Ovechkin's a hit in Washington and cities like Toronto, Vancouver, and Detroit are absolutely in love with their European players (and each of those cities has a European captain, as well).

Where I live in California, Teemu Selanne's a huge hit. People show up at Ducks games in replica Team Finland jerseys like you wouldn't believe.

It's taking time for fans to get used to a much heavier European presence in the game and it seems like players from Slavic countries have more trouble with English than Swedes and Finns do.

The big problem seems to be that only existing hockey fans care about stars from outside their team's market. One of the big motivating factors behind the increased inter-conference play that the GMs considered this year was getting wider exposure for the league's stars. When was the last time Anaheim saw Sidney Crosby?