Nicklas Grossman's name has appeared on rosters, hockey cards, fantasy teams, the NHL Draft board, programs, yearbooks, jerseys for the Iowa Stars, Dallas Stars and Philadelphia Flyers as well as countless news articles since he arrived in North American in 2005.
Each time it appeared, it was … incorrect.
Nicklas Grossman, a defenseman for the Flyers, revealed on Tuesday that he's actually Nicklas Grossmann, his name having been misspelled during his NHL career. "I guess when I was young coming up I didn't want to say anything," he said. "That's the way they put it on the shirt, and I just was going with it."
According to Tim Panaccio of CSN Philadelphia:
His passport reads: Nicklas Grossmann. His NHL jersey has always read: Grossman. When Flyers director of team services Bryan Hardenberg noticed the discrepancy when he caught a glimpse at Grossmann's passport, it finally came to light that his name has been misspelled since his rookie year (2006) in the NHL.
Grossman said he'd sign autographs with the double "N" and his parents back in Sweden were aware of it. Here's Grossmann, coming clean(n):
So the change will be made to Grossmann's Flyers gear, as his name has already been corrected on their official roster and Wikipedia. Well, at least it's correct until Grossmann reveals he was too shy to tell the world it's actually "Niklas"…
The NHL has seen a number of first names get lost in translation: Nikolai Zherdev became "Nikolay" and Semyon Varlamov was once "Simeon" with the Capitals. But last name changes are a rarity … so this gives us hope that we might see a few more in the NHL.
C'mon fellas: You're really the Stall brothers, right?