Swedish Hospitality: How Will Stockholm Receive the San Jose Sharks?

Being a west-coast team, the San Jose Sharks are used to logging plenty of frequent flyer miles over the course of a season. This year, however, that total will be especially high.

For the first time in franchise history, the Sharks have been selected to partake in the NHL's European Faceoff program as they will travel to Mannheim, Germany for their final preseason game and then will face the Columbus Blue Jackets on October 8th and 9th to open the regular season with a "home and home" series at the Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden. This invitation is a tremendous opportunity to globalize the brand of Sharks Hockey, but it raises an interesting question.

With so many notable Canadian stars on the Shark roster, how will the fans of the international rival hockey super-power of Sweden accept the San Jose Sharks?

Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Dany Heatley, and Dan Boyle all won gold medals with the Canadian Olympic team less than one year ago, while Swedish fans watched their beloved Tre Kronor fall to what should have been a heavily out-matched Slovakian squad.  They failed to medal after taking gold over Finland in 2006. Burgeoning stars like Devin Setoguchi and Marc-Edouard Vlasic also hail from the Great White North and the Sharks are likely to start another rival in net in Finland's Antero Niittymaki.

Compare this roster demographic to that of one of last year's teams who opened in Sweden: the Detroit Red Wings.

The Red Wings boast a roster comprised of several mainstays on the Swedish National Team, including Nicklas Lidstrom, Tomas Holmstrom, Johan Franzen, and Henrik Zetterberg. The good people of Sweden had no qualms about cheering on their national heroes in NHL action last year, but the welcome is not likely to be as warm for a team whose only Swedes are Douglas Murray and Niclas Wallin.

Personally, as a hockey fan deeply proud of my own Swedish heritage, my allegiance has always been to Tre Kronor first and the Sharks second. During international competition, I gladly cheer Zetterberg, Franzen, Lidstrom, and even the pesky Peter "Foppa" Forsberg, despite all the pain they have brought upon my Sharks in NHL action. Conversely, I hold little if any affinity for Thornton, Marleau, Boyle, and even Owen Nolan, so long as they wear that dreaded maple leaf on their chests.

Had I grown up in a non-NHL market, it is highly likely I would have rooted for either the Red Wings or the Vancouver Canucks, given their long and consistent histories of prevalently employing marquee Swedish players. I only became a Sharks fan by proximity.

Such proximity is certainly not a trait shared by my countrymen in Stockholm.

I will be very interested to see how the Sharks are received when they open the season overseas. National ties and the strong, inborn fervor of Swedish Hockey could make this unorthodox home and home series one of the most hostile stretches of games the Sharks will face all year.

One possible advantage is that the Sharks are not playing the Red Wings or Canucks, and their opponents—the Blue Jackets—also lack Swedish star power, with defenseman Anton Stralman and forwards Kristian Huselius and Samuel Pahlsson being the only natives on their roster. However, except for Rick Nash, the Blue Jacket roster is devoid of front-line Canadian and Finnish players, making them a more palatable option for the fans at The Globe.

The Sharks better come ready to play and not just to sight-see, because they might not be welcomed with open arms.

Nonetheless, it should be a nice early test for a Stanley Cup-hopeful squad, in addition to a great opportunity to gain additional international exposure. Maybe this series will encourage more talented young Swedes to head to San Jose.

Keep the Faith!