wanted to see these games and it was evident from the ticket sales.” Swedish-born players represent the largest population of non-North American-born players in the NHL. “There’s a real connectivity between our league and Swedish hockey,” Daly said. “The community really identifies with their stars that are grown here, developed here and come play in the National Hockey League, so I think it’s a great dynamic for us.” The NHL was able to bring in former Avalanche forward Peter Forsberg and former Senators forward Daniel Alfredsson, both former national team players, to be ambassadors for the weekend.
JUST THE BEGINNING: The NHL held its first
NHL China Games in September, when the L.A. Kings played the Vancouver Canucks in Shanghai and Beijing. The China Games drew more than 23,000 fans combined. The Stockholm games and the games in China are completely different, according to Proper. "In China they're starting out, they're building rinks and doing great stuff. But there was a lot of things that we had to do to teach them how to put on an NHL-type game," he said. The league is focusing more on teaching the Chinese public about the sport. Proper: "It's two very different dynamics." The NHL remains open to more preseason games in China in the coming years.
