Going into the offseason I thought it was pretty unlikely that I would receive a contract offer in the NHL.

That is the circle of life in the NHL.

Coming in as a rookie you kick someone off the end of the treadmill. With each year you get closer to the edge until you finally drop off. With alot of hard work I played longer than I could have dreamed.

With my phone not ringing off the hook during the summer from teams looking to sign me to an NHL deal I knew this was going to be our opportunity to play in Europe again. My wife and I had already spent a year playing for Lugano in Switzerland.

We loved it and wanted to head back to Europe at the end of my NHL career.

The arrival of 2 babies slowed down our ability to take off in August like all the imports from North America do. We waited for them to get a little older before we took off. As I am writing this they are both sleeping as we fly over the Atlantic Ocean.

I am also proud to report that so far we haven’t annoyed the other passengers with crying babies.

We are really happy we signed a contract with the Sodertajle Sportklubb – known as the SSK – in Sweden. Sodertajle is located just outside of Stockholm and that is the area we will be living in as well. It is a city of 86,909 people and recently "a report from the University of Gothenburg School of Business, Economics and Law ranks the Municipality of Södertälje as the region with the best conditions for enterprise and economic growth in Sweden."

Needless to say, I am looking forward to getting into some games and meeting my teammates.

I have never played or met a Swede I didn’t like. Being surrounded by them should be alot of fun.

I will throw out updates and interesting stories here on OliersNation and on Twitter as the year goes on.