“The Finnish journalist blogs on the Mens of Steel who represent European countries well.”

More after the jump.

Men of Steel
The news travel so fast these days that it’s easy to get jaded about even the coolest things. I’m thinking about Colorado defenseman Karlis Skrastins grabbing hold of the record for most consecutive games by a defenseman.

With close to 150 feeds in my RSS reader, the name Karlis Skrastins has flashed on my screen about a dozen times this week in news stories and columns in different media. I almost got tired of the whole thing before the record was even broken.

Almost.

I finally gave in, and let Skrastins enter my consciousness, partly because I remembered him from his years in the Finnish Elite League. Almost 500 consecutive games is an amazing feat.

For some reason, I suspect that these longevity records may not get the appreciation they deserve. Maybe it’s because kids are often the most active sports crowd, and they have naturally only seen the latter part of an amazing career, and for them it’s hard to remember, or know, how hard it is to stay at the top.

Or maybe it’s because we all forget that. Or even worse, we compare them to the memories we have of them in their youths.

Often, players that extend their careers beyond the average boundaries get ridiculed because we measure them by their old, unique standards, when they have long ago changed their perspective. (Insert names like Bryan Trottier, Igor Larionov, and Paul Coffey here).

I was thinking about that today, but not because of Skrastins. Instead, Jörgen Jönsson, once a member of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and the Islanders, is on the verge of breaking the record for most Swedish national team games.

After tonight’s game against the Czech Republic in the LG Hockey Games in Stockholm, a tournament between Sweden, the Czech Republic, Finland and Russia, Jönsson stands at 271, one behind Jonas Bergqvist,

If things go as planned. Jönsson will break the record on Sunday, in a game against Finland.

The Swedish Federation had compiled a list of the top 26 international players in the world, with Raimo Helminen on top with 330 games in the Finnish national team sweater. From there on down, it is a list of my childhood heroes.

These are the players I grew up idolizing. Here are the forwards I was trying to emulate in the backyard games with my buddies. These are the names the Finnish play-by-play guys taught me to respect (and fear).

Alexander Maltsev is fourth with 316 Soviet Union games, Sergei Makarov fifth with 315. Vladimir Martinec, the Czech forward represented Czechoslovakia 289 times. Vladislav Tretiak of the Soviet Union 288, and another Soviet, Valeri Kharlamov, 287 times.

At number 20 is Esa Peltonen, the father of Florida Panthers’ Ville Peltonen. Esa was a fast skater, a great goal scorer with a wicked release. (And my coach for a couple of season in the late 1980s, but fortunately for him, that’s not his claim to fame).

A list full of memories. And a reminder of a time that will never come back.

It’s not a coincidence that the Top 26 breaks down like this:

Soviet Union 11
East Germany 4
Czechoslovakia 3
Finland 3
(West) Germany 2
Sweden 2
Poland 1

Between them, the Top 26 players with most national team games have 1,574 NHL games to their credit. Finland’s Ironman, Teppo Numminen, alone has 1,290. No Canadians make the list because they’ve played in the NHL.

And that’s what that invisible asterisk next to Jönsson’s name is all about. Most games with the Swedish national team: Jörgen Jönsson*, who came back from the NHL after just one season.

Back then, people thought that he returned because he was too soft, but it turns out that he, too, is a Man of Steel.

With a heart of gold.