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Yutaka Fukufuji


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An athlete from yet another country plays in the NHL! I wonder what the official count is on countries.

Fukufuji played in relief of Brust, the King's 3rd stringer (Boy, the Kings have been having goaltender problems). It will be interesting to see if Fukufuji can crack an NHL line-up on a more permanent basis. He let in just one goal in relief of Brust. Maybe he'll get the start next game?

Here's a pic of Fukufuji (gotta love those Japanese jerseys):

capt.sge.hvs77.130107163525.photo00.photo.default-378x512.jpg

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An athlete from yet another country plays in the NHL! I wonder what the official count is on countries.

On my count, 23 countries...

North America (2)

Canada

USA

Europe (19)

Austria

Belarus

Czech Republic

Finland

France

Germany

Great Britain

Ireland

Italy

Latvia

Kazakhstan

Norway

Poland

Russia

Slovakia

Slovenia

Sweden

Switzerland

Ukraine

Asia (2)

Japan

South Korea

[Croatia National Team Manager Slavan] Bilic then went on to explain how Croatia's success can partially be put down to his progressive man-management techniques. "Sometimes I lie in the bed with my players. I go to the room of Vedran Corluka and Luka Modric when I see they have a problem and I lie in bed with them and we talk for 10 minutes." Maybe Capello could try getting through to his players this way too? Although how far he'd get with Joe Cole jumping up and down on the mattress and Rooney demanding to be read his favourite page from The Very Hungry Caterpillar is open to question. --The Guardian's Fiver, 08 September 2008

Attention: In order to obtain maximum enjoyment from your stay at the CCSLC, the reader is advised that the above post may contain large amounts of sarcasm, dry humour, or statements which should not be taken in any true sort of seriousness. As a result, the above poster absolves himself of any and all blame in the event that a forum user responds to the aforementioned post without taking the previous notice into account. Thank you for your cooperation, and enjoy your stay at the CCSLC.

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Another to add: Kolzig is from South Africa. So, we're up to 25 countries:

North America (2)

Canada

USA

Europe (19)

Austria

Belarus

Czech Republic

Denmark

Finland

France

Germany

Great Britain

Ireland

Italy

Latvia

Kazakhstan

Norway

Poland

Russia

Slovakia

Slovenia

Sweden

Switzerland

Ukraine

Asia (2)

Japan

South Korea

Africa (1)

South Africa

Any more???

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Would countries that cease to exist anymore (USSR, West Germany, etc.) count? Because Dany Heatley was born in West Germany.

EDIT: Daniel Zubrus was born in Lithuania.

EDIT 2: Weird one here, Claude Vilgrain was born in Haiti.

Stats

Graeme Townshend, Jamaica

Stats

Stan Smrke, Yugoslavia

Stats

 

 

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Right you are guys. After some Wikipedia searching, the list of countries we omitted is huge. This wikipedia page is actually very interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NHL_s...ders_by_country

Some notable players from countries we forgot (granted, many of these players were just born in these countries but grew up in Canada):

Rod Langway! - Taiwan

Robyn Regehr - Brazil

Lithuania - Zubrus, Kasparitis

Paraguay - Willi Plett

So here's the complete list of countries - 42 in total:

Canada

Czech Republic

Slovakia

Finland

United States

Sweden

Russia

England

Ukraine

Serbia

Northern Ireland

Germany

France

Latvia

Paraguay

Poland

Scotland

Switzerland

Lithuania

Taiwan

The Netherlands

Kazakhstan

Belarus

South Korea

Norway

Wales

Venezuela

Austria

Brazil

Brunei

Denmark

Haiti

Slovenia

Italy

Tanzania

South Africa

Jamaica

Lebanon

Nigeria

Indonesia

Belgium

Japan

Of course, the number 42 changes depending on how you count countries (ie. counting former countries, counting England and Scotland as Great Britain, etc.).

Nevertheless, it's an impressive list.

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Flames' defenceman Robyn Reghyr was born in Brazil and his brother Richie was born, of all places, Indonesia.

http://calgaryflames.com/cgi-bin/roster/roster.cgi

IIRC, both their parents were Peace Corps workers.

They were missionaries. I heard about Robyn's background during the Flames Stanley Cup drive.

