5 Bruins Headed to Sochi to Play for Teams Other than the U.S.

Chances are that if you're reading this, you bleed red, white and blue like me. Still, we also love the Bruins so it is pertinent information that five players currently on Boston will be going to Sochi, Russia in February to compete for their home countries in the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Zdeno Chara is the captain of Slovakia and will make his third Olympics appearance. Patrice Bergeron (Canada), Loui Eriksson (Sweden) and David Krejci (Czech Republic) got the invites to their second Olympics on three of the heavyweight teams. Finally, Tuukka Rask (Finland) makes his inaugural games and he could be the starter for a team deeper in goaltending than any other.

Torey Krug (U.S.) and Milan Lucic (Bruins) were the only other Bruins thought to have a decent shot to play in Sochi but I'm also a little surprised that Eriksson was picked over teammate Carl Soderberg considering he's been out for a month with his second serious concussion of the season. Then again who knows if Soderberg really had a chance to play for the Swedes.

As always, we'll be rooting for the U.S. first and foremost, but it'd be nice to see all these other guys do well except when they're playing the Americans. I can't wait for Olympic hockey, other than the World Cup it's about as good as it gets in terms of international sports tournaments in my humble opinion.

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5 Bruins Named To Summer Orientation Camps For Their Countries Ahead of Sochi 2014

Last week's great news that the NHL will allow its players to compete for their home countries at Sochi 2014 (Winter Olympics) took on a local angle this afternoon as five current Bruins along with head coach Claude Julien and GM Peter Chiarelli could all be involved in the proceedings.

Olympic hockey is the best and obviously we'll all be rooting for Team USA but as a heads up, three Bruins (Patrice Bergeron, Milan Lucic and Brad Marchand) were among the 47 players that Canada will have at its orientation camp August 25-28 at Calgary in August. From that group, 23 players will make the Olympic team. Of those three, only Bergeron has played in the Olympics (sparingly in 2010 with the gold medal team). Lucic went to their tryout camp in Vancouver that time around but didn't make it and Marchand has never played for Team Canada at this level.

Bergeron has the best chance to make it out of the Bruins from Canada although I wouldn't be shocked to see Lucic or Marchand also playing in Russia this February depending on the type of player they are looking for. There will be some familiar faces around the team with Julien named an associate coach (under Detroit's Mike Babcock) and Chiarelli on the management team.

Besides the U.S. and Canada, the other teams to name their camp rosters today included Sweden, Russia and Finland. For our purposes, Sweden and Finland are the ones to keep a close eye on. The newest Bruin Loui Eriksson is on Sweden while Tuukka Rask was named for Finland.

For what it's worth, neither Tyler Seguin not Jarome Iginla were named by Canada although that could change with injuries between now and February.

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