Bjurling Picked for Tre Kronor

Swedish national coach, Bengt-Åke Gustafsson announced his Tre Kronor team for the upcoming home & away exhibition match with Finland.

The friendlies are not being well received by clubs active in pre-season tournaments. Specifically, these two games conflict with the finals of the prestigious Nordic Trophy. The ten team, Swedish-Finnish tournament entices with significant prize money to the winning team. Adding meaning to pre-season with such competitions represents a growing trend emerging throughout European hockey.(*)

As a compromise to Swedish teams, Bengt-Åke chose a wide variety of players for all Elite Series (and two Allsvenska) teams. Those clubs involved in the Nordic Trophy had at maximum one representative chosen.

Bjurling, known in some circles as BBKing, has just returned from his BB Goalie Camp that is held annually in Norway.

This will be Bjurling's second call-up to the national team. In 2003-04 he was named though did not appear in any matches. With the departure of phenom Jhonas Enroth to the Buffalo Sabres of the NHL, Bjurling is by all accounts the clear number 1 goalie for Södertälje this coming season.

Former Oiler Dick "Bleep" Tärnström, now with AIK, was also selected.


A RANDOM VIDEO MEMORY: Canada wins vs. Sweden in 2008 World Juniors final.

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UPDATE: It seems the Nordic Trophy may very well represent a precursor to a Nordic League. This article on Eurohockey.net suggests that it may be only a matter of time before Sweden and Finland's big teams join forces under the banner of a single league.

(*)As a final footnote, there are a number of tournaments or "Cups" up for grabs in the European preseason. Most are by invitation only and often are nothing more than tune-ups matches billed as a tournament. To name a few, there is the Lada Cup, the Belarus Cup, or that in which Oilers draft William Quist's Nybro Vikings participated, the Fredriksstad Cup.

The European Champions Cup (akin to football's Champions League) and the Continental Cup (akin to the UEFA cup) are sanctioned events by the IIHF that will begin play later this fall.