Ed Belfour - Our Man in Leksand

Some of you may be aware, some of you may not, but Ed Belfour has not retired, died or even moved back to his hometown of Carman, Manitoba. No sirree, it's even more surreal, the 42 year old veteran of nearly 20 years in the NHL is now playing for the Leksand Stars. Where's Leksand? Well, it's pretty much smack dab in the middle of....Sweden.

Yes, the Leksand Stars. Now I know what you're thinking, "Hey, that's the Swedish Elite League!" Umm...no...it's not. It's the league below the Swedish Elite League (Allsvenskan as it is known...) So, let's just say that the man obviously loves hockey enough to move to central Sweden to play for a lower division team. If you can't respect that you have never been to Leksand or you have never been a professional goaltender....just respect it ok.

But what does Sweden think of having a former NHL star (who is not Swedish...Forsberg) playing here? I can tell you, since I read the papers daily, we are in the midst of Belfour fever. It's an epidemic and nearly everyone has come down with it. This is big, and it's especially big for Leksand. How big? His debut was yesterday and that game broke the attendance record, not just for the club, but for the league...ever. Their website, Leksandsif.se garnered over 750,000 hits in October. You can even buy children's t-shirts with his image on it ALREADY. As I said, he's only played one (1) game. (They won that game by the way 4-1, Ed let in the very first shot against him. I can only imagine the reaction of the record breaking 6,795 people at the game must have had. After that he was flawless.)

On November 12th, the Leksand Belfours Stars come to Stockholm and, if tickets aren't sold out already..., I will be there. Because, to be honest, I think this is the best thing to happen to Swedish hockey since they won the Olympic gold, no that was last year, the best thing to happen to Swedish ice hockey since they stopped wearing Jofa VM helmets!

FOOTNOTE: 1) No, I will not be at that game. I misread the table, it's in Leksand. Damn.
2) I'll have you know that they are charging more for games against Leksand around the league now.

FOOTNOTE 2: I got to the game in January, video and a full report can be found here.