Originally published in Rinkside in 2003 By Lucas Aykroyd In the third century AD, the Roman Empire dominated Europe from the shores of Britain to the eastern fringes of the Mediterranean Sea. Twenty-first-century Italian hockey, unfortunately, isn’t quite in the same league. Internationally, Italy must battle to regain its honor after a 4-0 loss to […]

Originally published in the Prague Post in 2004 By Lucas Aykroyd Here’s an overview of the last five IIHF World Championships, focusing on Team Czech Republic’s performance: 1999: Two future New York Rangers make huge contributions to the first Czech gold medal at the World Championships since 1996. During the tournament in Norway, Jan Hlavac […]

Originally published on EuroReport.com in 2000 By Lucas Aykroyd If the doors of opportunity had ever opened, Jiri Bubla might have shone for Czechoslovakia in the NHL of the 1970’s as Borje Salming did for Sweden. Instead, the 5-11, 200-pound native of Usti nad Labern kept his talents on the other side of the Atlantic, […]

Originally published in Full Tilt in 2006 By Lucas Aykroyd If you have a Canucks logo tattooed on one bicep and a Canadian Maple Leaf on the other, hopefully you wore long-sleeved shirts in February. International hockey is wonderful when you win, but it’s a cold feeling when you lose. Before the 2006 Olympics kicked […]

Originally published in the 2007 NHL Yearbook By Lucas Aykroyd A Swedish proverb says: “Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.” Those words ring true for longtime Swedish hockey fans, because they had to console one another frequently before celebrating the “double joy” of 2006, when their national team became […]

Originally published in Rinkside in 2001 By Lucas Aykroyd “Dynasty” is a word that doesn’t get bandied around much in either NHL or international hockey these days. That’s not surprising. The globalization of our game has made it much harder to build a team that wins year after year, as players now move around with […]

Originally published in Full Tilt in 2006 By Lucas Aykroyd One of the nice things about living in British Columbia is that for most of our history, we’ve been fortunate enough to avoid the kind of cataclysmic events that make headlines around the world. No civil wars, no big terrorist attacks, no devastating earthquakes, no […]

Originally published on IHWC.net 2007 By Lucas Aykroyd Some Finnish fans might feel like the following article will be cathartic, enabling them to put the disappointments of yesteryear in perspective and move on. Other Finnish fans may immediately skip to another article as soon as they see the title. It’s impossible not to have a […]