Originally published on EuroReport.com in 2001 By Lucas Aykroyd His taste in entertainment, ranging from WWF wrestling to the movie “Road Trip,” may not be the most intellectual, but Ville Nieminen shows plenty of smarts on the ice. The 23-year-old rookie left wing from Tampere, Finland was recently called up from the Hershey Bears of […]

Originally published on IIHF.com in 2006 By Lucas Aykroyd Sometimes it’s all about quality instead of quantity. The number of European NHLers has declined from 300 (29.5%) in 2003-04 to 262 (27.2%) in 2005-06, but elite talent from the Old World still made a big splash at the 2006 NHL Awards in Vancouver, Canada. At […]

Originally published on EuroReport.com in 2000 By Lucas Aykroyd For the first time since Peter Forsberg in 1998, an Electronic Arts hockey simulation game features a European-born player on the cover. Granted, Owen Nolan of the San Jose Sharks doesn’t exactly rave about how being born in Belfast, Northern Ireland influenced his rugged approach toward […]

By Lucas Aykroyd Everyone’s got a little bit of a control freak in them. And when it comes to hockey success, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, Scotty Bowman and Wayne Gretzky always wanted to know what was happening on the ice at all times. For computer and console gaming buffs, the Electronic […]

Originally published on EuroReport.com in 1999 By Lucas Aykroyd EuroReport is proud to present an advance review of Pavel Bure: The Riddle of the Russian Rocket, the new unauthorized biography by Vancouver writer Kerry Banks. Banks is an award-winning journalist and sports columnist with Vancouver’s Georgia Straight. He has published five sports trivia books and […]

Originally published on EuroReport.com in 2000 By Lucas Aykroyd Come on. Petr Nedved’s been in the NHL for ten years? No way! That would be an understandable reaction. It sure doesn’t feel like that long. The big Czech center is only 28 years old, and he missed most of the 1993-94 season and all of […]

Originally published on EuroReport.com in 1999 By Lucas Aykroyd Ten seconds. That’s all it took for Andrei Nazarov to show the Vancouver Canucks he was fighting mad and ready to live up to his many nicknames in a 26 September exhibition game at GM Place: “The Russian Bear,” “The Mad Russian,” and “The Nazinator.” At […]

Originally published on EuroReport.com in 1999 By Lucas Aykroyd For many years, the name “Naslund” and NHL success were synonymous with just one player: Mats Naslund, the Montreal Canadiens star of the 1980s. But that changed in 1998-99. Markus Naslund of the Vancouver Canucks enjoyed a breakout season, going 36-30-66 in 80 games to lead […]

Originally published on EuroReport.com in 2000 By Lucas Aykroyd “Autumn time, and the livin’ is easy…” Markus Naslund couldn’t be faulted for singing a variation on the old standard. Until 1998-99, not much came easy for him. But that breakout season with 36 goals and 30 assists keyed him to similar success last year (27-38-65), […]

Originally published on EuroReport.com in 2000 By Lucas Aykroyd You might be surprised to learn that the person Markus Naslund would most like to meet is legendary boxer George Foreman. Maybe you shouldn’t be. The Swedish winger’s Vancouver Canucks are demonstrating a remarkable counterpunch as they hit the final stretch leading to the playoffs, and […]