Looks like Major League Baseball is equally diverse as the NHL:

45 countries according to this website:

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/birthplace.php

Amazing. There's an UNKNOWN country out there? ^_^

I saw, I came, I left.

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Hmm, I was counting nations that could have/have had players for IIHF competitions, hence the lack of Wales/Scotland, as well as cases like Rod Langway, among most of the other cases, where just because they were born in a nation does not make them eligible to play for that nation internationally. In the case of Zubrus and Kasparitus, they are considered to be of Russian nationality for IIHF purposes.

[Croatia National Team Manager Slavan] Bilic then went on to explain how Croatia's success can partially be put down to his progressive man-management techniques. "Sometimes I lie in the bed with my players. I go to the room of Vedran Corluka and Luka Modric when I see they have a problem and I lie in bed with them and we talk for 10 minutes." Maybe Capello could try getting through to his players this way too? Although how far he'd get with Joe Cole jumping up and down on the mattress and Rooney demanding to be read his favourite page from The Very Hungry Caterpillar is open to question. --The Guardian's Fiver, 08 September 2008

Attention: In order to obtain maximum enjoyment from your stay at the CCSLC, the reader is advised that the above post may contain large amounts of sarcasm, dry humour, or statements which should not be taken in any true sort of seriousness. As a result, the above poster absolves himself of any and all blame in the event that a forum user responds to the aforementioned post without taking the previous notice into account. Thank you for your cooperation, and enjoy your stay at the CCSLC.

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Hmm, I was counting nations that could have/have had players for IIHF competitions, hence the lack of Wales/Scotland, as well as cases like Rod Langway, among most of the other cases, where just because they were born in a nation does not make them eligible to play for that nation internationally. In the case of Zubrus and Kasparitus, they are considered to be of Russian nationality for IIHF purposes.

Not Zubrus. He plays for the Lithuanian national team.

Players born in the former Soviet Union were allowed to choose what country they wanted to play for after the breakup.

Zubrus said that Lithuania needed him more than Russia did and that's why he chose to play for his birth land. Although most players from the former Soviet Union see themselves as Russian. (Which is why Kasparitis plays for Russia instead. As well as guys like Zherdev who is Ukrainian but plays for Russia. Or Nabokov who is Kazakh but plays for Russia.)

I think Fukufuji has a good chance of staying up with the big club. It's much easier to play goalie at the NHL level than in the minors. The players might be better, but you can rely on your defense alot more and don't have to worry about your team making so many defensive mistakes which allows the goalie to focus more on his own game. Fukufuji has good potential. Maybe he'll follow in Huet's footsteps and we'll see him in the All-Star game next year.

He'll most likely be the starter for a while. Brust looked pretty pathetic in that game.

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Not Zubrus. He plays for the Lithuanian national team.

Players born in the former Soviet Union were allowed to choose what country they wanted to play for after the breakup.

Zubrus said that Lithuania needed him more than Russia did and that's why he chose to play for his birth land. Although most players from the former Soviet Union see themselves as Russian. (Which is why Kasparitis plays for Russia instead. As well as guys like Zherdev who is Ukrainian but plays for Russia. Or Nabokov who is Kazakh but plays for Russia.)

I could have sworn he played for Russia at least once....

[edit] Ha! 2004 World Cup of Hockey. Which explains why he has been able to play for Lithuania since, since it wasn't an IIHF-sponsored event...

http://wch2004.com/rosters/index.html#russia

[Croatia National Team Manager Slavan] Bilic then went on to explain how Croatia's success can partially be put down to his progressive man-management techniques. "Sometimes I lie in the bed with my players. I go to the room of Vedran Corluka and Luka Modric when I see they have a problem and I lie in bed with them and we talk for 10 minutes." Maybe Capello could try getting through to his players this way too? Although how far he'd get with Joe Cole jumping up and down on the mattress and Rooney demanding to be read his favourite page from The Very Hungry Caterpillar is open to question. --The Guardian's Fiver, 08 September 2008

Attention: In order to obtain maximum enjoyment from your stay at the CCSLC, the reader is advised that the above post may contain large amounts of sarcasm, dry humour, or statements which should not be taken in any true sort of seriousness. As a result, the above poster absolves himself of any and all blame in the event that a forum user responds to the aforementioned post without taking the previous notice into account. Thank you for your cooperation, and enjoy your stay at the CCSLC.

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