Svein Birkemoe paces outside the double doors of the Mighty Ducks' training room like an expectant father. And when the news finally arrives, he's beaming: Espen Knutsen, who left the Ducks-Edmonton Oilers exhibition game with an injury, has only a slight groin strain.
Birkemoe can pass out the cigars now. His meal ticket hasn't been punched out and he's got some real news for a change. Birkemoe is a sportswriter and his beat is Espen Knutsen, the Norwegian center/left wing the Ducks signed to a one-year contract July 15. He writes about Knutsen for the Oslo Dagbladet, Norway's biggest paper, and he writes about him every day.
"We run something, not always a lot, but something, every day," Birkemoe said. "And when he had three assists [in an exhibition against Vancouver], it was the top story in the newspaper. I had two full pages of stories and pictures."
Knutsen's own corner of the Dagbladet is entitled "The Daily Shampoo," because "Shampoo" is the nickname he inherited as a youngster, a reference to his long blond hair and his father, a hairdresser who was known as "Soap."
So this works out great. Birkemoe can e-mail home a detailed account of Espen's groin injury to feed his country's obsession with tabloid-like tidbits about the first Norwegian with a shot at making it big in the NHL.
"He's just enormously popular, sort of a cult hero," Birkemoe said. "The nickname, the long blond hair, he's a special image for us."
New Duck Coach Pierre Page, apparently, is more interested in substance than image--the guy uses the word "grit" in every other sentence--so Knutsen went so far as to cut off a few inches of his signature golden tresses. Don't fret, there remains plenty of hair whipping in the breeze behind his helmet. But the gesture was a symbol of Knutsen's desire to shed his Scandinavian proven-star status and find a place as an NHL rookie in North America.
"This is the best players in the world," he said. "I'm just hoping to make the team."
That much seems likely. Disney doesn't pay too many minor leaguers $600,000 a year. In fact, the Duck front office is hoping--maybe even expecting?--Knutsen to make an immediate impact. You know, something along the lines of Teemu Selanne's record-breaking rookie season with Winnipeg (76 goals, 132 points) in 1992-93 would be great .. . . but they'd happily settle for about a third of that.
