The players agreed to take different names. Names they couldn't necessarily pronounce at first. Jeremy Smith became Jieruimi Shimisi and Jake Chelios chose Jieke Kailiaosi, and maybe it seemed weird.
"A little bit," said Spencer Foo, who became Fu Jiang. "Yeah, I picked it up pretty quick."
Few of them spoke Chinese or had spent time in China, but they knew the difference between a forecheck and a cross check. That sufficed to draw these hockey players together, transport them halfway around the globe and plunk them down in a new country.
