The NHL's (and Canada's) loss due to the owners' lockout this season is Europe's gain, and a lot of the star players are playing in the European leagues this year. I saw Timra play Mora, with Timra being the home team in red (this is the pregame huddle). This also gave me a chance to hear the Swedish national anthem, which was pretty nice. There definitely were some differences between European hockey and the NHL aside from just the rink size. There was no big screen display for me to watch the instant replays, the goalie could touch up for icing instead of a forward, there were three referees instead of two, everyone wears the face visor, and the audience was loud without being commanded to make noise by the big screen. The big NHL star of the game was Mikka Kiprusoff, the goalie who took the Calgary Flames to the Stanley Cup Finals this past summer. It was wierd - in May I was at the beach house just before leaving for Europe watching him play in a game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals, and four months later we both found ourselves in Timra, Sweden. And again, I was watching, he was playing - it was a good high scoring game 5-1 in favor of the home team. (11-2-04)

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Timra Elite League Hockey Game